saying goodbye...

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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

- Will Rogers

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Well, my run here at the old farmhouse has come to an end.

I've live here for 13 years, longer than anywhere I've ever lived. Unfortunately I ran into some medical issues last summer, both to me and one of the dogs.

Then my roommate lost her ability to pay her share of rent last fall after she lost her job. She stayed on thru to the spring of this year with her newborn son. Because she had no work I was left with keeping the utilities paid, plus all my other bills (including the medical bills) and I was lucky I was even able to afford food.

As a single dad I raised my 2 kids here. There was no way I was putting a new mom and her newborn baby out on the street. Plus she was a great roommate, a friend and I loved her and her baby like family.

When I was raising my children here my daughter was always on me about getting food stamps. Call me stubborn, call me a masochist, heck! call me a hard-headed Swede. But I was an able bodied male and damned if I was going to let Uncle Sugar get into my life any more than it already was.

So it is that at 67teen I find myself once again with major life decisions to make and new changes - in whatever form they take - to deal with.

If you be of a mind to help I've started a self-fundraiser to help pay off my medical bills and to maybe help my transition into the next phase of my life.

Ideally... I will find someone, an organization or an individual, somewhere, that will find me the perfect fit for their need of a resident caretaker.

It's my perfect job. I do carpentry, plumbing, household electric, painting, gardening and I'm a photographer and writer. I've been a medical amateur professional for 2 decades as an events medicine volunteer. I did wildlife rehab in the early '80s. I am a published writer. I am a  published photographer.

And I love the land.

Living in nature is where I need to be. I've lived off the grid. I love isolation and quiet.

I've spent 60 years being squished and squeezed by the forces of conformance. But I DON'T fit. Sure I've muddled through, going where the universal winds of whim carry me, but "civilization" is all just too much.

I am not a consumer. I am a warrior for my people (friends, family and community) and for the earth's living beings without a voice. I am a teacher, perhaps even a bit of a healer. I am an artist.

I am an elder and there is still strength in my wings. I know I shall fly but where will I land?

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“It’s clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it’s not easy.”

- Terence McKenna

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