Blog – Page 2 – Susan J Tweit

Lessons from the Ranch

Posted on September 18, 2022 | by Susan Tweit | 30 Comments

I spent my summer working at Ring Lake Ranch, a spiritual retreat center high in the Torrey Creek Valley of the Wind River Range in western Wyoming. The ranch is a gorgeous place, true to its tagline, “renewal in sacred wilderness.” (The photo above is Trail Lake, one of the two lakes the ranch borders, at dawn a couple of weeks ago.)

Some fun facts from my summer:

Number of miles I walked each day (on average): 6.5
Number of flights of stairs my pedometer tallied daily as I climbed hills and mountains: 24
Number of times I got my saddle out of the tack shed to go for a ride: 6 (that’s just sad, in 16 weeks at the ranch)
Age range of guests I led on hikes: 2 years old to 82!
Largest hiking group: 27 guests and staff
Most beds the staff and I changed in one morning: 41
Average pounds of cabin laundry hauled to the Dubois laundromat each week: 180
Average hours I worked each day: 10

You may gather by those data that I didn’t get much renewal this summer, and you’d be right. I didn’t get any writing time either. We were short-staffed, and I filled in wherever needed, including working the kitchen and helping the wranglers with the ranch’s herd of 32 horses.

It was, honestly, grueling in terms of physical and emotional effort. The exhaustion was lightened by some really beautiful moments on hikes, in conversations over meals in the dining hall, with staff on our rare off-times, and during evening seminars. Still, the summer’s work left me bone-weary and seven pounds lighter than when I arrived at the ranch in May.

One of those beautiful moments, and a rare time for me in the saddle, on the annual wrangler ride at the end of the season. This is Dundee Meadows, in the Absaroka Range.

I took the job of housekeeping coordinator/hike leader (which equals a more than full-time position, and requires very different skill sets) as an act of service, to use my skills and talents to help the ranch evolve in changing times.

I also figured I’d have some fruitful time to reflect on a question that has troubled me for the past few years: Where is home?

As it turned out, I was much too busy working to have time to reflect. Still, the question surfaced in the moments between waking and sleep each night. I saw the same images and heard the same words over and over, but it took me a long time to realize they gave me the answers I had been seeking.

Where is home? I kept seeing the view of Mount Lamborn over the hayfields of The Guy’s farm. I thought, I miss that soothing green. But I don’t want to live on the farm. Where is my home?

Mount Lamborn in the background over the farm.

I heard “private,” “quiet,” “secluded,” “shady refuge.” But where, I asked my thoughts in frustration. Where is this place?

Then it dawned on me. The place that fit those words and that brought the image to mind was a place I had not considered because it was too close to The Guy: Paonia, the small town surrounded by orchards and farms, home to around 1,500 people, that has been his community for nearly 30 years.

Paonia was his place, not mine. We had been so careful to give each other lots of space, to not encroach on each other. Could I find a place of my own there, both a physical space and a community?

I called him that weekend: “What if I moved to Paonia?”

“Why?” I offered the words and the images that had appeared over and over again in my mind. “I’ll think about it.” he said.

A few days later, he texted, “Okay.” Just one word. Enough.

“Are you sure?” A thumbs’ up emoji appeared by return text. More than enough.

I began obsessively looking at houses for sale in the former mining town colonized by hippies back in the day, and once home to the environmental newspaper High Country News; a town where pot shops coexist with hardware stores, an old-fashioned lumber yard, art galleries, bakeries, wineries, and a community theater.

A town named for peonies, one of my favorite heritage garden flowers. Where the streets are narrow, potholed, and shaded by huge old trees. Where the town park hosts “Picking’ in the Park” every weekend through the summer.

After weeks of hounding the real estate websites, and two quick trips south, I found my place. The image in my head of a shady backyard with a deep porch, and even, wonder of wonders! A writing hut tucked away under an ash tree next to the garage. A room of my own….

My 1920s bungalow, where the shaded front porch will be my library.

And the open living room/dining/kitchen will look homey with my sky-blue leather couch, Sam Bair rustic furniture, and my saddle on its stand!

And tucked away under a crooked ash tree, my writing hut.

By a stroke of very good luck, I was the first buyer to see it, and my offer was accepted. So I’m finally moving home. Where I will stay. And yes, it needs a little work (there’s a small matter of 1920s floor beams that need support after a kitchen renovation a few years back installed a very heavy quartzite counter, plus an aging garage roof). But mostly, it’s just where I need to be.

As soon as my sweet Montrose cottage sells, I’m packing up for one last move. And then I’m going to settle in and see what words come next…. And plant peonies to bloom in the garden next spring. At home.

Postcards from the Ranch

Posted on July 10, 2022 | by Susan Tweit | 2 Comments

I am halfway through my grueling but inspiring summer of work at Ring Lake Ranch in the Wind River Range of western Wyoming. At the end of each day, I am physically and emotionally exhausted–out of gas–with no energy or brain power to even return emails or read a book.

By the time I’ve worked ten or twelve hours and walked six or eight miles, even self-care like showering and doing laundry feels as difficult as pulling off my dusty boots before I fall face down in my bed. I just want to sleep so that I can bank energy before the next day begins!

Which accounts for my radio silence in this blog and also in the world of social media, the virtual writing groups I usually participate in, and the other aspects of life beyond this beautiful guest ranch/spiritual retreat center.

Tortuguita, my little trailer home, after evening thunderstorms.

I do read the news for a few minutes each day, and it is generally so dispiriting that I have to go out and sit by the lake for a while, or pull some invasive weeds, or hang out with my friends in the ranch staff before I can regain my equilibrium again. I refuse to live my days angry or without hope, so I do what I can every day to spread light in the world.

Sunrise over Trail Lake, one of the lakes that shelter the Ranch.

The truth is that is all we can do, in whatever fashion fits who we are: live with love, spread kindness, advocate for those whose voices are not heard (and in this, I include the voices of the land as well as human voices), and be people we admire as much as we can.

All of that is powerful though, even if it doesn’t always seem to be. Spreading light in the world, living our every interaction with love and care are how we create the world we want to live in, moment by moment, inch by inch, day by day. How we live matters a great deal.

The delicate native sego lily (Calochortus gunnisoni) I freed from invasive cheatgrass the other day. A tiny bee zipped in to pollinate the flower as soon as it was no longer obscured by the thicket of annual grass!

In the spirit of that, I am sharing these photos of the ranch to remind us all of the good in the world, the everyday moments of wonder and joy and just rightness.

Blessings to you all!

An evening snuggle with Major the mule, the cuddliest of our 32-horse ranch herd! (Photo by Sam Handley)

Wandering but not lost

Posted on June 1, 2022 | by Susan Tweit | 16 Comments

“All who wander are not lost.”

That familiar bumper-sticker sentiment fits particularly well right now, as I write from the snug confines of Tortuguita, my “little turtle” teardrop trailer, parked next to the staff lodging at Ring Lake Ranch in the Wind River Range of western Wyoming, where I am working for the second summer in a row.

Ring Lake Ranch is an extraordinary place, tucked in the deep, glacially carved valley of Torrey Creek at 7,500 feet, bordering Ring and Trail lakes, bounded by the public land of the Shoshone National Forest (where I worked as a young field ecologist, mapping the plant communities). It’s a spiritual retreat center run like a rustic guest ranch, with educational and inspirational seminars, wonderful food, fly fishing, riding, and hiking. (I work as the housekeeping coordinator and hike leader.)

The view across Trail Lake into the heart of the Wind River Range from near where Tortuguita is parked.

The ranch is special to me personally: I drove up the long dirt road to the ranch in late August of 2019 to teach the final seminar before the ranch closed for the season, knowing almost nothing about the place, and was immediately adopted by a gentlemanly, white muzzled, stub-tailed bird dog who craftily introduced me to his person, The Guy. My life changed for the good in that instant.

Dawn creeps down the canyon walls toward the ranch.

The Ranch offers, as its website says, “renewal in sacred wilderness.” And lives up to that, though not without challenges.

This year, the staff gathered on a beautifully warm, sunny week to open up and clean buildings not used (except by pack rats and mice) since Labor Day last year. We renewed old friendships and began new ones, settled into our living spaces and worked long days readying cabins for the volunteers who arrive every year to help us with big projects before the ranch opens for the summer.

All was going well until…. it snowed. The first time.

Spring in the Rockies is notoriously fickle.

Then the crew of volunteers charged with assembling the yurts for additional staff housing (one yurt has my name on it) discovered that the yurt kits had been shipped without the several hundred pounds of steel brackets that hold the timber frames together. The yurt manufacturer promised to send a tech out with the steel the following week to help erect them. So the crew pivoted to other projects, of which there are many.

And then a volunteer tested positive for COVID. Believe everything you have heard about how contagious this variant is: By the end of the week, despite masking and vaxxing and boostedness, we had ten staff and volunteers who tested positive with COVID, including me. (Two more have tested positive since.) I moved out of the staff apartment where I was bunking until my yurt is finished, and into Tortuguita, which is tiny but quite cozy if you don’t have a summer’s worth of gear to store, which I do.

The first batch of guests arrived on Sunday afternoon, along with the second, more serious snowstorm. It snowed all night Sunday night and part of Monday morning, and then turned to steady rain. We need the moisture, but…. The mud gets tracked everywhere, and I can attest that it’s not easy to be sick in a trailer where the bathroom is a dash through the snow away. I was fiercely feverish for two days, but now I am on the mend. Weak, but improving.

A big change from the photo at the top of the post!

Getting the ranch open for the summer has been rocky, but no one has shot anyone, and we’re not being bombed. Our challenges pale against the news of the world, especially of the two most horrifying mass shootings, first the racist massacre at the supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and more recently, the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.

I’ve asked myself what I can do to counteract the killing. And my honest answer is just this: Be a light in the darkness. Stand up against hatred, and do my best to treat everyone with kindness, respect, and love. Those every day actions may seem inconsequential. But they matter. A lot.

As I wrote in “Picking Up Roadkill,” an essay that has been included in several anthologies:

“A civilized society is created as much by our private, every-day acts as it is by the laws we pass and the contracts we sign. Our personal behavior sets the model for what we expect of others.”

It feels like humanity is wandering and quite lost, but there is something each of us can do: Be the best humans we can be. Live with love in our every days, in our every interaction. Our own behavior contributes to turning the tide of gun violence, war, climate change, racism, and all manner of other ills.

Be a light in the darkness. Be the model for the world you want to see. Be fierce in defense of the world we all love. Your individual actions matter.

Tortuguita with her canopy out before the snowstorm.

Blessings to you all from my COVID-isolation pod high in the Torrey Creek drainage of the Wind River Range in Wyoming.

Welcome to my cottage

Posted on March 20, 2022 | by Susan Tweit | 42 Comments

I promised to post photos of my cottage renovation, and then I got busy writing and well, renovating (go figure!), and February flew by. So here is a tour of what I’ve done so far.

The house was built in 1938, and boasts a deep front porch and two rooms (now opened up) up front, plus three rooms in an addition at the back. The whole place totals just 672 square feet, so it’s… compact.

My neighbor across the street, who grew up here, says the cottage was built to house the manager of the apple orchard that grew where the neighborhood is now. Originally, the house was just the two front rooms, and a family of eight (six kids, two adults) lived here! When the back portion was added on a few years later, it must have made the space seem positively commodious.

Come on in with me. The first set of photos are how the interior looked when I saw it last fall (before my wonderful excavator, John Long, and his colleague, Jerry Fritts, who basically does everything related to building, carefully jacked up the side where the foundation had collapsed and built a new foundation under it).

Just inside the front door, looking at the half-wall between the kitchen and the living room. This space is the entire original house.

Note those classy vinyl stick-on tiles over the stove, and the lack of drawer and door pulls on the cabinets. You can’t tell, but the place was filthy, with food stuck to the floors and grime on every surface. It smelled of rotten wood from the water leak that caused the foundation collapse. The interior, slanting floors and all, had been cheaply renovated after a drug-dealer tenant trashed it, breaking out the windows and setting fire to the inside. Despite the abuses the cottage has suffered, it feels welcoming.

The living room, to the right of the front door, with the bedroom door on the right, and the hall opening just visible.

Roaring One, the old gas wall furnace in the living room that provided the only heat, was so loud I had to turn it off at night to sleep.

Let’s go through that door to the right.

My bedroom, and yes, the ceiling does slant to the back of the room, because the roof at the back of the house is a sloping shed roof.

My bedroom is cozy at all of 8.5 by 11 feet in size!

Okay, back to the living room and through the opening into the hall….

And there’s the tiny (and dark) bathroom. The plumbing works, I’ll just say that.

Go left around the bend in the hall, and there is the smaller bedroom, which will be my office.

That’s my desk, made by Santa Fe cabinetmaker Sam Bair. It will never look that tidy again!

Now let’s fast-forward to today, and do that tour again, starting with coming up the steps and into the front door. There’s the kitchen, transformed.

New appliances, attaching door and drawer pulls to the cabinets, hanging a pot rack, replacing the old kitchen faucet, and adding some of my favorite turquoise blue accents really spiffs it up.

Yet to come: a tile backsplash in the blue color of one of the tiles behind the stove. The tiles are locally made from sediment dredged out of a nearby irrigation reservoir, and the glazes are gorgeous.

There’s just space in the corner of the kitchen to the left of the front door for a cozy dining nook. (The chairs are also by Sam Bair.)

Looking to the right of the front door beyond the half-wall with the kitchen, the living room. And yes, that’s my saddle on display. I did say that the cottage is small, didn’t I?

Looking from the living room into my bedroom and down the hall.

Where Roaring One lived is now a wall with an antique shelf holding cookbooks and kitchen implements. I replaced the old wall-furnace with a mini-split system for heating and cooling. (You can see one of the mini-split heads above the hall doorway.)

My bedroom isn’t big, but it is colorful and cozy.

Now come down the hall, and ignore the bathroom. I have ideas, but they’ll have to wait until I have a few weeks clear to get Jerry Fritts to help me to tear the whole thing apart…. As I said, the plumbing works, and the water is hot and plentiful thanks to my new tankless water heater, I’m grateful for that.

My office at the end of the hall. I did say that the beautiful Sam Bair desk would never look that tidy again…

Arabella, my venerable Christmas cactus, is happy with her southwest-facing window. She’s been blooming steadily since I moved her in a January blizzard, so I think she’s forgiven me for the grueling trip.

Now that I’ve taken care of the immediate needs (heating, hot water, replacing some fixtures, stabilizing the foundation and so on), I’m starting in on the neglected yard, where the first daffodils are blooming. Yet to come for the house: new windows throughout, new exterior doors (that don’t leak), and some galvanized steel wainscot for where the beautiful tongue-and-grove siding on the exterior walls was damaged at the lower edges. And then I’ll tackle that bathroom….

This cottage is my happy place. No matter the tragic events of its recent past, and no matter the sloping floors and slanting ceilings, the place is solid, and has a sweet feel and a good spirit. In these difficult times, I feel blessed to have not just a roof over my head and a comfy place to sleep, but a place that feels like–and is–home.

Celebrating coming home with a fire in the fire pit.

Moving again….

Posted on January 22, 2022 | by Susan Tweit | 40 Comments

This year started out with events I would not have imagined six months ago: a house sale and a move. Last June, I followed my heart home to Wyoming’s sagebrush country, selling my Santa Fe house and moving to a house on “the rim,” as it’s called in Cody, above the Shoshone River. (Click the link at “a house” to see the “after” photos of the house. It did not look like that when I bought it!)

The Cody house needed some love–I’ve never bought one that didn’t–and it was too big for me. But it was in a great location, and I figured I would spend a few years fixing it up, and eventually trade it for a little cottage in the historic neighborhoods around downtown (which, of course, would need fixing up, because that’s how I roll–and how I earn an income from my real estate deals).

Only the universe had other ideas. Just before Thanksgiving, a stranger knocked on my door and asked if I would ever consider selling my house. I said I’d talk to my friend Yuliya Martsul, who is also one of the smartest real estate people I know, and see what she thought the place was worth. I showed them around and then I called Yuliya.

Six days later, I accepted an all-cash offer on the house at a price that paid me back for the work I had put into it, and covered my move. The closing date was–gulp!–mid-January.

My Cody house lit up for Winter Solstice.

Which gave me seven weeks to thoughtfully downsize, pack, search for a smaller place in Cody, and move. Piece of cake, right? After all, this would be my sixth move in ten years, so I’ve had plenty of practice.

“Right-sizing” from 2,200 square feet to something smaller and packing was the easy part. Finding another place to live in Cody proved impossible.

So I pivoted–flexibility is my middle name since I stumbled into this side-gig of buying unloved properties and re-storying them–I would move into the cottage in Montrose, in western Colorado, that I had bought for my winter writing retreat earlier last fall. (Have I confused you yet?)

My sweet Montrose cottage, built in 1938

My plan was simple: Winnow my stuff down to what would comfortably fit into the 672 square foot cottage–five rooms, counting the bathroom–and store what I couldn’t bear to part with. I’d look for a Cody place come spring, I thought, when the real estate market might be less insane.

Okay. Except that I would be moving from far northwestern Wyoming to far western Colorado, eleven hours south, in January, on a route that’s pretty much off the map for movers. Fortunately, Rick Cook of Cody’s Cook Moving & Storage, who has moved me twice before, figured out how to fit me and my not-very-much stuff on one of his trucks headed for Las Vegas, Nevada. (Thank you, Rick, and ace mover/driver Phil!)

The only hitch was that I would have to move January 7th, a week earlier than I had planned. Which gave me just six weeks to get ready. And to finish some projects in the house that I hadn’t bothered to with, thinking I had lots of time.

So between giving away some furniture and lots of books, downsizing my files, and packing, packing, packing, I was up on a ladder on my front porch replacing the tacky front porch lights with much cooler and more efficient ones that didn’t blind people coming up the walk. And finishing the cabinets in the kitchen, replacing a couple of really ugly bathroom faucets, and the like.

Cool front porch lights that are downward-aiming to preserve the view of the stars.

And I spent a week of that six in Montrose overseeing foundation work on my cottage, which had plumbing issues before I bought it, resulting in part of the beautiful stacked sandstone foundation under the oldest part of the cottage collapsing. Fixing that involved jacking up one side of the cottage and digging out the cellar, which fortunately I did not have to do myself!

My Montrose cottage getting a partial new foundation.

It’s no wonder that I was a little insane by the time the week of January 7th rolled around. And wouldn’t you know, that was the week when Wyoming’s way-too-balmy-and-dry winter delivered a real northern Rockies blizzard, dropping a foot of much-needed but very inconvenient snow with sub-zero temperatures and howling winds. Fun stuff.

Thanks to last-minute help from my dear friends Connie and Jay Moody and the careful loading skills of Phil and his crew, my belongings were out of the house by closing on the afternoon of the 7th. My neighbor Bill helped me load my huge Christmas cactus, Arabella, into my truck, and Jay and Connie kindly housed me, the truck, and Arabella until the roads cleared enough for me to head south two days later.

Phil’s big truck pulled up to load my stuff, despite snow and howling wind.

Where the Guy welcomed me (and Arabella) into his comfortable farmhouse an hour’s drive from my cottage until Phil arrived with my stuff on a sunny Tuesday morning not quite two weeks ago.

Are you dizzy yet? I’ll save the details of the renovation I’ve done on the cottage in the past twelve days for another post.

Suffice it to say that I’m settled, my stuff is all out of boxes and stowed away, and I am happily exploring my new surroundings–I have a river to walk here, too–and I’m back to work on the new book. Whew!

My snug office in the cottage, with Arabella, who is covered with buds and ready to bloom again, for company.

Turning Toward the Light

Posted on December 19, 2021 | by Susan Tweit | 8 Comments

Tuesday, December 21st, marks winter solstice, the day with the fewest hours of daylight here in the Northern Hemisphere, and consequently, the longest night of the year.

The word “solstice” comes from “stands still,” because for a few days around the winter and summer solstices, the sun seems to stand still in its apparent migration from the southern sky to the northern sky and back over the course of the year. (“Apparent” because it’s not the sun moving, but the tilt in earth’s axis as it rotates around our giant source of heat and light–the sun–that causes that seeming solar movement.)

For many of us, the short days and long nights bring a kind of existential discomfort and dread, something deep in our cells that harks back to the days before electric lighting, when our lives were entirely shaped by the coming and going of natural light.

Holiday lights brighten my front porch in the darkness before dawn.

No wonder that our major winter holidays all feature light in some form, whether Christmas lights or Chanukah menorahs, the candles of Kwanzaa, or the Hindu Diwali festival of lights (although Diwali fell in late October this year).

In this time of literal darkness, we need light to remind us that our hemisphere will turn back toward the light, and that spring and green will return. With the Omicron variant of COVID, continuing political and social divisiveness, racism taking violent and deadly forms, and our climate in meltdown, we need signs of light and hope to ameliorate the figurative darkness weighing on us all.

One of my favorite traditions of lighting the darkness at this time of year comes from southern New Mexico, where Richard and Molly and I lived for seven years: luminarias, little candles sitting on a bed of sand and nestled in lunch-box sized paper bags. Traditionally, luminarias are lit on Christmas Eve, to light the way of the holy family to the stable. The fragile lights burn all night long, guttering out as dawn comes, signaling the turn toward longer days and shorter nights. (In northern New Mexico, they’re called farolitos.)

Luminarias at Creek House, the little house I designed for myself in Salida. (The house was still under construction that first winter solstice, but I wasn’t going to miss putting out luminarias!)

We adapted luminarias to our winter solstice celebration, one of two big parties we held each year. At the celebration of Richard’s life, Molly and I supplied luminaria-makings, and guests decorated the bags with messages for Richard and placed them around “Matriculation,” his sculpture in the Salida Sculpture Park.

Luminarias lining the path at the sculpture park and ringing “Matriculation.”

I still have some of those decorated luminaria bags, which I re-use year after year. They remind me of the outpouring of love from our community as Richard, Molly and I journeyed with his brain cancer, and after his death. Our friends and family truly lit our way, and I am grateful.

One of many luminaria bags from Richard’s celebration of life, decorated with individual messages.

In this dark season, ten years after Richard died, I am turning toward the light in another way, engaging in a mindful “divestiture” (in the apt words of my playwright friend, DS Magid). I’m working at freeing myself of literal and figurative stuff I’ve been carrying with me, lightening my load as I move on.

That means finding new homes for books, beds, and other possessions; sorting through the boxes of Richard’s archives I’ve moved from place to place to place and picking out what I think Molly might want someday; and also taking a close look at my mental and emotional stuff, working to let go of habits, expectations, fears and misperceptions that don’t serve me.

It’s not easy to let go–especially of books!–but it is freeing. And that feels right for me now.

As the Northern Hemisphere turns toward the light, we can each bring light to our own worlds, at least metaphorically. For inspiration, here’s singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer’s song, “Lean in to the Light.”

Winter Solstice blessings to you all!

Ten Years: A Summary

Posted on November 28, 2021 | by Susan Tweit | 14 Comments

Ten years ago yesterday, the guy in the red shirt with his hand around my waist in the photo above died of brain cancer. He was 61 when he died, and I was 55.

(The photo was taken right after our Quaker-style wedding in the yard of the house where I lived in Laramie, Wyoming in August of 1983. Richard, 33 then, still had a full head of black hair; mine was still red, and reached almost to my waist when I let it down–the way he liked it best. Molly wasn’t at that informal ceremony, but she was our attendant at the legal one the next day. Susan Kask, Dale Doremus, Rosemary Harden, Tommy Williams and Cielette Karn, do you recognize yourselves?)

Now I’m 65, four years older than Richard ever got to be. In those ten years, I have explored widely, worked hard, learned much, laughed, loved, and survived more losses. I’ve embraced things I never imagined, including becoming conversant at tools and building, and living happily alone.

As I reflect on the past ten years and ready myself to turn the page into the next chapter of my life, here are a few things that stand out, in no particular order:

Helping visionary conservationist Connie Holsinger of Terra Foundation create the Habitat Hero program, now run by Audubon Rockies, to educate homeowners and landscapers about how to garden for pollinators and songbirds.
Learning tools and building to finish Terraphilia, the big house, and Richard’s historic studio. Thanks to Andrew Cabe for finishing the guest apartment, Bob Spencer for teaching me to hang doors, to Grand Pound and the volunteers of Colorado Art Ranch for hanging the ceiling in the studio; and especially to Tony and Maggie Niemann of Tracks software, who coached and worked with me for months and months to finish the house. (They also created this website and blog.)
Using those skills to design and oversee construction of Creek House and Treehouse, my little house and guest apartment atop the garage. That was the first time I had ever designed a house just for me, and it turned out to be a very attractive real estate investment. (Who knew!)

Creek House (on the right) and Treehouse, atop the garage, from across the creek for which the house is named.

Which lead to my move to Cody, and the great adventure of renovating a mid-century modern house from basement to roof. Working with my friend and contractor, Jeff Durham, was a delight. (A good thing, because we spent two years on that project.)

The lovingly restored living-dining area at Spruce House, that mid-century modern in Cody. The house was so dilapidated when I bought it that my friends termed it “scary.” (Accurately, I admitted later).

Then on to Santa Fe, where I renovated two small condos–I lived in one and rented the other–and then moved to Casa Alegria outside town, which I also renovated.
This spring, I moved back to Cody and my house on the “rim” overlooking the river. Which, yes, I also renovated, because “re-storying” houses in need of love is what I do. And which is now on the market, because as the ten-year anniversary of Richard’s death approached, I realized that what I most want for the coming years is to downsize and be free to wander a bit more.
Writing: Some of my magazine feature articles ended up as cover features, including Reading the Rings on what tree rings tell us about history, climate, and our future for WILDFLOWER Magazine, a finalist for the Sybil Downing Journalism award from Women Writing the West.

Another feature article for Wildflower magazine, this one on gardening to provide habitat for pollinators and songbirds, a continuing passion of mine.

Winning four Colorado Authors League Awards for my blogs, articles, and “WildLives,” my spoken-word CD compiling favorite radio commentaries.
Being granted the life-changing gift of two writing residencies, one at Women’s International Study Center in Santa Fe, where I was privileged to spend a month sharing a casita with the incomparable playwright, singer, and actor DS Magid and professor Stanlie James, Vice-Provost at Arizona State University and a powerful voice for women, especially African-American women. The other residency, at Mesa Refuge in California, I shared walks, talks, and meals with Syrian-American writer, justice advocate, and lawyer Alia Malek, author of the stunning memoir, The Home That Was Our Country.
Writing, rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying, published by She Writes Press this spring. And about which one reviewer recently wrote:
Susan J. Tweit maps the immense capacity of the human heart to hold love and grief, gratitude and despair—and wonder, at the same time. Tweit shows such tenderness and wisdom in this beautiful memoir that I know I will turn to again.
Traveling to a place I had never been before, Ring Lake Ranch in the Wind River Range of western Wyoming, to teach a seminar, and falling in love–both with the guest ranch/spiritual retreat center, and the Guy. (Plus his dog, Badger, who sadly left this life this summer, and his four horses.) Another lesson in how much your life can change in a moment, and when you least expect it.
Re-discovering my love for riding and horse-packing, and spending time in the very wild, where grizzly bears and wolves still out-number humans.

So here I am at 65, turning the page on the last ten years, and readying myself to open my arms to whatever the next ten bring. Still living with my heart outstretched, still loving, writing, re-storying houses and landscapes, and doing my bit to heal this battered earth and our communities. Thanks for your support on this journey!

There’s still some mischief in that smile…

Tool Girl Renovation Progress

Posted on November 21, 2021 | by Susan Tweit | 6 Comments

I’ve been working on my house on weekends, and it’s looking pretty great (partly because my painters finally fit me into their crammed schedule, so the interior walls are now all finished). Here are some before and after photos, so you can see the progress.

The very brown living room before furniture (with just Arabella and my antique Persian rug).

The living room after painting the brown walls a pale sage green and a very pale sky blue. Plus adding furniture and art!

The dining area and kitchen before (realtor’s photo).

And now, with a new sink, open cabinets, and a new fridge and microwave in the kitchen.

My office–the smallest of the upstairs bedrooms before….

My office now, with plank floors instead of icky carpet, and walls that are not brown. (The other two upstairs bedrooms have been similarly transformed.)

The family room downstairs in its brown phase before…

The bonus room off of the family room, formerly dark and very uninviting, with brown walls and no windows, transformed into a library.

My bedroom as it looked for the first month…

And now (yes, that’s me reflected in the window).

Both bathrooms, upstairs and down, got new shower heads. For this one, I had to replace the supply pipe too, a whole new learning curve. But doesn’t it look fancy!

I’ve done a bunch of other things that don’t show in the photos above, including insulating the garage and giving it a pegboard wall for tool storage, replacing the old mercury-based thermostats with new programmable ones, and replacing dated and leaky faucets in the upstairs bathroom. I’ve never done electrical or plumbing work on my own before, so I’ve had some interesting learning. Turns out I’m not bad at it.

What’s next? In this reflective time as the days shorten in fall, I’ve been assessing where I am and what I hope to do, and reading and thinking about new and old ideas. By the time Winter Solstice comes around, the sun shifts on its apparent journey south, and lengthening nights yield to lengthening days again, my aim is to have sorted through what I want to carry with me into the year to come and what I’ll let go.

One thing I’ve already decided on is that I’m going to give myself the gift of a self-directed writing retreat this winter, so I can focus on the next book.

I’ve found a charming cottage in a town about an hour from the Guy’s farm in western Colorado where I’ll hide away. (“Charming” because it’s got a sweet front porch and steeply pitched metal roof shaded by two enormous old cottonwood trees; “cottage” because it’s all of 672 square feet in size, perfect for the one of me.)

And yes, it needs some work, so I’ll bring my tools with me so I can putter between writing sessions.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! If you need practice finding things to be grateful for in these times, this post from two years ago might be useful.

Blessings to you and yours.

Emotional Anniversaries & Bless the Birds

Posted on October 10, 2021 | by Susan Tweit | 14 Comments

Richard Cabe two months before his death in 2011, his head misshapen from five brain surgeries and swollen from steroids, but his smile undimmed.

Ten years ago today, I was preparing the guest apartment at Terraphilia, the house that Richard built for us, for the arrival of our friend Grant Pound, director of Colorado Art Ranch. Richard came in from his studio, his steps slow as he leaned on the cane he had begun to use to aid his wobbly balance after we returned from the Big Trip, our 4,000 mile honeymoon drive to the Pacific Coast.

“I feel like a sculptor again.” He beamed, his once-chiseled face now round from the steroids he took to combat the swelling from the brain tumor threading its way through his right hemisphere, but his smile undimmed.

“Because Grant is coming?” Grant had suggested a sculpture apprenticeship with Richard BC–before brain cancer–when Richard was busy with commissions. But now, he hadn’t worked in months. I hoped teaching Grant might revive Richard’s passion for working with native rocks as, in his words, “Ambassadors of the Earth,” revealing their inner beauty in functional sculptures.

Richard before brain cancer, with a local boulder he was carving into a sculptural sink.

“Yes.” Richard’s smile erupted into a laugh. “Even though it looks like my brain exploded out there,” he said, referring to the chaotic state of his studio, where dozens of hand-tools were spread willy-nilly on every surface, since he no longer had any spatial memory. “Working with Grant will help me get organized.”

It did, for a short while. Until his once strong and muscled body began to fail. For those few weeks though, he reveled in having his hands on the rocks he so loved.

I didn’t remember that moment in Richard’s journey with terminal brain cancer when I woke this morning with my heart racing and my mind awash in unsettling dreams.

I got up and did yoga, which almost always settles me, but didn’t this time. My balance was bad. I took a hot bath, but the anxiety only got worse. My hands shook. My stomach hurt. I got dressed, and fumbled with the buttons on my favorite shirt. Even breakfast–a soothing hot cereal blend of organic grains with raisins, blueberries, and pecans–didn’t help.

I couldn’t imagine what was wrong.

“What is going on?” I asked out loud in the quiet house. “I don’t have anxiety attacks!”

And then I remembered a time when I did, ten years ago. I was caring for Richard at home, and he was dying.

I looked at the date on my phone: October 10th. I opened Bless the Birds: Living With Love in a Time of Dying, my new memoir, and began looking for anecdotes from ten years ago. And I heard Richard’s voice in my head, as clearly as if he had been in the room with me: “I feel like a sculptor again.”

Richard (center) and Grant Pound in October of 2011, talking sculpture over the steel trestle dining table that Richard designed and made.

Ten years ago, he was doing his best to live with severe brain impairment. I had just begun to grasp how emotionally intense and physically demanding caring for him 24/7 was. And to wonder how long my energy would hold out.

That’s when the anxiety attacks began, waking me in a sweat at night, sending my heart racing and my body shaking at odd moments. My greatest fear was not living up to what I had promised: to care for him with as much love as I could through his death.

I somehow did. With a lot of help: Molly, my stepdaughter, moved home for the last five weeks of her daddy’s life to help out; my family circled around us with support; Richard’s hospice team, led by nurse Wil Archuletta, were there whenever I needed them. And, as I wrote in Bless the Birds:

Love continued to pour in from near and far. Cards bearing sweet and funny messages filled the mailbox, along with books, hand-knitted socks, and a cap “to keep Richard warm,” plus gift certificates for local restaurants. Poems arrived via email. A food drive through Ploughboy (a local grocery store) paid for our groceries. Meals appeared at our front door, plus other offerings: special stones, flower bouquets, and the monthly envelope containing four crisp $100 bills: “For whatever you need.”

I was grateful for the support, even as my pride resented our needing help. My emotions were all over the map. One thing was constant: My heart wanted a different ending to our story.

There wouldn’t be a different ending. Richard died on Sunday, November 27, 2011, encircled by love, with Molly and me, one of his hospice nurses, and our dear friends Doris and Bill.

After his death, the anxiety attacks vanished. I had kept my promise.

It’s not like everything was fine then. I was alone for the first time in my adult life and deeply in debt after setting aside my writing to care for Richard and my mother, who died earlier that year. I didn’t know who this newly solo “me” was. But I knew I could manage all that, though it took years.

And now, a decade later, the anxiety has returned. The rekindling of those muscle memories leaves me feeling frail and exhausted, as if those grueling weeks of 24/7 caregiving were just yesterday, not ten years ago.

I don’t like admitting to frailty. But I hear the message: Slow down! I’ve got a feature-article deadline coming up, and I had planned a series of author conversations for the fall and winter. I need to seriously consider what I can handle.

Because when I was caring for Richard with as much love as possible, I also promised to care for me with love for the rest of my life. I want to honor that promise, too.

Postcards from my summer not-vacation

Posted on September 26, 2021 | by Susan Tweit | 4 Comments

Sunrise at the ranch, looking down the valley toward the Absaroka Mountains in the far distance.

I’m home after spending two months working at Ring Lake Ranch, a spiritual retreat center nestled high in the Torrey Creek valley of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. The ranch operates like a guest ranch, with guests coming for a week or two, to stay in comfortable cabins and take horseback rides, hikes, flyfish, paddle the lake, or just sit on their porch and relax in what the ranch calls “sacred wilderness.”

The ranch’s horse herd comes to visit, grazing around the cabins.

What makes Ring Lake Ranch different than most guest ranches are two things: First, the weekly programs, seminars on various aspects of spiritual life offered by a variety of well-known thinkers. Topics range from reinventing the Christian church as a more compassionate and welcoming community to the study of enneagrams, and the culture of the nearby eastern Shoshone people. Second, guests participate in some of the ranch chores, including dish-clearing and washing after meals, and helping clean and set up their cabins for the next set of guests. (Those activities build community and keep the costs relatively affordable.)

Trail Lake, at the upper edge of the ranch, after sunset.

What was I doing there? Working as hike leader and housekeeping coordinator, two theoretically part-time jobs combined into one way-more-than-fulltime position. As hike leader, I took groups on excursions ranging from rambles into the shale badlands across the river to more rigorous hikes into the high country. Along the way, I interpreted the landscape and the community of our more-than-human relatives who bring the place to life. I see reconnecting people with the community of the land–our wilder kin and their relationships–as my “ministry.”

Lake Louise, a popular hiking destination, six miles round-trip and over 2,000 feet higher than the ranch. A hard climb, but worth the sweat!

As housekeeping coordinator, I maintained the ranch’s linen closet, providing supplies for all the guest cabins and staff housing; cleaned the public toilets every day–something I decided quickly that in order to not grow resentful, I would treat as an act of love; hauled bins of dirty cabin laundry to the laundromat in town and picked up the clean laundry; washed the kitchen laundry every couple of days; and supervised the cabin changeover every weekend, which meant cabin checking and cleaning. I came to see housekeeping as another form of ministry, part of welcoming guests to this place of rest and renewal.

The view from a cabin porch of Trail Lake and the ranch’s labyrinth.

Still, I worked six days a week, 10 or 12 hours a day. Weekends were my crunch time, with all 18 cabin spaces needing new linens and cleaning since one set of guests left on Saturday morning, and the next week’s set arrived on Sunday afternoon. Some weeks I had volunteer help–thank you Sarah and Katy!–which meant I might actually finish work before bedtime.

One of the perks of being up before sunrise was the wildlife encounters, including this young great-horned owl perched by the corral one morning.

Between hiking and housekeeping, I walked eight or ten miles a day. Despite the ranch’s delicious meals and fabulous desserts, I lost weight. I just couldn’t eat enough for the exercise I was getting!

On Sundays, my only day off, the Guy and I got away from the ranch on hikes, rides, or trips to the nearby “cities” of Lander or Riverton for meals out and errands.

Rest time on a Sunday ride into the wilderness.

Leading hikes brought the joys of spending time with wildflowers of all sorts, and wildlife too.

Fringed gentian, one of my favorite mountain wildflowers.

One day, the youngest member of our hiking group, Lucas, aged nine and a budding herpetologist, found this horned lizard on a badlands hike.

A tiny short-horned lizard, a cold-hardy species of “horny toad” found in the badlands.

Another day, a grizzly bear heard us coming, and hustled off, leaving just footprints in the trail.

A grizzly-bear front paw print (note the claw marks to the left of the toe pads), less than a minute old.

It was an exhausting and exhilarating two months, full of hard physical work, fascinating people, mind-enriching seminars, and the balm of time in the wild.

The back side of the Pinnacles on the way to Bonneville Pass in the Absaroka Range.

Would I do it again? I don’t know. But I’m glad I had the “time away” and the nourishment of my whole self.

If you are looking for a place to go to renew your relationship with the wild, shed your burdens, and rekindle your spirit, consider Ring Lake Ranch. It’s a magical place.