Friends and Flags

I found a Texas flag amid the trailer-house detritus, tied it to a fine pipe with electric wire, and set it in a hole for all to admire.  So now that one insignificant flag flies over the place, we need our friends to each make their own flag.  When the friend comes to the Creek for a morning or a day, she or he brings the flag, raises it high, and all will know who is there.  So get creating your flag, friends.  Jimmy Hendrix said something about flags in one of my favorite of his songs ("If 6 Was 9"):
(Yeah) 
(Sing a song, brother) 
If the sun refused to shine, 
I don't mind, I don't mind. 
(Yeah) 
If the mountains fell in the sea, 
Let it be, it ain't me. 
Got my own world to live through 
And I ain't gonna copy you. 

Now, if 6 turned up to be 9, 
I don't mind, I don't mind. 
If all the hippies cut off their hair, 
I don't care, I don't care. 
Did, 'cos I got my own world to live through 
And I ain't gonna copy you. 

White-collar conservatives flashing down the street 
Pointing their plastic finger at me. 
They're hoping soon my kind will drop and die, 
But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high . . . HIGH! 

Hah, hah 
Falling mountains just don't fall on me 
Point on mister Buisnessman, 
You can't dress like me. 
Nobody know what I'm talking about 
I've got my own life to live 
I'm the one that's gonna have to die 
When it's time for me to die 
So let me live my life the way I want to. 

Yeah . . . 
Sing on brother, 
Play on brother . . .


So I'm thinking about what sort of freak flag I'll design . . .

We had a beautiful day with Hope and Tony, then Harlin and Rita, then Susan.  Harlin and I climbed the bluff across the creek.  When they all left, Carol and I finished watering vines and trees, cleaning the yard area, and  smoothing out the road.

Here's a view from up on the bluff above the creek.

And a beautiful boulder up on the same bluff.

And three or more stones from the stonefield (thank you, Harlin):

Road repairs with pick and hoe.

On a completely different subject (really?), I thought I'd say this about our experience of suffering: to witness others' suffering and to engage with it by touching their sadness and by going skin-to-skin with their pining, we heighten our awareness of life among human beings.  And this may not change what we do with our days, but it turns up the color of our days.  Like taking a black and white movie and slowly turning the knob on the set that shows us now the same movie but in colors.