Happy August. The time machine seems to have slipped into a higher gear the past few weeks. There’s a lot more summer stretching off into the rear-view mirror than on the horizon ahead. As Joni Mitchell sings, “the seasons they go round and round…”

I’m looking forward to getting back on campus for the fall semester, and am hopeful that we are able to keep the plague at bay. Hope is useful to an extent, but in reality, bringing a few thousand students from all over the globe to a college campus is most likely going to generate some viral activity. Viral activity beyond the norm of a college campus.

I was able to fly the coop last week for four or five days of cabin time. Just me and the dog, it worked out on both of our schedules. He’s good company, and being a 12-year old lab, most of his go has went, so he’s basically a lumpy rug that eats and farts. So it goes.

The cabin is a special place, and I am quite grateful for every moment I get to spend there. In his book “Walden”, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” I thought of that often as I looked at the empty chairs in the cabin and pondered who I’d like to have sitting with me?

Some people are good at just sitting with you. Most likely because you’re good at just sitting with them? Just sitting, just being, in that space where the silence between words outnumbers the words. Less is more…more or less.

I’ve been waiting for a song about our cabin to present itself, and on this last trip the words rolled off the green tin roof, and were kind enough to let me collect them. The song is called “Little Log Cabin”, and I hope to sit with you there some day.

There’s a little log cabin we call Wolves Ridge
In the Bull Mountains of Montana is where it lives
It sits quietly amongst the pines and the tall grass
Built with love, built with friendship, built to last

Chorus:

Through the winter storms and the summer heat
It stands up to it all so we can just be
Just be together, just be in love
In that little log cabin under the stars above

Music and smoke fills the cool night air
Whiskey and laughter like you haven’t a care
Lovers and family old dogs and old friends
Warmed by the fire of this little log cabin

(Repeat Chorus)

We come when we can, we leave when we must
Head back to the world and all that needs us
That little log cabin we call Wolves Ridge
Waits in the Bull Mountains, yeah that’s where it lives

(Repeat Chorus)