These are from a little field trip we took on our last night to the Saloon at the Occidental Hotel.

Group photo right after dinner, at the residence!

Edan Lepucki mugs for the camera while Stephanie Ognar ignores me completely.

Manil Suri.

Ben Fountain and Shannon Fowler, deep in conversation.

Stephanie and Edan.

I write this from my hotel room in Denver, on my weekend-long (planned) layover in the Mile High City.

The remainder of my stay at Ucross was quite enjoyable, and remarkably busy. I didn’t finish the new orchestra piece, though I’m very close to the end, and very happy with what I’ve got written so far. I’m glad that I shelved what I’d attempted during my first week there – it was vastly inferior to this piece. (The aborted attempt, by the way, was to be three meditations on literary characters: Miles Malpractice from Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, Divine from Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers, and Robert de Passavant from Andre Gide’s The Counterfeiters. The movement I scrapped was on Divine. The new piece has no literary underpinnigs. I’m waiting until I’m done, and have a satisfactory title to publicly reveal its inspiration.) The piece exists still in the form of detailed short score – I decided to leave it in manuscript form for the time being, and orchestrate it in one fell swoop at the end.

On Tuesday the 22nd, Travis Ivey, Edan Lepucki, and I participated in the Apache Foundation Tree Program by planting two Canada Red Chokecherries in the yard near the office. It was a really fun way to spend an hour: getting the trees from the Apache nursery, digging the hole, setting the tree in, filling the dirt around the base of the tree, and securing and fencing it in. I pounded in two of the poles that protect the trees from the wind, which was noisy and fun and made me shout “Hulk smash!” Now when I go back in a few years, I can check on how well my not-so-little tree is faring.

Wednesday evening, I gave a little concert in my studio after dinner at the request of some of the other residents. I played through the new piece first, and the residents who had heard the first section during our evening of open studios two weeks prior were particularly pleased by the additions. Then, "In the dark pine-wood" again for the new folk. And in between sessions of conversation, I played and sang through some pop tunes from a cabaret act that I’m working up with Darien and Danny. (We call ourselves the Bright Young Things – another Waugh reference in my life!).

Thursday after dinner, at the suggestion of Ben Fountain, we all drove into Buffalo to hear some live Bluegrass music at the Saloon at the Occidental Hotel, which was a real blast.

And Friday. The Last Day. Although I had spent the previous few days packing in small bursts, I was up early to make triple sure that I had everything packed and/or mailed off. Then a stop by the office to thank Sharon again for her invitation two years ago (again, publicly, thank you, Sharon!), and to let her know how beautiful / peaceful / amazing the area is, and how fantastic I felt about the work that I was able to do there. It really is a fantastic program, and I look forward to applying again as soon as the three year grace period between residencies is up.

Five of us left Friday morning: Edan Lepucki, Manil Suri, Shannon Fowler, and I flew out of Sheridan International, and Stephanie Ognar started her two-day drive back to Illinois. Our flight was delayed an hour because Great Lakes has a monopoly in the area and can do what it pleases while charging insane prices. They apparently made an unscheduled stop to pick up extra passengers in another town, which caused several passengers to miss their connections in Denver. Nice. The flight was at least uneventful (a little bit of a rough landing).

And there ends the tale of my residency at the Ucross Foundation. (Denver is its own story, which I’ll surely relate soon.)

I’m really happy to have gone, despite my initial misgivings about being in rural Wyoming for so long. It’s a beautiful area with lots of nature-y things to do, and some really wonderful people. The staff at Ucross are all amazing, fantastic people, and I’m so glad to have met them all! Sharon again gets singled out for thanks for her generous invitation. Cindy made the most fabulous meals – possibly the best dinners I’ve had in my entire life – she’s a real artist, herself! Kate, Mike, and Mary Ann were so friendly and great, and fun to talk with. Thanks to Tina for helping me with the various packages I sent and received, and the dozen or so off-color postcards I mailed to friends and family. And Ruthie – she did so much through the course of the four weeks that I have to limit myself to saying that she’s a really fantastic person, and a really fantastic cook, as well!

And now for tree planting photos, after the jump!
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Some photos from the hike on Saltlick Trail.

This is a shot of the parking lot we left from, and was taken 15 or so minutes into the hike – we got high fast!

The cliff-face from the same point.

After 20 minutes or more of the same sorts of views, we rounded a bend, and saw this. Stephanie had the lead on the way out, and shouted, “That’s what I’m talking about!”

Stephanie and I taking photos of each other taking photos of each other. She stood on the path, and I stood on an outcropping.

Stephanie being pensive again, standing on the outcropping.

A bunch of houses between the highway and Ten Sleep Creek. Notice how steep!

The path at one point. For this whole portion, I had “In the dark pine-wood” stuck in my head.

More of the path.

And more. Stupid lens cover!

Some cool rock formations.

The cliff on our way back.

Yesterday was another quiet day, for the most part. I spent the majority of the day holed up in my room working on Darien’s redesign, which is coming along quite swimmingly.

In the early evening, Stephanie (one of the visual artists here) and I decided to go for a walk up toward the Tepee Circles. Her walks usually take her in that direction, but she explained that she usually takes the path that leads away from them when she’s walked on her own. So, we hiked up there, and I got some pretty cool pictures of the area, even though I already took some photos when I was there on the ranch tour.

Today’s been a pleasantly productive day thus far. This morning was devoted to filling out applications to MacDowell and VCCA for 2010, as well as writing postcards to friends and family. In between that and figuring out which films I’d like to see when Darien and I go to the Woodstock Film Festival a few days after I get back to NYC (I intend to go up a few days late so that I can take a moment to breathe when I step off the plane at LaGuardia on the 28th), I’ve also managed another two solid pages of sketches for the ‘violent’ section of the orchestra piece. I scrapped the few measures that I’d sketched out last week, and started over in a new vein, which has been quite fruitful, and seems very promising.

I suspect I’ll be working up until 5:00 today, unlike a few days last week when I couldn’t wait to leave my studio and get back to the residence, so I’m feeling particularly good about the start of Week 3. Also, the new people arrive today, one of whom I’ve already met, so a fresh feeling of creativity has been injected into the atmosphere – always welcome!

The only negative thus far is a new wariness – almost jumpiness – I have while walking along certain paths. Late last week, I encountered a very large snake on one of the routes to the studios. I’m not terribly frightened of snakes (unlike my father), but this was almost certainly a rattlesnake, so I had plenty of reason to shout and run away. But although I’ve been a little jumpy (the next afternoon, some wild turkeys startled me in a really big way), I’m still quite keen on doing more exploring and walking around the countryside.

Here are a few of the photos from yesterday’s walk to the Tepee Circles:

A receding storm cloud.

Me! Photo by Stephanie Ognar.

One of the tepee circles – the rocks were used to hold down the edges of the tepees in heavy winds. This was a hunting camp that would have been used every year.

Irrigation in one of the alfalfa fields.

Stephanie looking pensive.

The trail that leads up to the Tepee Circles. To have missed this shot would have been criminal.