Yearly Raid

I made my yearly raid on Tim Horton's. They make this huge display of fall root vegetables and I rescue some, before they rot. Cream of squash soup for the winter. Christmas in jail. They missed the point. The days are getting longer, thank god, and the woodpeckers are active. Rain, as projected, and I put out my pickle buckets to collect water; then caramelize an onion, and put on the meaty ham bone to simmer. It was one of those expensive cured and smoked, spiral cut hams, so I forgo any salt, and just add freshly ground black pepper. I'm two dollars into this pot of soup, and it should make six meals. Cornmeal, for the bread was free. A sidebar (everything is a sidebar): Joel had sent me some cornmeal and grits that were the best I had ever had, and I immediately ordered some more, Logan Turnpike Mills (loganturnpikemill.com), then wrote them an email about how good their products were, and told them about John Thorn's wonderful essay on grits, and they responded by sending me some free cornmeal. I elected to not go to Drew's holiday celebration, because the driveway is a mess, I'm warm, and the house smells wonderfully like ham and onions. The guest list was completely to my liking, but weather like this, I'd rather just stay at home. A group of people I care about, but that know me well enough to know why I'm not there. I don't have a problem with being alone, not to say that I'm not occasionally lonely, but I always have about ten things I'm reading, and I can always make soup. Rain and more rain, I can only imagine the napp at the spillway. After a walk outside, I smell like a wet dog. I have a lot of rain water, so I make myself a bath, in the sheep watering trough, next to the stove, and scrub off some layers of grime. Four hours later, I scrape the last meat off the bone with a tablespoon, and eat the marrow slathered on toast, add a couple of cans of Great Northern beans to the pot and turn off the heat. A great soup is mostly a matter of circumstance. I had this ham-bone and bought a couple of cans of beans. One of the best soups I've ever eaten. Right up there with clam chowders on Cape Cod. I have to go, it's raining hard.