Broken Toe

The little piggy that stayed home. I'm sure all the toes have names, but I don't know them. The longest toe, next to the big toe, on my left foot, took a blow from a stick of firewood, and I went down like a rock. Should make walking in and out even more of an adventure. I'd gone out to get an armload of firewood, a chore I've accomplished 10,000 times before without ever breaking a toe. The wood was frozen and the top piece just slipped off. It was before dawn this morning, guided by the back porch light, as I often am, a billet of Osage Orange, probably the heaviest wood in North America, one of, with Live Oak and whatever that species called Ironwood on Cape Cod. The field care for this injury is to tape the damned thing, with a splint of tongue-depressor stick, to the big toe, the one that went to market. Hurts like a bastard, but what's done is done. Like the Tao says: "I am not this fragile body." Needless to say, I don't work on firewood, don't do anything really, but keep my foot elevated and read. My toe turns a beautiful shade of purple. The snow melts all day, and I see dark spots of earth emerging, where some heat was mysteriously stored. I don't pretend any knowledge, the edge of a rock, or a dark leaf protrudes, it heats in the sunlight, BTU's are conducted. Thermodynamics. Finally had to drink a couple of stiff whiskeys and go to bed. Still hurt this morning but I had to get to the museum, to finish some things and get started on the floor. The walk down, on rotten snow, was painful. Gingerly awkward. I have the museum to myself until D comes over from the print shop where he's doing some letterpress work for grad school and we do the signage on the entry wall. Sara shows up, thrilled to see us, and tweaks a few things. I leave early, worried about the walk back up the driveway, but going up is actually a bit easier than going down, still, difficult enough, and I felt like I'd been beaten with a stick. Prone, on the sofa, with my foot elevated, for a hour, reading the Food Issue of the New Yorker Sara had saved for me. Not really hungry but I manage a bowl of cheese-grits and some toast. Just at dusk, there is 50% ground and 50% snow. The Ohio will flood with all this run-off, the debris fields should be spectacular since we haven't had a flood in a while. I need to cut up everything in the woodshed and clear the back for loading as there is always a lot of pre-cut firewood amongst the wrack. Picked up two more rounds of pine, 2 foot diameter, to split for next year's kindling. Off-cut slabs of oak are available, at a sawmill down the creek, for $20 a pick-up load, and I'll get a couple of loads of those, for splitting into starter sticks. Stopped by the Goodwill today, and picked up a couple of heavy canvas tote bags, that I can cut down the sides and have a pair of nifty firewood carriers, so that the 'arm-load' of wood would be a thing of the past. Once bitten. Those of you who can walk out the door and be at your vehicle, and even more, those who walk out to a garage, open the door, and start a vehicle that isn't covered in snow and ice, I salute you. In the slush, at the bottom of the driveway, even in 4-wheel drive I have little control; I sort-of park and step out into mud. I thought my house was dirty before. I might start spending February some place else. Mexico. My outside thermometer was sheared off the wall by a cascade of snow from the metal roof. I don't even know how cold it is. A dearth of information. Two taps means yes, one is no, listen closely, some of the taps are almost always echoes.