Elk Creek Ranch/Gardens

Seven years ago,when I was 35, I did something, which now, seems not very original, I left my husband of 15 years. It's a big complex story with lots of reasons, but one of the bigest reasons was that I had dreams that I wanted to live, dreams that he didn't want to live with me. 

Sure, for a long time we were living our dreams. We had lived on 360 acres in an old log cabin with out running water, minimal electricity and just a wood stove for heat for 7 years. It was a big old horse ranch that over looked the Continental Divide. That was a big dream for sure when we were first together. We learned to live a simple way. Every day was chop wood and haul water. 

We built greenhouses from lodge pole pine logs and salvaged windows and raised bed gardens from scrap wood we found. We had an out door shower that used hauled and heated up water from the Elk Creek irrigation ditch that ran throughout the property. We caretook the horses and chickens, the dogs and cats, feed the hummingbirds in the summer, cut 15 cords of wood when the snow had melted and we could get the early 80s F150 back on the ranch's  logging roads and v then plowed the snow in the winter. 

 I grew dozen of kinds of heirloom tomatoes on that ranch at 9,200' in the  raised beds of 100% 2 + yr old composted horse manure (from the horses we care took, who ate the hay we grew, cut, raked, put up in the barn and hauled out on sleds in knee deep snow in the winter) and never had a bad insect... In the raised beds, in perfect patchwork squares, I grew every weird kind of lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and mustard green I could fit. Spring peas would grow intertwined on old scalloped edged wire fences along the irrigation ditch and tubers and root vegetables grew in sandy deep dark soil. It has been over 7 years now since I've had a garden of my own, it used to be such a big part of my life... It's going to take some time to get my soil just right... I am hoping to head up to the ranch tomorrow and get a few buckets of Annie's muck pile to add to my new garden's soil... Sort of like a yeast starter for bread that you never let die. I drew out my garden plan on squared grid paper last night with my seed packets all around me... This will be so small in comparison to the scale of what I used to do, but it's a beginning. I am reminded of that Christine Kane song 'She Don't Like Roses' that says : she wants a garden| a little bit of land to put her hands in. 

 And then the next dream was to own  our own house.. So .we bought an old 1875 farmhouse about 30 minutes out of town. When we moved from the ranch, we took down the biggest of our greenhouses and moved it to  back of our new-to-us farmhouse. We even hauled all the soil in our gardens from the ranch because to us, not only was it expensive to replace, but it was like gold. I went completely nuts planning the gardens every winter. Seed catalogs were prized possessions. I spent more money than I should have ordering heirloom seeds, starter plants and organic seed starting mix. Coming from 9,200' at the ranch to about 7,800 at our new place, it meant a longer growing season. Our new green house was bigger. We made it for starting seeds and then as a hot house for growing tomatoes, peppers and things that thrived in the heat. 

But I wasn't just a thirty something backyard gardener, I was also a singer songwriter with one album under my belt and dreams of playing music and seeing the world. After two years of making the farmhouse picture perfect, ready for the magzine shoot (incase they ever came knocking- they never did), I realized that I still had many more dreams to live. Dreams of my own that my husband didn't share. It didn't help that I had been sleeping on the couch for years, either. 

So in the last seven years, since I left our marriage and our beautiful farmhouse, I have made many of my  dreams come true. I lived in Venice, California, bought a surf board and tried to learn to surf. I traveled alone for 2 months  with a mountain dulcimer all over Thailand and Indonesia. I landed in the artistic community of Lyons,CO.  I've played some big and some small stages, made my second album that I am very proud of. Started a community music night at a local venue that helped to fundraise thousands of dollars for things like the Japanese Earthquake/ Tsunami. The Haiti Hurricane, Hurricane Sandy, Colorado Wild Fires and more. I was even presented an e-chievement award from the radio show e Town for my community service. I've also since fallen in love with another mountain man in another mountain town. We have summitted 14,000' mountains, ice climbed frozen water falls, back packed, hiked, backcountry skied deep powder, and white water rafted raging rivers. Still with all that adventure, something's been missing :  My love of a simpler life, watching things grow from seed and being quiet. 

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

I couldn't even focus on the photos on the giant board yesterday at the memorial. Someone handed me the program/service paper, I don't even know what it's called...pamphlet, brochure, program? Those words just aren't the words that come any where near the definition of Todd...yet, here we all were re defining and defining the way Todd, who passed away May 20, 2014, made our lives, our trips around the sun, feel like we were living our own  Kerouac-lives, hoboing trains across the West, even if we were just walking down the street, sitting out on his deck in the sun with a 12 pack, or swirling on a bar stool waiting for him to glance our way. 

Everybody will help you
Discover what you set out to find
But if I can save you any time
Come on, give it to me
I’ll keep it with mine

Listening to this song now, I can hear Todd saying, 'Susanna Hoffs? Total babe.' As he rolled a quarter across his knuckles. Did I make up in my mind that he tried out for clown college? You'd see him riding down the dirt streets of Fraser, Colorado on his uni-cycle, spinning an Ultimate Frisbee on one finger, bare footed and bare chested smiling at everyone he passed

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you

Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Our bond was over music, Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead mostly, the old black and white episodes of the Andy Griffith Show and the fact that we had the same sarcastic sense of humor,the ability to talk about anything at all or sit in comfortable silence. 

 

Years ago, when I still lived in Grand County, I used to do a lot of canning...pickles, preserves, salsas...and My friends would receive jars for gifts. I know I gave Todd some of my bread and butter pickels one time and he always made sure to tell me how much he loved them. 

Last summer, after we knew he was sick, he sent me a text, and asked me if I had any more of those Bread and Butter Pickles left. I said, Todd, that was 15 years ago...I haven't canned pickles in a long time...He said, just wondering, Don't want to be any trouble. I got on my sea foam green cruiser bike and rode down to the farmer's market and ordered up a bushel of pickling cucumbers... I was down to double digits in my bank account but I spent the last of my money on Ball jars and those cucumbers...I made up a batch of those pickles because Todd said, 'I'm hungry and had a hankering for those pickles.' I sent him two large jars as soon as they were ready... Funny, as it turns out, Frances Bavier (Aunt Bea) and I have the same birthday...I pickled my cucumbers in vinegar, not kerosene, but the sentiment was the same... As long as my family loves what I do, that's all the blue ribbon I need. 

Todd and I spent a lot of time going to concerts and festivals. He was always fun to have around. When I got married, he was my bartender...there was no other choice. My wedding reception was full of wedding crashers and pukers. We did it up right back then.  The next day, my mother in law, said in a thick Wisconsin accent, 'Oh, gee, your bartender sure did get drunk last night.' I said, 'Well, I hope so, he is one of our best friends.' 

Sept 19, 1999 Woodspur Lodge, Winter Park, CO

Sure enough, look at the cup in his hands...There was a lot of Wild Turkey going around that night. This is at my wedding in 1999. I am not one to judge, I was at the Creek before my wedding having a shot of Turkey myself. This was the only time Todd had short hair. Apparently, he cut it in some sort of 2 am dare...I'll  leave it at that but that story is pure Todd...but it's not my story to tell, so you'll have to ask him about it if you ever run into him again. 

Around the end of February, I got news from Sudi, one of my oldest girl friends who was also Todd's best friend, that he  was in the hospital and it wasn't looking good. I canceled a few shows I had scheduled and made the trip back up to Grand County to see Todd in the hospital. To let him know I was coming, I sent him this photo of us at my wedding telling him I loved him. When I arrived, Todd had decided that he wanted what remained of his long hair to be cut off like this. Julie did a great job doing the cutting while Jeanette, Sue and I sat there, telling him how handsome he looked. It was surreal. His phone was blowing up with messages and calls as his friends got wind of his where abouts and condition. I held his hand as he wiped away tears. He said he was ready to go. Even though he said that, and it looked like that would be the best decision, it still seemed like he would kick this, bounce out of it... Be back out in the summer sun, spinning his Grateful Disc...

I asked him how old he was, as he always kept that vague. He told me his real age, which made him older than I thought, but it seemed right as I always knew he lied about his age. I kissed him forehead and asked him if I could take a photo...he said, sure... This was one of the last smiles I got. I know he loved me. You can still see it in his eyes. 

March 8 2014 Granby Medical

A few days after this was taken, he was released from the hospital. They had gotten him to the point where he could leave. So I was coming back to Grand County to play a show, and I sent him a message, asking if he was up for some company, he called me and asked if I could come and pick him up and take him to the Library... which I did. I helped him out of his house, through his snowy, unshoveled driveway, walking with a cane, into my car...the same one, we drove everywhere in together...I tried to keep it but upbeat...'Look at you,' I said, 'Land of the living!' 'Barely...' he chimed back. Gone was the laugh that would have follwed that comment.Just a wincing of pain. I could tell he had gotten accustomed to the IV pain management in the hostpital and being out wasn't necessarily a good thing. After his library visit, and I dropped him back off at home, just a few blocks away, I wouldn't let it sink in, that I was probably saying good bye for the last time...It couldn't be the last time. 

We sat there in my car for a few minutes, looking at all the other places he had lived in the 20+ years I had known him, all of them with in sight of my windshield, and laughed a bit. I confessd to him of the time many, many years ago I came knocking on his door at 2 am but he was alseep... Startled, he said 'you did?' Yeah, it was probably a good thing you didn't wake up, I said... 

We could see his old second level deck that we'd sit out on and drink beers in the sun and we shared a few laughs and then I helped him back inside his house. I told him I loved him and he said, I love you, too... 'See you next time' I said and shut my eyes, not wanting to see the last moments. 'See you next time, Jami.' He said in his still deep voice. 

And that was it. 

In the weeks after that day, I had gotten news that he had requested no more visitors...that he just wanted his quiet time. 

On the afternoon of May 20, I was on another call when Sudi's name flashed across my phone and I took the call...

Hi... I said... Hi... she said back...I knew before I even clicked over. 

He had passed away shortly before she called. 

It doesn't feel like he is gone. 

I feel him with me while I am listening to these songs, in the voice of Andy Griffith, in the words of Bob Dylan and in the waves of Jerry Garcia's guitar. 

I know this wasn't our first go around and I know it won't be our last. That's the thing about the souls you are surrounded by in your life...we seek each other out...we need each other to help us make it through. We are each other's guides. 

Todd, Sudi, Stefan and me, Oct 2007

Oddly enough, yesterday, at his memorial/life celebration, there was a rack of all of his shirts. He said he had wanted his friends to have his clothes. I couldn't even walk up to them or walk past the photos. But as I was leaving, I glanced up and there was one shirt left hanging there...it was this one he was wearing above in the photo taken at my going away party in 2007. I didn't know it then, but I guess it was hanging there for me. I left it for someone who might actually wear it.  Like with autographs, which I never want, I didn't want the shirt as a momento...as I can feel him with me, I didn't need a shirt to remind me of our friendship as he is in my blood and tattooed on my heart. 

Sudi had asked me if I would play a song at the memorial, but when I got there, it just didn't feel right. There were so many people to talk to and catch up with and my songs would have gotten lost in the crowd.  So I passed on the playing to the others but I said I'd play a song for Todd here at home... I made a little video along to my little iPhone recording of Bob Dylan's 'You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go'... 

"Death Is Not The End"

When you're sad and when you're lonely
And you haven't got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all that you held sacred
Falls down and dows not bend
Just remember that death is not the end.

Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end.

When you're standing on the cross-roads
That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end
And all your dreams have vanished
And you don't know what's up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end.

Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end.

When the storm clouds gather round you
And heavy rains descend
Just remember that death is not the end
And there's nowhere there to comfort you
With helping hand to lend
Just remember that death is not the end.

Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end.

Oh the tree of life is growing
Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation
Shines in dark and empty skies
When the cities are on fire
When the burning flesh of men
Just remember that death is not the end
And you search in vain to find
Just one law abiding citizen
Just remember that death is not the end.

Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end.

And lastly, this is the song I want to be played when I pass on to the other side. I can't wait to see him there. He'll be waiting at the gates, rolling a quarter across his knuckles standing in a ray of sunshine saying, 'What took you so long?  Let me show you around. You're gonna love this place. Everyone's here...' 

When I ask him who...

Oh, they're ALL here he says laughing and forever young.