Usual Sunday

A protein shake to start the day: eight ounces of my current fruit juice mix (currently 50/50 orange-pineapple and cranberry-pomegranate), a banana, and two scoops of protein powder; followed by a 12 ounce cup of coffee that is described by my friends, most of whom are serious coffee people, as 'quite strong'. A cool morning, like today, in the mid-thirties, I pull on an extra layer of clothes, and take a walk down the logging road to get my blood flowing. Yellow leaves, in the slanted morning light, are almost transparent, and the light is a beautiful thing. There's a colored filter that actresses like, called Bastard Amber, that makes everyone look better, and this light is like that. It's warm. I pick up a few branches, that can be broken into kindling, and take them home. When I get there, I sit on the second step of the back stoop and break them into pieces that I store in a Rubbermaid trash can, and fill the five-gallon bucket I keep near the cookstove. Next weekend I need to clear around the woodshed, the path between the house and there, and the path to the outhouse. But for now I just curled up with the Pollard book, a second cup of coffee, and read for eight hours. I have to do this once a week, my sanity depends on it. Geese fly over, and they're taking it south. We get into the whole issue of survival. Bats in the glooming, they flit about like cliff-swallows. It's very quiet, with the house closed up. I don't need much heat, so I let the fire in the stove burn out, and click on one of the oil-filled electric radiators, to hold the temperature overnight. They'll be a frost in the bottoms tomorrow morning, but it won't get below 38 degrees on the ridge, because of the way cold air flows down hill. The summer of yore, though, has come and gone, and I best be securing some hatches and battening down the sail. A reef or two extra, just to be on the safe side. When a winter wind blows at 60 or 80 mph, and the snow is moving horizontally, it's good to know you have a place to hole up.