It has dawned on me that I like being a neomodern homesteader. Tonight I'll light the kerosene lamp and read a couple A. B. Guthrie Jr. short stories. Don't ask about the chamber pot. And then I'll fluff up my straw mattress and sleep until the pheasant crows.

And did I mention that both of my pets, Onan the spider and sleekit the mouse, survived winter and seem relieved that spring is here? They are.

Here is a picture of lambs that I promised a couple weeks ago.
I snapped it yesterday morning at Waddington's sheep
ranch, south of Dunn Center.

Happy Easter to my Christian friends and relatives!
And (belated) Good Pesach to my Jewish friends!

At Lake Ilo, there's a blue heron rookery.

I've never seen 'em so bunched up, tho'.
(Click on pic to enlarge.)

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey."

— excerpt, "The Real Work," Wendell Berry

I received a letter today that brought back memories.

Hello,
I happened across your internet site . . . I was interested in your ties to the Malheur Rappel Crew, and when do we get our CD to listen to at the base? Take Care.
Chad S.
Lead Squad Leader
Malheur Rappel Crew

In 1990, and again in 1991, I worked for the helitack fire suppression crew out of John Day, Oregon. We were the initial attack squad for the Malheur Nat'l Forest. The first year we just did helitack, but the second year we transitioned into rappel work. I loved climbing out on the skids of a hovering helicopter and then, when given the signal, sliding down a 250' rope into pristine wilderness areas. And then hiking out a couple days later. I turned twenty my second season, and I'd begun writing a lot of songs/raps. At the end of the season I decided to quit and begin my career as Sandman the Rappin' Cowboy. I went from half-assed rappeler to jackass rapper in about five minutes after I walked into Ken Ross' office (Ken was a good boss, by the way) and handed in my helmet and harness. The next day I drove back to Montana and moved into my 1974 Dodge van where I spent the next three years developing my current troubador persona. There have been a few times, though, where I've lamented leaving that helisweet job. The only slightly boring thing was waiting. Waiting for puffs of tell-tale smoke, and then the siren. Once the siren rang, though, it was ON. Hazard pay and overpay kicked in, and life became real exciting for a few days.


This was my 1991 crew and our trusty Bell 206 Jet Ranger Helicopter "Foxtrot Whiskey."


I had just helped to knock down an eighth-of-an-acre lightning strike blaze in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness. Monte Mooney and I put a line around it, and while we were letting the fire burn itself out I picked a bushel of wild strawberries (that's what I'm pointing at with my grimy finger). When night came I found a patch of smoldering duff, threw a foot of dirt over it, and slept warmly thanks to my well-cushioned infernal quasi-geothermal dirt mattress. And that's how I rolled back in '91: Laid back--with my mind on my money, and my money on my mind.

See also: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/fire/aviation/rappel/malheur.htm

Dad says that water's running strong on the mountain, and the frogs were singin' today. Yesterday he went to the Spring Horse Sale in Dickinson and bought two horses for $1000. Grass Dancer, the year-old 1/2 Shire, will eventually be for pulling things--buggies, wagons, trees--and also for riding. The taller one, Pardner, is a 12-year-old Quarter Horse. Here they are.


Apparently Pardner is having to duke it out with Grandpa's alpha horse, Dude. Dad says Pard's holding his own. Someday Grass Dancer will be the biggest of all the current Lazy E-Four horses, but not for a couple years.

Scroll down to the April 4th entry to see an 80-yr-old picture of my house.

Here's the theater/gymnasium/dance hall
I spoke of wanting to buy and restore:

Big and beautiful:

Spring has arrived in Dunn County. My friend Jan flew in from Philadelphia to go on a three-day safari with me across the breaks and plains of western North Dakota. Among other activities, we stopped at a lot of thrift stores. I bought a vintage movie screen and a large aluminum bowl for mixing bread dough. Jan found a silk scarf and some boots. I got a Jonathan Richman cassette. She purchased a Sarah Vaughn record. The weather was warm. We ate out a few times. We explored abandoned houses and found secret treasures. All in all, 'twas vacationland on the prairie. She flew back to Philly yesterday.

Tonight I went to a Dunn Center City Hall meeting to learn about one of our town's last remaining old buildings--The Dvorak Center. It's a huge theater/dance hall with an equally large basement. The wood floors are awesome. Unfortunately, its roof leaks and needs immediate repair; this is an estimated $20,000 job. Other repairs are imminent, and the building itself would cost about $20,000. The city can't afford to buy it, and many think it's soon to be a goner--just like all the other great old buildings that have been bulldozed and brought down like Cheney gunblast victims. This one is too beautiful and soulful, though. It's no doubt a money pit, but I want to buy it. I want to bring back the old sock hops and country oprys. I want to see variety shows, and listen to ranch-inspired poetry, and play in half-court basketball games there. I want to buy pie from Adeline T. or jam from Emogene S. at some worthy auction.

As a youth I ran across those magic floors shooting hoops and hiding behind the gigantic velvet curtain. I once threw a rock from its outside porch at a high school kid's car and cracked his windshield. He and his brothers caught me and hung me from a nail by my belt loop until a local mechanic found me there twenty minutes later with a Wrangler wedgie. How can I not love the place? It needs to be saved, right?

"An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

-Howard Zinn
A People's History of the United States

Tonight I will sleep in my $1000 house for the first time this year. I will ignite the propane heat and dream about dust bowls and Studebakers.

This pic of my abode is from the 1920's when it resided ten miles north of Dunn Center. It was relocated to Dunn Center in 1952. Everything about it is pretty much the same--even the porch. The two girls are Olga and Emma. Olga (the taller of the two) passed away in 1981. Emma, below, is 84 and lives in South Dakota.

Many thanks to Darrel Goth (Emma's son) for sending me these pictures!

Yesterday was sunny and warm. I helped Dad insulate and sheetrock up on Killdeer Mountain. Grandpa came, too, and helped out. Three generations of Sand men. Grandpa wanted to worm the horses, so I used the 4-wheeler to find and herd them in. Finding horses on Grandpa's ranch is not as easy as gazing across a flat prairie and locating them. The Lazy E Four is filled with hills, gullies, shadowy trails, and hidden meadows. The vegetation consists of aspen, oak, ash, birch, and lots of fruit-bearing bushes: chokecherry, buffalo berry, june berry, hazelnuts, wild plum, and snow berry. Along the way I saw a massive sloth-like porcupine. Also, the beaver dams are overflowing. My long-time friends from Montana, Tom Smith and Karin Stallard, are visiting today. I look forward to showing them around when they arrive. Last weekend I took my pal Vaughn from Minnesota up there, and on Thursday my flame Jan will be flying in from Philadelphia for three sweet days of cruising and camping here in west Dakota. As spring slowly thaws me out, I'm reminded that I live in one of the most beautiful areas in North America.

I should clarify. Last Wednesday I was invited by my co-worker Jeri to Seidl's Bar, where I was to meet her 21-year-old hot-blooded granddaughter (a barrel-racer, too). Well, not only was the granddaughter amazing, her 40-something mother (Jeri's daughter) was fine, also. So my eyes were feeling relaxed and happy, in spite of the cigarette smoke. But one of the beauties was married, and the other too young. So I drank too much. And later puked into a bowl.

On Friday I partied at the Buckskin with four of the hottest babes in Dunn County: Margi, Laci, Kelli, and Jolene. More eye-candy. More drunken revelry. I even witnessed some "Girls Gone Wild" action. Fun! But . . . at the end of the night, 'twas just me.

So what I'm trying to say is: this region has the goods, but the goods I've met aren't quite available enough to break my heart. 'Cause heartbreak is what a poet needs to break out. And as Kurtis Blow would say, "that's the breaks."

I'm not inspired to write songs without being surrounded by beautiful, sexy, gorgeous women.

Instead I live like a hermit monk. Something has got to change.

Ever since doing "Rapper's Delight" at the Buckskin karaoke contest last weekend, high school kids have been friendly to me.

They call me the Rapper.

Out here in ranch country I can't fool anyone for being the Rappin' Cowboy. I'm just:

. . . the Rapper.

I like it. It's simpler.

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.

-Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

In Dunn County the calving and lambing seasons have begun, in spite of the wind and snow.

In 1993 my friend Jed--from my University of Montana days--and I made a bet that whoever got married first owed the surviving bachelor $100.

It looks like Jed's day of financial reckoning has come.

In the big picture, though, Jed wins, 'cause Letty's rad.

My Grandma Vi is 100% Irish. She's looking very beautiful these days.


Today at the museum we celebrated St. Paddy's Day in style. I started the Hootenanny off w/ "Dear Grandma." We had Irish step-dancing, traditional Gaelic songs, and penny whistle. Then Dunn Center had it's yearly St. Patrick's Day parade, which is hilariously small. It finished in about two minutes, but that made it AWESOME! I need to buy a camcorder so I can document the bizarre hipness of Dunn County. I spent the day teamed up w/ my friend, Margi Coyle. Everybody thinks we're sweethearts, which we are. But we like being platonic friends better than romantic boyfriend/girlfriend. Odds are we'd ruin our friendship if we tried to date. We drank green beer at the Ilo Bar and then drove to Killdeer for a karaoke contest. Margi won 3rd-place w/ Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About." I did "Rapper's Delight" which delighted many, but failed to place.

It was a bonny day full of memorable shenanigans.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years muscadel
faces down frost, green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes, our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we were meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: make it happen for you.

Sheenagh Pugh
Welsh poet

I sit and wait for it . . .
but inspiration is gone.
Too much lasagna.

(return to) . . . the blackhole (of outerspace):

Click to enlarge. ($12 postage-paid).

Or . . .

Good to be Awake:
A cycle of love ballads pointing to a blaze of sunshine warming the eastern shoreline. This sweet, poignant, and musically compelling CD of folk/pop songs features Jen Grady's harmonies on ten of the thirteen songs--and it gets better with each listen. If you are looking for a reprieve from nighttime's lonely death slide, Good to Be Awake will be waiting patiently with a cup of cinnamint tea and a lover's kiss. $12 postage-paid.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first collection explores night. The second day. Yin and Yang. Rap and Country. They belong together, no?

If you'd like both, send $22 postage-paid for the set. Make checks out to Chris Sand, and send to C. Sand / PO Box 7 / Dunn Center, ND 58626.

Burt Reynolds in:


My inspiration continues to discontinue.

Seriously.

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience - well, that comes from poor judgment." - A.A. Milne

"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation." - Cicero

Grandma beat
Grandpa and me
at three-handed
Pinochle™ tonight.
What's new?
-------------------


The above pictures were Googled™.

I just discovered the ™ icon.

Please, dear God, open shop early this year, and give me a touch of spring. Cabin fever is good for the soul, but now, please . . . please. Give me an early spring.

I'm begging of you.

I'M BEGGING FOR CHRISSAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Dear Lord Jesus . . . )

Amen.

It occurred to me today that I'm one step away from becoming a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the kind that Garrison Keillor talks about on Prairie Home Companion. The only thing missing is the farm. I came across some Norwegian jokes to share. Don't feel bad for us--Norwegians like being the butt of unfair jokes.

1. Two Norwegians at the funeral of their friend Nels. “He sure looks good,” said one. “He should,” remarked the other, “he just got out of the hospital.”

2. Q: Why do Norwegians have such pretty noses?
A: Because they’re hand picked.

3. Two Norwegians were trying to get a mule into the barn but its ears were too long. One Norwegian suggested raising the barn. The other one thought they should dig a trench. “No, you dummy,” exploded the first, “it’s the ears that are too long, not the legs.”

4. 1st Norsky: What’s in the sack?
2nd Norsky: Chickens.
1st Norsky: How Many?
2nd Norsky: If you can guess, I’ll give you both of dem.

5. Q: How can you identify a level-headed Norwegian?
A: When the snoose runs out of both corners of his mouth.

6. Who was the most famous Norwegian inventor?
Henry Fjord.

7. Marriage license clerk: Names, please.
Ole: Ole Johnson
Lena: Lena Johnson
Clerk: Any relations?
Lena (blushing): “Yah, vunce or tvice, Ole couldn’t vait.”

8. Q: What did the Norwegian say when he saw his first pizza?
A: “Who trew up on da lefse?”

9. 1st Norwegian: My brother’s got a case of hemorrhoids.
2nd Norwegian: Swell. Let’s go over and help him drink it!

10. Two Norwegian brothers kept their two horses in a pasture. To tell them apart, they notched the ears on one horse. Later they discovered the black horse was about 8 inches shorter than the white one.