The Very First Dayz

February 14th

 It's Valentine's Day  -  Kristi and I have a a booking @ a retirement home in Port Orchard this afternoon.  We've been talking about preparations for our rail journey across Canada and returning across the USA from NYC.

If I'm honest I have to say I'm less than enthused about the prospect of spending all that time away from home.  We have a new CD which will be coming back from the manufacturer soon after we return.  I just went to jump on the promotion of that project.

I have the feeling that the Canada portion of the journey will have its' moments of discomfort and be a bit on the monotonous side of things.  Our good friend, David Gilmour, will be making the journey with us.  He is quite adept at striking up a conversation with strangers so that's sure to be a good bit of entertainment.

We have a good bit of work booked for the year so far.  I'm looking forward to playing more concerts.  The Tumbleweed song contest theme this year is "Playtime".

Thursday, February 20th

We are on the Sounder headed for Seattle.  We took an Uber to Freight house Square.  There were quite a few people going to work.  The station master was a rotund, cheerful black woman and the crowd doesn't look like they are going to white collar jobs.

David stayed with us last night and woke us up about 4am with the news that he didn't sleep a wink and heard noises in the night, one of which was a doorbell.  This is a rare occurrence so we are wondering if it's just panic on his part.

Well . . . we are on the Sounder and will be in Seattle @ King Street Station before too long.

I've contemplated how arduous this trip is going to be and at the same time wonder if it is appropriate to behave in such a privileged fashion when the world is in the state that it is in.  Having said that I must acknowledge that the world of humanity is always in one state of panic or another.  It is always a question to me how much personal responsibility I should take on for the difficulties of the planet.

Waiting to board the 516 to Vancouver, B.C. - I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of time waiting in train stations.  There are a lot of people here this morning.  It was almost empty when we arrived.

I say again that the theme for the Tumbleweed Song Contest this year is "Play Time".  It is such a foreign concept to me that I'm uncertain where to begin.  Of course one of the ways to get writing done is to simply get your pen or keyboard moving.

How about a cowboy song?  When your work day is over or is your work day ever over when you are a cowboy?

We are apparently in the estuary of the Snohomish River.  I can only imagine what I'll be thinking once we push ourselves onto another train and I won't really have any idea of where I am.  We are going through Marysville and making quite a bit of noise as we do.

What does a cowboy do?

1.  herd cattle

2.  brand cattle

3. feed cattle

4. wean calves

5.  preg check cattle

6.  build and repair structures

7.  look for new grazing areas

8.  roundup cattle for various reasons

Entertainment:  cards, target practice, story telling, campfires, food.

Cowboys are horseback experts

Pieces of my past

Run along these rails

Years that are long gone

These memories still last

The river runs beside us . . . Puget Sound

We just passed through Stanwood.  The engineer says we are stopped in "Logan".  I've never heard of it before.

There's a house outside our window with a small garage.  The house is white with turquoise trim.  There's a satellite dish on the garage roof.

It's a small house but there's a sizeable barn and a tractor parked in a shed adjacent to the barn.  There are fields on both sides and running out to Puget Sound in front of the house.

The field's been plowed

and the winter waits

The rains come down

Then they turn to snow

The planet turns around

The winter runs

It's another day

Then that day is done

Spring will come

To the Skagit fields

The snow geese will run

today's bloom in

Right now the flock of geese

are in the fields

Friday, February 22nd