Fall Meals

Soups, of course. A kale soup with chorizo and chick peas that I'm fond of, various game stews (my hunting and trapping friends will be leaving dead animals on the back porch), ham and bean soup, squash soup, fish and shellfish soup. Cornbread and polenta, the winter's supply of cornmeal and grits arrived. When I buy something at the supermarket now, if it's a thing I use regularly, I buy an extra one. I need a gallon of olive oil. Split another couple of rounds of the oak this afternoon, but I was feeling it in my back, after working hard yesterday, so I just went for a walk. Mindless, stopping to feel the texture of leaves. I always forget how beautiful it is, when the slanted light rakes the hillside. Casseroles, right? we were talking about dinner. Rolling thunder, more rain. better go. Rained like a mule peeing on a flat rock. I catch enough water to see me through the immediate future, I think there is no more than that. The immediate future I mean. I make a force-meat against hunger. Chicken livers and mushrooms; slivered hard cheese and sweet pickles. Two in the morning and I don't know where I am. Your sofa or mine. More rain and my firewood plans are shot. Supposed to be sunny on Thursday, so if I get the other eight rounds split I can haul everything then. Worked on editing myself for a few hours, then read a Michael Connelly novel to give my head a rest. In a break between squalls I got a small walk. Luminous fungi on a log, two crows, a log-truck laboring on the road below. County politics, some favors change hands. A logging concern has gained rights to harvest a large section of timber but the access had been closed. New culverts are installed, some grading, some gravel hauled; THEN they can't go out the convenient way, out Mackletree and onto 125, because of a bad bridge, they have to go other way, up Mackletree and out Upper Twin, but the road is a mess. Repair on top of repair. So the county paves that end of Mackletree, Chip-And-Seal, which is just hot asphalt and gravel. Enough repair to get the timber out. This is transparent. All that it means to me is that for three miles I have to drive very slowly, so I can pull off the road if a log-truck is coming the other way. There are a great many things that threaten you every day, that you don't see; the least you can do is avoid the things you can see.