Webster Art

Got up at 6AM to drive to Yelm for a pickup bed full of lawn sod. The fork lift driver was very, very precise as he loaded a  2000 pound pallet of lawn sod into my Tundra. I needn’t have worried. He missed my canopy lift struts by a millimeter…no harm done.

Clint showed up at 10 AM and we-he put the lawn down where there used to be a rotten deck. 18 x18 plus a 12 x 12 foot square area of dirt was well and fully sodded. Is that a verb?

I’m over halfway through a youtube tutorial on Blackbird.

Both Fletch, Carl and Chad can all  play Blackbird. It’s kind of a signature song for serious guitarists. Right up there with Stairway to Heaven. If someone can play Blackbird, you know they are good.

I nailed it in a few hours. I mean I’m literally playing it from memory. It was so satisfying to learn a new and difficult song so quickly. You get to be 67, and you start to wonder if you’re loosing your edge. I mean, it happens. Old people get old. But there I was playing quickly and cleanly with passion, no sheet music. Super happy about that.

Chris and I led Morning (Glory?) over at the tunnel at Index. It was 3 pitches. Then we did GM. Chris led the first pitch. It’s free soloing above a ledge but only about 5.7 friction. I probly could have led it? But I was so glad she was willing. I had to hang twice on the second pitch. It’s got some 5.9 undercling layback moves. There is a really cool no hands knee bar there. Once I hung on the two blues I felt more relaxed. I placed a 4 from the hang, got some slack, clipped it and hung again. I was about to say ‘take’, but Chris already had me. She was like: “We’ve been climbing together a long time. I got this.”

After that, I began under clinging the red crack. It’s just a few moves then you throw for the hand jam above the undercling and you are golden. The rope got stuck in a cam as I was pulling up her line. I had to rap down to clean it. That was scary. She had me on a fireman, and I had a prusik, but I was out of my comfort zone. I had to climb up by french freeing and walking a couple cams while reverse rappelling on a single line. Not fun at all.

She led Heart of the Country in the last light. I bailed on the follow due to the late hour. I let a rap line fall out of reach. I had to short line over to it. These kinds of things never happen to us. So weird to have two bad things happen on one climb. She was like: “We are better than this, what’s going on?”

The grass looks really good. I hope it lives.