Fall/Winter 2015

The end of summer is no less crazy in the mountains than the picnic months themselves. Tourons flock in droves on the highways peeping at the leaves, never getting out of their mobile viewscreens except to use your bathroom. The moose, elk, and deer are moving down from the high country, bedding down in the Ranch gulch. The bears are insatiable, knocking on doors for petfood. The Boulder Poetry Tribe gathered under the Super Blood Moon at Blue Owl Books in Nederland to exclaim our thanks for community. At the Ranch itself the cutting of the winter wood begins.
Long term efforts are beginning to bear fruit, the resurrection of our hijacked website and the retrieval of the BAFS files from Homeland Security bode well for 2016 workshops. Through the diligent efforts of our wonderful county workers LSR got enough flood grant money to repair a couple roofs and reroute the creek out of the driveway. We have seen the departures of close cohorts into other adventure locales, and are jubilant over the friends we are honored to share in proximity. New faces enter the Boulder Poetry Tribe, new voices howling in moonlit alleys, and the family of Front Range poets grows as the snow begins its long caress.
BAFS Monthly workshops have begun, notable so far were Max Toast’s workshop on Abstract Sequentialism and the Winter Conference on the Line. Look for some exquisite mind-bending opportunities as our Instructors continue making monthly madness for our lead-up to Summer Poetry Camp in July. The fantastic work of the 2015 Camp can be found in the just-gone-digital Love Shovel Review #6. We’ve got some donation campaigns in the works to acquire a GoPro to video record the classes and we’re also going to somehow pay the Instructors a wee pittance starting with Summer Camp 2016 (some come halfway around the world!).
So as we settle down to a fire here at the Ranch on the night before Winter Solstice, with the snow coming down and Love Shovel family on the way for a few days of exuberance, I can say that folks are excited by the potential of what will grow come the Spring. Winter is our opportunity to strengthen our grasp of reality and build with the seasons into another summer’s blossom, and Shovel we will. For now we will sing x-rated carols and piss-paint runes in the snow (danglers may not use their own hands – & yes, that implies teamwork) while we enjoy the easy laughter and celebration of camaraderie on a land-bound ship sailing a time-endless sea of snow, a Temporary Autonomous Zone where no government will follow.