Wood Work

Probably could have gotten to work, but didn't. Roads were fairly bad and I don't have my 4-wheel drive. Worked on firewood, hauling, cutting, splitting. Melted snow for wash water. Six inches of snow and temps hovering in the low teens. Broken sun, for a short while, then back to flurries. A windless, muffled silence. I split a billet of Osage orange, for some nighttime logs. A difficult wood, very stringy, very strong, very dense (.95 specific gravity) but the color was so spectacular, when I finally got the round split in half, that I just sat and studied it for a long time, smelled it, felt it. Intense orange-gold saturated color. I'm sure it contains some kind of silica, because it certainly does dull a chain. Split some sycamore, also a pain in the ass, no straight grain, but it burns well. It's a lovely wood, really, pale, pale tan, almost an off-white, with an odd ray pattern and a certain iridescence when it's first split. One length of slippery elm, not large, three sticks out of it, but I peel out some of the inner bark and chew it. Soothing, but kind of nasty. Remember Tyrone Slothrop in "Gravity's Rainbow" with his box of Thayer's Slippery Elm Throat Lozenges. Some sore muscles, working out the kinks, so I knock off about 3, come inside; snow melted into water is steaming, the stove is stoked and red-lined, I strip down and take a sponge bath, quick dry off, into long underwear. Shave, standing at the kitchen sink, staring at myself in a five inch circular mirror. This is it, pretty baby. That visage that stares back is not aware, merely reflects. All those millions of genuflecting sunflowers in North Dakota are just following the sun. Independent action isn't an easy thing. I mean that as a personal lament, more than as a criticism of anyone else. It's difficult to keep even a part of yourself free, from the influence of the media world. Even if you want to. I make a batch of biscuits, eight large ones, and eat half of them hot with butter and a jalapeno jam a friend makes. My hands are drying and cracking, but not painful yet. Hot biscuits make everything better. Hot biscuits and gravy, you're on your way. Tomorrow I need to remember to bring back in some sausage, a shaker of pre-sifted flour, and black peppercorns. Where I come from, gravy is a beverage.