Cold Morning

A little slow getting up. Had to start a fire as the house was cold. I could have just suited up and gone outside, but I wanted a second cup of coffee. The annual 'Food Issue' of the New Yorker came yesterday and I wanted to read for an hour or two and let the world warm a bit. Then walked down and did a little work on the driveway, pulling wads of leaves out of the grader ditch. Spent several hours leaning dead branches, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, against tree trunks, so I could find them later, then filled the kindling bucket, lunched (late) on chorizo and scrambled eggs, with toast and jalapeno jelly. I'm needing to eat more. Friends have advised that I back off even more, from the physical part of my life, but I don't think I can. I need to be using my body, I need to be outdoors. The smell, the touch, and the sound of it. The weather service is saying we'll have our first frost Saturday. Kill the damn bugs, I hope we do. I have a variety of wood to choose from, to heat the house, before the oak has lost it's surface moisture; and even then, I capture that moisture to humidify the house. I like some humidity in the air, it allows me to sing the high notes. And when I'm sleeping, I dream the rest of it. I work through the afternoon, taking breaks for hot tea and various snacks, and I finally just stopped, came inside with an armload of knots and burls to get through the night. Still early, but I'd put in my hours and I wanted to clean up and sit at my desk. Read some fiction. I looked like shit warmed over, a grimy sweatshirt, tattered jeans, a few minor cuts (fucking blackberry canes) replete with dried blood and I heard a, what do they call them, a four-wheeler, coming up the driveway. Great, I thought, just what I need, company. It was a geographer with the Park Service, vested out in fluorescent color, with a GPS wand on a stick, and Goggle Earth on a laptop. He wasn't getting any reception and wondered where the hell he was. I walked him over the bounds, tried to explain that this particular place was off the grid, a magnetic anomaly. I think he thought I was making it up, and he walked around, waving his wand. I live for these moments.