Warm, Fog

Forties before dawn, thunder showers, lightening, rain hard at times. Late light because of the overcast and everything is gray. Dense fog early, warm air, moisture and frozen ground. A lovely day. Split some wood, froe out some kindling; tomorrow need to spend several hours working up the week's wood tomorrow, another day in paradise. B over for an afternoon coffee and we make plans to cook together one night this coming week. Interesting by-product of the trip to Florida, making some assumptions, is that because I use very soft water (rain) most of the time, treated water is terrible on my hands. Undergoing a complete change-over of skin, using so much lotion I can't grip anything. Burning very dry oak, I need to remember to use a glove to load the stove, splinter control is becoming an issue. My body is a chronicle of lapses, sloughing skin, minor punctures, hammered nails, but I never was pretty, so in the great scheme of things, as long as I don't break any bones, I should be ok. Picked up a couple of sacrificial sweat shirts at the Goodwill. I never wash these, wear them once or twice or even three times, cutting a new path, and they're shredded. They cost a buck and save better garments the wear and tear. Wore a red, hooded, Riding Hood thing out to the graveyard this afternoon, looked like the village idiot, but, then, I usually don't give a shit about what I look like and today was no exception. I wanted to count graves and it was a perfect day for that. Fall leaves collected in slight depressions turn black in early winter rains. I count 27 but that number doesn't mean much. I really don't know what I'm seeing, some of them are probably just cracks in the hard-pan, like the pot-holes on the driveway. There are 17 marked with either head-stones or foot-stones or both, all of them face east. Sitting there, foam block on a stump, I want to dig one of them up, to see how deep they're buried, to study the confirmation, but I won't, but I think about it. I have trouble living with me, no wonder I've made a hash of relationships. Bought the smallest flank steak I could find at Kroger, pounded it out even more, rolled it around Linda's Green Tomato Chutney, tied it in a tube. Cooked in a very hot oven for less than ten minutes, brushed with a butter-lime juice-maple syrup. Green beans cooked with new potatoes and a couple of slices of B's home-cured bacon. I would have cried but there was no one to see me all warm and fuzzy, and I was way too intent on just eating. Black and gray, no white, no color, the landscape is defined, late February it might bore me, probably not, but right now it's like a charcoal sketch I live within. Almost unbearably beautiful. Anything I do is small price to pay. When I was splitting wood a single crow settled in the dead tree just beyond the outhouse. I hate critics, and he seemed to be making comments about what I was apparently doing, and I attempted to make him take flight, but he wouldn't leave. Nature can be a pain in the ass. Finally, I go inside, get my pouch of tobacco and a beer, roll a smoke, go back outside and engage in a serious staring match with a bird. When he squawks, I squawk, not to be outdone, I introduce a few new notes, he responds. I have to think about what constitutes communication, I'm pretty sure I'm talking with a bird, maybe just at a kinder-garden level, but talking nonetheless. I communicate with a fox, I have an intricate relationship with a doe and two fawns who live between me and the driveway, where they are perfectly safe, but our relationship is shaky, they don't completely trust me, and who could blame them, I don't trust me. Not completely. I have a history of shooting myself in the foot. Metaphorically, you know what I mean. We all engage in this. The usual bullshit. Very little is what it seems.