Mark, Coming and Going: Days 42 and 43: Okay, I'm behind again.

I am just so beat up and ragged that it is tough to keep it together much less blog; a day missed is just fine with me. Maybe hiking a marathon through the desert mountains wasn't the smartest thing I've done lately. Maybe.

I'm kind of like Blues, pictured on the left. This guy is an absolute sweetheart! Even though he lies at night on a dirt hill just under my bedroom window and barks at the stuff dogs bark at--all night some nights--he is still such a wonderful creature. He craves love, and he returns it as the quintessential dog does. But it is time in the desert that I mean.

Blues was a ferrel dog that was wondering the desert around Ezuz. The middle boy, Shachar, worked for months on coaxing Blues to eat food from his hand. Eventually, Blues felt safe enough that he moved onto the Arazuni place and became a part of their pack. They said that when he first came he was so sad, hence his name. He still has a far-away sadness to him, and you can see it in his picture; but he knows he is loved here.

So thinking about Blues got me thinking about life--or death, really. Did you know that when dogs know they are dying they want to leave the pack and die alone? I read this somewhere; I think it was in "When Elephants Weep," but it was so long ago when I read the lines that I cannot remember--that is a great book, though, what I can remember of it. I think I'm like a dog in that way, the death thing. And I think that is reflected in the way I deal with death, which is isolation. I've never been a group griever. If you were close to me then you would know what I'm feeling; so back off and let me feel it. I wonder if this is because I never learned to grieve death. Nobody I knew--or really cared about--died when I was young. Then, while I was in the army we lost two guys in my unit immediately after we came back from Iraq. Adams put a .44 caliber in his mouth in the parking lot of our barracks. I remember that it was cold when we found his body because his car was still running, and I could see the exhaust puffing out of is car's tailpipe. We couldn't shut the car off until the MPs investigated. Miller used a .410 shotgun. He did it when he went home, the asshole. Why would he make his family suffer that? So to deal with the loss of two friends I used the tool that I used to deal with everything, booze. With some of the guys in my unit I got too drunk. But nobody cried. I think the army should have taught us to cry. We were so sad because nobody died in Iraq only to have two die right after we returned. But we ended up losing a bunch of guys after that, for sure.

Today we moved the stones from the Shelby Dam location to the Mark Dam location. It was a nice break from picking rocks from the freshly plowed field.

But then it was right back to it. Gleaning rocks and stones from the new field. Of course, the whole time that I was working the mountain range that I went to was laughing at me from all of that distance away. See the mountains back there? Can you hear them mocking me? But I walked on you so the last laugh is mine--once my blisters heal and hips and knees stop hurting!

This morning I was greeted by this large fellow. I was walking down the road and his brother was a couple hundred feet from me barking at me, as dogs do. But I kept walking because I had to go move stones. Then I saw this guy sitting on the side of the road, quietly watching me. I called him over, loved him up, and went on down the road. These mastiffs are bigger than me!

Then, so that I could take a break from moving rocks because my body is so wrecked, I had to find two water hoses so that we could connect to them for the new fields. One of them was no problem, but the other one, living somewhere deep within this empty deep hole, remains elusive.

We had lunch. Since there were only four of us Tamar made an omelette. I love omelette day! Then I had a snack. Two of my favorite desserts: watermelon and chocolate. Not that I like too much chocolate, but sometimes it is nice.

And the walk back to the orchard. Isn't the view amazing? And there are those mountains again.

When I got to the garden I was to build some apartment structures for some new cucumbers. But Avi took the tools back to the house, so I just got the materials and put them in place. Then I went around the garden taking pictures. Of course, I had to sample some of the produce. A cucumber right off of the vine is so delicious. Tamar makes the best pickled cucumbers; we don't get them too often, but when we do they are a treat.

There are quite a few vegetables that are grown here: cucumbers, squash, eggplants, corn, green peppers, cauliflower, pumpkins, and some others that I'm sure I'm forgetting. Plus there are a bunch of herbs that are grown. Don't ask me to list 'em, just know that there are a bunch.

At times the plants become so unruly that they just grow wherever they want to. Of course, this means that they are happy and will produce a bunch of whatever they grow. So they don't get trimmed or tamed back into place. Just like everything on the Arazuni's place, children included, the plants just run amuck (all within loosely defined perimeters).

The kids really do remind me of the way that I want to think I came up, which is really how I do remember it. Mom worked long hours at hard jobs, so we were left to run amuck, too. We didn't get into too much trouble. Who am I kidding? We got into so much trouble.

But just like these beautiful vegetables I'd like to think that we turned out okay. Sure, I have a few blemishes, but I'm not worm filled and rotten.