We drove through the torrent and flood of North Texas yesterday to arrive in Cookson Oklahoma, just outside of Tahlequah.

Lisa’s grandparents, Jim and Barbara Martens live right on Lake Tenkiller surrounded by beautiful oaks, fields, and rolling wooded hills, every species of bird my grandparents Craig taught me to know

(the limit of my ornithological expertise), an entire festival of raccoons every night, and the beamed ceilings and paneled walls of a truly homey place that reminds me of September Song, the home on Lake Texoma to which my grandparents retired. Jim is a charming combination of dour and wry while Barbara is loquacious and charming at all times. Jim sets (different from sitting - we southern folks set), Barbara talks or reads, Lisa knits and talks, and I mostly listen when I'm not annoying Jim with genealogical questions or requests for stories.

To make this homey and relaxing visit even better I just finished polishing off three organic, cowdairyless, oatmeal cookies with an entire mug of fresh goat’s milk from Pine Lane Dairy (918-458-1504 - prop. Lisa Turner). The Turner family has Oberhasli dairy goats aplenty on their beautiful land. Barbara played tour guide as she drove us around Tahlequah and then through their crafted stone gates and past the horses, guinea hens, and ranging goats. We scored an entire gallon of fresh goat milk for $7 and a pound of almond-honey chevre for $5. They sell kids, yearlings, dry and freshened does around Easter to supplement their milk, cheeses, yogurt, whey, and (soon) soap! Considering it has a more easily digestible fat and protein content than cow milk, is better for infants, invalids, convalescents, folks with ulcers, and doesn’t require grass pastures (doing well with much less in brushlands and so many other kinds of terrain without having the environmental impact of industrial cattle production), it is no surprise that more people worldwide drink the milk of goats than any other single animal. I’d better stop before I sound too much like an advertisement. My sister, Meghan, would have approved in a big way. Goats are where it’s at, even if cow milk doesn’t make you swell up until you look like a hippo with a goiter (gosh, thanks, Lisa).

On the way to the dairy we heard from Barbara, until recently a local candidate for Cherokee Nation Council, several familiar tales from the political arena about minor candidates lining up behind major candidates playing the usual roles developing the usual themes engendering the usual gossipy spittle. Pandering politicos promising perpetual purses to persuasive people while pointing to recumbent incumbents conned into conservatism by budgetary banditry, or possibly plausible people power purveyors pushing politicians past their prime to put the populace in their primary place. Problematic, to put a point on it.

I’ll end where we began, at the Iguana, near Northeastern State University -- Go Riverhawks! They were until very recently known as the Redmen, but we try not to mention that.

The Iguana is a fabulous new coffeehouse/gathering place in Tahlequah near the campus, with wi-fi, excellent hot and cold sandwiches, and drinks. They also sell all kinds of cool stuff from elsewhere, from Buddhas, sarongs, and masks to Indonesian picture frames (on sale for $2!) two red ones of which we acquired for our new Yellow Submarine apartment walls. If Lisa has her way, and I hope she will, our place is going to be the spiffiest ever.

Though I'll have to go elsewhere to upload this to the net, I’m writing at the kitchen table in the presence of the aforementioned flora and fauna spread before me by the grace of five floor-to-ceiling windows. In short, life is good.

Labels: cafe, daily, family, travel