Here you see Southern California after the snow storm we had last week. All of the snow is gone now, but it isn't too often that you see Yucca and Prickly Pear covered in snow!
Well, I have been here at the Ranch now for three months. I am happy to say that things finally feel like they are falling into place for me. The mountains surrounding me in this valley are starting to feel like my back yard, and those I live with are starting to become family. We have our issues, of course, as would any family of ten people in their mid-20's, but we are there for each other.
While this does feel like home, for now, I know that it isn't home forever. I learned this when I accepted a summer job in the north woods. Just the idea of sitting beside a birch tree again fills me with joy. I do not know where I will settle down and spend most of the rest of my life, but at least now I know it will be somewhere in the north. The loon's song shall greet me in the mornings when I am old. Assuming, of course, that climate change doesn't mess even that beauty up.
I have started to think a lot about my desire to travel. I am not so sure anymore that it is a desire to live a lot of places. I want a home base. I want to grow my own food and can it for the winter. I want to get to know a place like Sigurd Olson got to know Listening Point. I want to work to heal the land wherever I am so that it is better off for my being there. I am not sure that I can do that when I move every six to ten months.
"Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium." (Sigurd Olson)
I have been missing my family a lot too (you know who you are). Here I have no signal so it is hard to communicate via cell phone. My family and friends who are family have been great, but I don't want to be gone from contact for more than another year. Does anyone have an AT&T family plan I could hop onto? I have decided to come back here to the Ranch next year, but after that I think I'll try to find something more permanent. Will I be teaching children? Probably not exclusively. I'd much prefer to have some of my own land and teach bush craft courses to people of all ages. I could also teach things like I do now, ethnobotany for instance.
"As a matter of fact, an ordinary desert supports a much greater variety of plants than does either a forest or a prairie." (Ellsworth Huntington)
I just realized the other day that I haven't ever posted pictures of the house I am living in right now. Those will be coming soon, I promise! Until then, here are some pictures from a hike I took yesterday up Cahuilla Mountain. 
The start of the trail (to get here we had to drive about 3 miles on dirt forest roads that made for a bumpy ride).
A little over halfway up, we took in the view!
At the top the box holding the log book contained a lot more than that. A spent shotgun shell, a wine cork, nun chucks (in case we met an adversary), a roll of toilet paper, a knife, two IB Profin pills, a prom ticket receipt, and several other things. It made for a good laugh.
