Migratory Restlessness

Briefly entertained the idea of a road trip, dismissed it as too expensive, then thought about a trip to Columbus, a night in a motel and a day at the art museum, which I might do. There are a bunch of funky little galleries on High Street, and the ethnic food places are everywhere, lunch at the North Street Market where's there's a small wine shop that carries Ridge zins and Frank Family Farms cabs. Remember to take a cooler for the seafood (mussels!) and the cheese coming back. Treat myself, before I have to get busy on the art of survival. I'm looking forward to it. I have all fall to get a few things done (I built this house in five months) and except for the two days I need to spend crawling around under the house, they are actually things I like doing: splitting kindling, stacking firewood, considering a winter's menu, stocking the larder. Winter reading isn't a problem, between B's library and mine there are ten thousand books to be read. I got sucked into a radio story today, about a young girl who had been, they used the word 'rendered' as in the verb form of rendition. I had to mute the radio and kill the breaker for the refrigerator. Render, for me, is always in the ballast of Moby Dick, I can't not think about oil lamps and trimming my wicks. Rendering a 12 year-old girl seemed excessive to me, but I don't judge the habits of others. Speaking of try-pots, though, I do render chickens skins when I make certain dishes with chicken thighs, and I end up with a tasty treat AND lovely chicken fat to fry eggs for several days. One time in Mississippi several of the good old boys came out to the farm and we spent the afternoon rendering the fat and skin of a large hog into lard and cracklings. Corn bread, with a cup of cracklings added to the batter, is incredibly good. Whale cracklings are probably pretty good too, but they were used to fire the try-works. Melville as a food and travel writer. Any excuse to reread Moby Dick, which I added to the winter list, along with Hesiod and the other early observers of the natural world. Mid-winter, I'll read for 6 or 8 hours a day, I have to plan for that, a list is handy, and a pile of books, pre-selected from the stacks. I avoid cabin fever, and major depressions, by having a good selection of books at hand. Dorothy Sayers has saved my life several times, George V. Higgins, most recently I've been reading about salt, the way they leach out at various saturations.