Firewood

There was a required course at Janitor College, an entry level course, Principles Of Sanitation, taught by a real curmudgeon, Dr. Thadeus Quint. Mostly he railed against the trackers of dogshit into public institutions. I remembered him today because I spent the day working firewood, half-hour on, half-hour off, and due to dog and her pups, I tracked dogshit everywhere. I'd picked up a new Jeffery Deaver novel, especially to read on my breaks today, and as if to further exasperate my patience, the prose was uniformly excruciating. I threw it across the room and reread some Jim Harrison essays. Made progress on the wood, though. Cut and split most of what was in the woodshed, then policed the yard, pulling sticks I had brought home during the summer from the weeds and leaning them against trees, so they could lose their surface moisture before I put them in the shed, then hauled two truck loads of pre-cuts from the driveway. Filled the woodbox, split kindling and small stuff. A day like this, I just burn various knots and branches, junk really, but enough to warm the house, heat water to wash my hair and take a sponge bath. A very quiet day, no wind, just the occasional dried leaf giving up the ghost and spiraling down. I don't speak to anyone, mumble a few words that occur to me, yell once at the dog when she clogs the path between the woodshed and the house. I make a small batch of chorizo to form a couple of patties to have on a split toasted biscuit with salsa. It exceeds my expectations. Tiny versions of these would be great finger food. I eat the larger version with a fork, with my right hand, while I hold a book in my left, a treatise on fly-fishing. It's so still outside, right now, that a falling leaf is an event, and the quiet is absolute. All the sounds I hear I make myself. Moving my chair, grunting, that restricted cough when I take a toke. Dr. Quint made the point that there were accidents, but that when there was a horizontal pattern, it usually just meant someone was trying to get shit off their shoe.