Always Something

The Compost Games. Like clockwork. There are only three dogs left in the young pack, and they're looking pretty good, but I never saw the advantage of being loud. It is warmer, and the air is thick with the coming rain. I should have done my laundry. I need one of those wind-up weather channel radios. When I was in town more often, someone was always telling me what weather was coming, it's good to know when it's going to be below zero. New tires and rear shocks on the Jeep are a priority and I have to work through the logistics of that: dropping it off, spending the day somewhere, getting a ride back to pick up the vehicle. You live alone, these things become problematic. I can spend the day at the library and the coffee shop, TR can ferry me one way and I can walk the other. I hate the idea of spending a day in town doing nothing, but I don't see a way around it. Nothing is relative, I could spend a few hours in the University Library, reading about the Humanists, or walk down on the riverbank, go flirt with the girls on Market Street, or just read a novel in the front room of the pub. I'll get home, the fire will have died and the house will be cold. Little care, I can start a fire, I can keep my core above freezing. I don't remember falling asleep, but got up to pee and it was coons and a possum on the compost pile, glowing red eyes in my flashlight beam. They don't move except to swivel their heads and look at me. I spend most of the day restoring a couple of pieces of cast-iron cookware, which was way down on my list, but seemed like a good idea at the time. It's so warm outside that even the small fire I maintained to dry and cure the cookware (250 degrees) is enough to keep the house balmy. Last step is to rub the pieces completely with peanut oil and bake for an hour. During which time, after double checking everything on my leaving-the-house-with-a-fire-going list, I take a walk to gather some acorns. I want to make some acorn / cornmeal cakes suitable for winter hikes. Suddenly the day was over and I didn't feel like I'd accomplished very much, but I felt good about the way I'd spent my time. Cleaning cast-iron I always think about Herbert, at The Cape Playhouse, because he collected cast-iron in every manifestation and I cleaned hundreds of pieces with him. Herbert was special. He was a genius, an intuitive engineer, and a master of small detail. Hard to believe now, that I was seventeen when I first went to work for him and his partner, Helen, one in the great tradition of scenic painters. Tromp l'oeil was perfected at the Paris opera house, and she was a master. Apprentice in a place like that and the bar gets set rather high; deceiving the eye, acting, the nature of reality. I fall back on my ignorance, I thought everyone knew it was a performance. Thoreau went home for Sunday dinner. I settle for Spam and a piece of toast, there no place I'd rather go. Read more...

Reflection

Re-broadcast of the Ig-Noble awards and it's a cute and funny hour in a nerdy way. Science as amusement. I could certainly win one for either my extensive study of tadpoles or the unwritten but well researched subject of twig-and-leaf dams in grader ditches. It's not uncommon for me to go several days without speaking, which strikes me suddenly, when I realize people speak incessantly. Banter. Even the town crazy, Moony, whose name is Richard, can go on forever. I occasionally buy him a beer, late in the month, when he's always broke, just to listen to him talk. He's extremely paranoid but quite coherent. He plays the keyboard well, which doesn't seem that odd, musicians being what they are, court jesters, and he knows a lot of Hank Williams' songs. To see me talk, I'd probably be arrested: ranting around outside in my bathrobe with a knit hat and fingerless gloves. I usually restrict this to the back porch, where I'm less likely to get shot. There ain't no money in poetry, that's for goddamn sure. Fair curve. Anything in G. Soon as I came outside I could see that the far front tire had to be flat, I don't have a lug-wrench, and the large SUV version of Fix-A-Flat wouldn't work. Call B and he comes up but his lug-wrench, but it doesn't fit my lugs. He loaned me his car so I could run into town and buy a wrench, stopped at the library, got whiskey; B drove me back to the ridge. When things are not going my way, I usually stop doing anything and read. An older Thomas Perry novel I'd missed. Excellent diversion. Another flat gray sky, it's supposed to get warmer and rain. I need to clean leaves from the grader ditch, and I need to dump the composting toilet, which is going to involve turning the compost heap. I haven't gotten around to making the ham and bean soup yet, because the deer heart intervened, but it's on my list. Lug-nuts are metric. The Jeep Liberty is made in Toledo, Ohio, so why are the lug-nuts metric? 19mm tells me nothing. Not the day I had imagined. I had imagined being sore from hauling and splitting wood, bitching and moaning, but having soup and cornbread at the end of the day. Made do with fried potatoes and sausage, a couple of perfect fried eggs, and several slices of toast. I have an old wedge of Romano that I shave, occasionally, with a vegetable peeler, and I love it toasted. Read more...

Outside Pressure

After a nap, I cleaned up from dinner, then, finally, cleaned out the fridge. I needed the six-quart cast-iron pot to make soup, which meant cleaning, drying, and re-treating. I had collated various dabs of waste into another pot which needed to be buried in the compost heap, so I put on my bathrobe and slippers, then my headlamp. I keep a shovel outside the back door and was not surprised to find it snowing. Lovely, and not that cold, 25 degrees, and it only takes a few minutes to bury the food scraps, dump the stove ashes and the piss-pot. I lingered, smoking a cigaret and tracking snowflakes in the beam of my light. Back inside I washed the final pot, then dumped the dishpan, stoked the fire, and got a wee dram of single-malt. I would have watched an old movie, sentiment counts for something, but I don't have a TV. It's so quiet, after I kill the breaker for the refrigerator, that I stopped reading Swedenborg, which is incredibly boring, and just stared into space. It's not actually silent. The stove makes a myriad of sounds. Two layers of cast iron, temperature differences, expansion and contraction; and the leaves, outside, are subject to the least disturbance; so it's never completely quiet. Eight inches of new snow, on a February morning, without electricity, trapped on a ridge-top, is close; but even then, the house creaks, and branches break under load. Cage indicated that we should listen closely. Wait, Read more...

Turkeys

I had been watching this flock for several days. They'd been working across the ridges and down in the hollows for days. I could hear them quite clearly this morning, so I stayed inside, and about 9:30 they got to what passes as my yard (loosely described as the area I can see) and I could watch them closely. Sixteen or twenty of them, it's very difficult to count turkeys because they rarely stop moving. They posted a couple of guards and the rest of them started rooting around like hogs in the underbrush. They're incredibly noisy when they feel safe, but when one of the guards gives the 'danger' vocalization they're all instantly quiet and on full alert. I love them. When they move through an area it's looks like a mini-tornado has passed. It's exhilarating to watch them. The wildest of the wild. Everything is anti-climatic after watching turkeys in the morning. Scattered snowflakes are an accent to the day and I'm struck with the fact that they both signify and don't signify. Now I have a kind of spatula I cut from clear plastic, a crude implement, that I store outside, so that it stays cold, on which I can catch snowflakes and look at them for a second or two. They are quite beautiful. Which leads to consideration of fractals, and then to a discussion of beauty. "My nose, Sir?" Or Beckett at the end with just a mouth. Truth and beauty are strange bed-fellows, usually it's one or the other. I wrapped a sweet potato in foil and put it in the back of the firebox, then stuffed the heart with minced shallots and baked it on a bed of onions with red wine. Made a very nice onion jam out of the drippings. A non-traditional Thanksgiving meal, but quite good. I ate at the island, with a nice fire behind me, and a large book opened to an early map of Florida. There are times that a map is better than text. This one, 1780-1800, it's hard to be exact, is correct, for the most part. I know the middle part of the St. John's River very well, and there is a hook of land, south of Greencove Springs, that has always been known as Catfish Point. I once camped on the opposite side of the river and ran drifting hooked jugs baited with chicken guts, and made $87 one night, which was the most I had ever made in a single day up until that time, and thought then, that what I wanted to do was live on the river. I'm wiser now, but I still wish I had. Mindlessly filleting catfish looks pretty good, the alternative is what? voting for one crook over another. Read more...

Standard Practice

Power was out again this morning, and Alice, at Adams County Rural Electric said that they were replacing the failing piece of equipment that had caused the last outages. Told me they would be done by noon. Went outside and hauled wood, then split some. I'll split more tomorrow, as I seem to do on holidays. I wandered off to the west, harvesting a couple of small dead poplar saplings, and I found two perfect deer beds. The leaf layer was ideal for preserving them. Shallow ovals (they sleep curled), uniformly dried. They're a lovely artifact of nature. A few flakes of snow, nothing, really, but a reminder; and I got turned around. I was thinking about minnows, got distracted and walked about a bit before I found the graveyard. Then it was an easy path home. Cold, but I caught the fire, fried potatoes and sausage, then scrambled eggs with them, topped with Kimchi. Toast with a very bitter marmalade. Excellent. I could get a job in a Korean diner in the combat zone. Usually I make my own sausage, just because mine is better, but sometimes I buy something I haven't seen before, and I found a great, local, whole hog sausage that is as good as anything I make. Late afternoon and there's some gunfire, deer hunters, and I make a note to stay out of the woods for the rest of the weekend, lucky I didn't get my ass shot off earlier. Sure enough, two good-old boys show up just before dark, needing a ride down to their truck and permission to haul a dead deer across my property and down my driveway. I have to re-boot, bank the fire, and pee. They're standing at the staircase, while I make sure the house is safe, nothing plugged in, nothing on the stove. One of them said that I must read a lot. There are 36 feet of bookshelves, floor to ceiling, piles of books on every flat surface, and several precarious stacks of journals on the floor. Yes, I said. It was a race against the dark. Drove them down, they were parked a mile up the road, where the church used to be. They followed me back up and parked at the top of the hill, I turned around, so I could shine my headlights on their truck, they dumped accessories (they carried a lot of accessories) and took their very good LED flashlights back into the woods. I had a nip of single malt and rolled a smoke, sitting on their tailgate. It was a nice young buck, two-years old, six-point, and I had the better knife. I got the heart, which they didn't want, and finally got them on their way; got back home, heated water, washed up, trimmed and cleaned the heart, and considered the fact that I had too much food. I have to eat the heart tomorrow, fresh organ meat, I can freeze the veal, and thank god I didn't start cooking the beans. A thin sliced heart sandwich, with horseradish sauce, is a gift from the gods. Remind me to tell you about the year it snowed in August. Imagine that. Read more...

Absolute Calm

A beautiful day. Slept in after staying up when the power came back on. Warm enough inside that I could take a sponge bath, wash my hair, and shave my neck. It feels wonderful to be clean. To town early, trying to avoid the crush at Kroger, but it was still a zoo. I just needed a couple of things and the self-checkout was empty as everyone was buying cartloads of holiday food. Stopped at the pub for a pint and a bowl of soup, went to the library, then drove down below the flood wall to stare at the river for a little while. Came home the back way and drove about 10 mph on the last 7 miles through the State Forest. Three trees had been cleared from the road and I got several nice pieces of bone dry firewood to split into kindling. Stopped by B's place, had a beer and talked about books. Part of the roof on his barn was ripped off by the wind yesterday and he'd managed a repair despite the gale. I don't think I could have done it, but's he's one tenacious bastard when it comes to doing something that needs to be fixed in the instant. An especially valuable characteristic when you live an isolated existence. My plan is to spend part of tomorrow splitting firewood, then clean out the fridge, then make the soup; two out of three would be good. I need to make the soup because it's so much better the next day. I buy these packages of cured ham trimmings when they're on sale, half-price, three bucks a pound, soak them in milk overnight, to get rid of most of the salt; the next day I caramelize the diced ham bits with the onions, cook a pound of navy beans in chicken stock, mix them together with some finely chopped chilies and let it simmer for eight hours. Then let it rest, and eat it the next day. I usually have a bowl green, because I can't wait; make a pone of cornbread and dig in; but the next day, with toasted left-over cornbread, this is one of the legendary meals. The toaster oven is one of the great inventions, and cornbread, with its irregular surface, browns beautifully. Thick ham and bean soup on a trencher of toasted corn bread has got to be a nearly perfect food. Grape tomatoes and water-cress with a balsamic dressing on the side. And I picked up a nice old-vines zinfandel to wash everything down. B asked me down to his family dinner, but we both knew that I already had plans. I'll eat soup and salad, take a walk, maybe call up a turkey. Maybe I'll see the fox. Probably not. Read more...

Storm Front

Warm wind, almost a gale, then rain. The rustle of stick branches and the sound of the storm, roaring like a train across the ridge tops. I sit in the dark and listen for a long time. It's so elemental. Sheets of rain and the occasional snap and thud when a branch crashes down. The roads will be littered, but most of the country boys carry a chainsaw in the back of their truck, and I don't have to go to town tomorrow, or anywhere for that matter. Put on my headlamp and go get a wee dram, roll a smoke. I'm battened down, these aren't dire straights, it's just a storm. I remember a night in Utah, I'd driven into a remote location, then hiked several miles to a chert deposit that had been used for thousands of years. There was a shelter there, not so much a cave as an overhang, the walls were covered with images, hand-prints and animals, and I spent the night there, while a spring snow storm, lit with lightning, roared outside. One of the great nights of my life. I felt connected, which I feel tonight, with the howling wind and the sheets of rain slashing across the roof. It's so violent. Reminds you of the delicate balance we maintain with nature. She's a cruel mother preparing you for a cruel world. Listen to the wind, child, to see which way it carries us. Dawn, the power was out, and the wind had actually picked up. Still had a telephone, which was surprising, so I called the power company. Seems a great many people were without, but a harried woman told me I should be restored by five o'clock. The wind blew between 50 and 60 mph all day. I tried working outdoors but it was too damned windy, I kept getting shit in my eyes, so I came inside and read. Needed to finish up several books so I can reload for the holiday. Ham and bean soup and stuffed acorn squash on the menu. I almost started rereading "Mason and Dixon" last night, but decided to save it for a snowed-in stretch. Settled on reading John Thorne, I love his essays. Went on to lose power and get it back four times during the course of the day and evening. Finally lost it again after dark and just went to bed. Came back on at three in the morning and it was like being inside a wind-up toy: radio, refrigerator, several lights. A celebratory drink and a smoke. The wind had died completely, spent. I had some baked beans on toast and an avocado with lime juice, then bundled up and sat on the back porch. Quiet, still, and very dark. There's an owl, close by, and then I hear a coal-train over in Kentucky. Warren Buffet bought Dura-Cell which is a pretty clear indicator that storing energy is the wave of the future. One or two lightning bolts a year would power a small town. On the local level, 4:44 in the morning, I clean out the fridge. A small amount of waste, five or ten percent, and instead of burying it in the compost pile, I just spread it out on a plank. Someone might as well eat it. Listen to some Bulgarian music. Read more...

Changing States

Solid to liquid to vapor. Some days you get it all, other days not so much. I was talking with B about reading poetry, which we both do nearly every day, and how the moment came when you could hear it in your brain. Talked with TR about the opera today, then called him this afternoon and talked some more. I'm beginning to hear something. It has to do with memory, fireflies, and the seasons. Because of the cold, I stopped shaving several days ago, and I can't decide whether I'm growing a beard or not. I didn't shave for twenty years, then I liked shaving, because I felt clean, and it seemed to clear my mind, now it doesn't matter: I'm never clear and I don't give a shit what anyone thinks. Posit not making sense, which is almost impossible, you make sense whether you mean to or not. The rest of us get it, all we need is a clue. I needed to split wood, bring a few ricks inside, but it's supposed to be fifty degrees tomorrow, and I figured what the fuck, I ain't dead yet, and I'd rather read now and split wood tomorrow. D calls, from thirty miles north, wondering if I'm ok, and I assure him things are fine. What we have here is a frozen crust, and I can deal with that. Side-tracked by researching various popes in the Britannica, which was great fun. I feel like I'm getting a handle on the 14th century. Further distracted by the fox strutting up the driveway. She's so fucking cute. She slips off into the woods, heading toward the graveyard. I know her den is there, but I've never looked for it. I don't want to know where it is. It's not like I don't care, but I like the mysteriousness. Make a note to buy a bag of cheap apples. They're our main method of communication. Mice for the crows and apples for the fox. Big winds coming tonight, so I have to be ready to shut down, I'm saving everything. The wind makes a strong statement on the ridge, when the leaves are gone and there's no mediation. Dead trees will take out the power lines tonight. I have my headlamp and a decent fiction. Read more...

Plain Stupidity

I stop to help get some horses off the road, yell at them and wave my arms. I know very little about horses, just that they're large and have a mind of their own. I've known a few, but never established the bond I had with a castrated goat in Colorado. You could look for meaning in that. But Clyde was the most perfect Zen teacher of all time. He'd look at you, and chew his cud. You had to question everything you'd ever done. A goat could teach you that. Lovely morning though quite cold and I decide to get into town and back before the driveway thaws. Library. Pub, a beer and a cup of soup, then stop at Kroger, back-up cream and juice, the makings for a ham and bean soup. Easily up the driveway. Ice everywhere, the grader ditch is frozen, and I can see the frozen wet-weather springs on the opposite side of the hollow. After three dreary days it's nice to see the sun. Outside, I collect kindling (any dry branch I can break across my knee) and bow-saw some starter sticks. Then I went back out and walked down the drainage channel Scott had cut to drain the puddles that had been the former frog ponds. It's clear of prickles, because it's recent, though it is filled with leaves, eight inches of leaves. Still, it allows unimpeded access into deep woods, and that's a cool thing; I spend an hour looking at things that are still green, certain ferns amaze me. The under-story is interesting, it's so protected, and I spend hours thinking about that. Walking back home, in a trance, I hadn't realized I'd gotten cold. The fire was out, I needed to rake out the ashes, but first I had to change my socks. It was several hours later before I made a pone of cornbread and ate left-overs. Reading about the Papacy. Bunch of greedy idiots. The early history, before the Papal State, is fascinating. It's like reading about the history of Las Vegas. Urban the VI, Gregory the XI, Pius the II, simony. Fortunately, there was a new world, where we could kill the inhabitants and take over. And by then we had gunpowder. It's a tangle, the 14th and 15th centuries, gunpowder, paper, and printing presses. Walled cities were only ever a stop-gap measure; forget how to farm, and there is no bread. You can eat rats and song-birds, barnacles and sea-bird eggs, but you need bread. Hard winter wheat. Read more...

Frozen Drain

It warms to almost freezing but everything is still frozen. I have to wash dishes in a dishpan and throw the water outside, not a big deal, just don't throw the water where you need to walk. Slops go off to the side. The muffled sound of snow is oddly reassuring. Us rednecks tend to die in harness. Queen Maud. Three crows calling for their dues. I don't maintain that any of it makes sense, but I play the game. It's supposed to get bitter cold again almost immediately, but, for the moment, the house is warm, two in the morning, so I stay up to write for a couple of hours. Made a cheese omelet with toast, read at the island for an hour. Jim Harrison cooking dinner with some hunting buddies at a cabin in the Upper Peninsula. The drain will be frozen for the rest of the winter, but I've found I use less water if I wash dishes in a dishpan, so I don't really care. It's awkward, going out to throw the slops, but I keep a chair (a straight-back porch chair from Selma, Alabama) near the back door and change into studded rubber boots. The dishpan requires two hands, so I'm very careful. I don't like walking on ice without a stick. When I get to town again, and I need a few things, it will have been a week since I left the ridge. A week is good, you need to be able to do a week without thinking about it; a month, if things turn for the worst. What I've learned is that things usually get better. It wasn't an actual threat, it was just a test, what you need to do is pick up the pieces. I could as easily argue that hauling wood could be done mechanically or with hired labor, but it wouldn't be the same. Another cold night, it never did get above freezing yesterday nor today and back down to 10 or 12 degrees tonight. Outside only briefly as I should have Saturday and Sunday to restock the house and it's supposed to get warmer. Had a nice fire going all day and by bedtime I'll have burned an entire rick, which is about as much as is possible to burn. I'll have to leave the electric oil-filled radiator going tonight. I've started bringing the outhouse toilet seat inside and storing it near the stove. I think a ham and bean soup is next. Six books read in the last six days, which is more or less normal, all fiction, so I was glad to hear from the public library that they were holding a couple of things for me. Tuchman's China book, and a book about the Papacy. Thus, a trip to town, but I can pick up a few things, have new books, start a soup on the cookstove, then split wood and build ricks on the weekend; and the driveway is passable, which makes it all possible. Just settled in with a drink and a smoke when I get a call from an old friend in California. I hadn't heard from him in years, but he found me; he said that on Google Earth I showed up as what might be a driveway. The green roof was a good idea. He's still out on the road, the advance man for rock-and-roll shows, he'd found some of my writing somewhere online, and wanted to tell me that he was impressed I was still alive. I had to laugh. Later, after we'd hung up, I sat for an hour thinking about that. Not so much lucky as careful. The last of the stew is hot and the last of the pone of cornbread is toasted. I have to go. Read more...

Several Layers

I slept in a couple of layers last night in the mummy bag. The house was 42 degrees this morning, inside. Another day in paradise. Pull on my robe and slipper socks, pull Linda's hat down over my ears and start a fire. Go back, wrap up in a blanket and listen to NPR, read for a couple of hours. B had passed on the second (in a series, I'm sure) of detective novels by J.K. Rowling. I'd never read her at all, but this is a pretty good book. A great way to get through a frozen morning. That, and thinking about how often I go back, when I'm writing, and change a preposition to a comma. Or add a preposition AND a comma. Wind is sweeping the ridge. My one foray out, I split a couple of rounds, brought some wood inside. It's harsh out, but partly sunny, which is welcome relief. I fear Mac is buried in snow, south of Buffalo, and we just have a dusting here; I'd feel guilty, but he'll be spending the winter in Key West and other points south, and I'll be buried in a snow-drift. The weather isn't such a hurdle if you don't have to fight it. If you don't open the door, you don't let any cold air in. Fuck protocol, I walk around draped in a blanket. Those army wool blankets are the best, but they're getting harder to find. Read more...

Collating Information

God damn it's cold. The stew, however, is extraordinary. Since the stove was going full-time, I caramelized everything. It took hours, but I was just sitting at the island reading. I had left-over juice and bits from the last roast, and had picked up a package of 'rib meat' which I assume to be the outside of a loin, still adhering to the bone, so I seared it with a coating of masa and ground peppers while I roasted root vegetables, then I mixed everything together and left it on the stove overnight. I got up once and stoked the stove with a Live Oak billet, so I cooked this stew for eight hours.If they gave awards for this kind of thing, I won. The natural sweetness and depth of flavor is amazing. It's so good I feel guilty eating it. I made another pone of cornbread, which I split and toasted, and the combination was sublime. I'm suspicious I would be so blessed, surely the wrath of god should follow. Indulgences pave the way. Buy your way to heaven. I sweep the back deck, so I won't fall on my ass, and I sense the presence of the waning moon. I'll deal with the real world later. Fifteen degrees this morning, and windy. Too awful to work outside other than a short walk to collect kindling. B stopped by, to say that if I got too uncomfortable, or the power went out, to come down to his place. I get the house warm enough to survive and heat up the stew. I have another Live Oak log for the nighttime fire. It's supposed to warm above freezing tomorrow. I could get to town, since B got in this afternoon, depends on the weather. For the rest of the winter, I'll go to town when it's possible, not when I choose. You have to think ahead. I don't need anything right now, but if I could get out tomorrow I could get back-up supplies that would see me through the next weather event. Sure, I need to split some wood, but I have to get outside, so what's the downside of that? This kind of windy driven air, heavy with humidity, I'd say there was more snow coming. It smells like carnations (Linda had asked) with no musky overtones. Musky always means rain. My great grandmother thought me that, and eerily, she was always correct. Rattlesnakes do smell like cucumbers. Read more...

Cold Front

The rain wakes me, 2:30 in the morning. I don't usually put it on before Thanksgiving, but I dug out the space-age long-underwear from Colorado because I'll need it, the next few days. Make stew later today. A surfeit of books. TR is on me about the libretto. Turn on a couple of lights and stoke the stove. This is a dangerous part of the day to feel sorry for yourself. I read for a while, fiction; made a cup of smoked tea. Stood at the island and delivered a terrific oration on the various temptations.Top of my form. I try to stay inside myself. B and I were talking about carrying firewood out of the woods: you just think about where the next foot falls, the rest of mind is free to wander. I think about making a stew. Another nap, before dawn, then awaken to that muffled noiselessness that indicates snow. It's lovely. The ground contour, even across the hollow, revealed. Two generations of logging roads. Temps steady falling, twenties now, dropping to ten degrees tonight. I split a Live Oak round I brought back from Florida, a twisted, impossible piece that involved two wedges and the maul, which yielded several nighttime logs. The ribs of 'Old Ironsides' were Live Oak (specific gravity .95, 59 pounds a cubic foot), spaced just four inches apart with four-inch thick White Oak planking. Great firewood, and one of the most beautiful wood-piles I've ever seen was Kim's brother Kurt's pile of split dry Live Oak outside of Tallahassee, Florida. It's brutal outside, with the wind. It gets your attention. I split a few pieces of wood, then walked along the ridge top: no animal tracks, no birds, no sound but the last rattle of the few dead leaves that remain. Coming back home, into the wind, I have to wear a face-mask, have to stop and laugh. I felt like the Pillsbury Dough Boy dressed as a Ninja. I'd let the stove die, so I could clean the air passages (the 'smoke-chase') and dump the ashes. For the next 48 hours I'll have my sweet Irish Belle, Stanley Waterford, going full bore. I'll have to move a chair and foot-stool over near the stove (you have to get your feet up off the floor), and a music stand, for my dictionary; and I'll sleep on the sofa, but that's hardly any adjustment. This is the first weather event, that if I had been still working at the museum, I would have gone into town and holed up there for a couple of nights. Not because I needed the creature comforts, but because I needed to be there the next day. Now I just watch the snow fall. Yes, I am trapped, yes, my Jeep is on top of the hill and I can't get off, yes, I have enough food. It's always whiskey and tobacco that I worry about. I can always eat crow. Working on the conditional. Jesus Christ, I just spent an hour changing a comma back to a semi-colon. The sense of language changes as you parse it. Every little thing matters, Pinter and Beckett, not to mention that incident on the driveway with the fox. Read more...

Bedside Manner

I catch the fire perfectly at 2 in the morning. Rekindle with poplar branches. It's colder than anticipated, with half a moon and a few stars. By 3:30, and half a novel later, it's warm enough in the house that I take off the hooded sweatshirt I sometimes wear over my bathrobe. Balmy. I'm wearing the fingerless gloves Linda knit me, and the watch cap she knitted when she was offstage. I do need to get to town because I need butter, oil, and some bacon. Fried potatoes in the last of the sausage fat and they were wonderful. My right shoulder is a bit sore, from bow-sawing the poplar, but I didn't want to listen to the chainsaw, and a little soreness comes with the game. Pain and suffering. A few scratches from blackberry canes that I wipe clean with alcohol, nothing untoward, I always wipe off the blood when I come inside, take off my boots, shed a layer. Nothing we can't handle. Two phones and a secretary, I could build a bridge. Only half-kidding, because I could build a bridge, but that's not the point. Lost power while I was writing and lost a paragraph. No weather, no wind, just a black-out at an early overcast dark. Read with my headlamp for a couple of hours. Then took a nap. The power coming back on woke me, stoked the fire. Both B and TR have referred to me, in the past week, as an interesting character. The two of them are interesting characters. Split wood and carried a couple of ricks inside against the projected snow and very cold temps. I feel pretty good about who I am right now. Warmed a bit today, and it's rain right now, just before it turns solid. Sleet, then snow. I should be trapped by tomorrow morning. I'll need to spend an hour outside, to replace the rick I'll burn, but I need to cook and clean out the fridge. Which certifies that tomorrow night, on the compost pile, there will be a performance piece. Two coons and a possum go into a bar. Already it's snow, falling straight down. B and I were talking about that, the way snow muffles sound. Read more...

Much Later

The object becomes the subject of change. Note to self. Still below freezing when I get outside. When it gets below twenty degrees it's all about survival and it's supposed to be below twenty the next couple of nights, then snow. I hope to get to town tomorrow for more supplies, but today I loaded up on wood, enough of everything to get through the cold snap. It takes a solid half a day to get ready for a week's fires. Right now I have twenty half-rounds that need to be split into quarters, ten quarters that need to be split for the stove, and another ten barrow loads to bring to the shed. It's a winter-long saga with me. Gets me outdoors. On cold days it's nice to get out and work physically, while the stove gets going. On a day that I don't go out I burn 25% more wood, trying to get the house warmer faster. When I came back inside today I had a good bed of coals and a warm stove, got a hot poplar fire going and then switched right over to oak. I want to get the house warm enough for me to clean up and shave because I won't want to for the next couple of days. The young squirrels are all frantic, stocking their middens. They're both cute and annoying, they chatter all the time and it's a grating sound, like my personal gang of crows (I love that they eat my dead mice, but I hate the sound of their arguing) chowing down on my largess. I don't expect any return on this investment. Dead mice in the freezer is not the coin of the realm. Though it could be the coin of mine. Dry bark and twigs is enough. Starting a fire is easy, once you start a fire. Just a spark is all you need. Cotton-wood pulp, then soft-wood shavings. I write for a couple of hours then crash, totally used up, but I drink a glass of water before I go to bed, so I'll have to get up and pee, when I'll stay up for an hour and restock the stove. Works perfectly, and I catch another bed of coals, stoke them up with poplar then oak splits. I needed another dead poplar sapling today, to fill the wood box, and I had seen two or three out near the outhouse. The bark splits and they get a white mold, easy to identify. I went up to one, maybe twenty feet tall, and just broke it off at the root, hauled it back to the woodshed. It provides both kindling and starter sticks. I had to laugh, I'd broken off the branches and the tip, taken them back to break up as kindling, and I was dragging the sapling back through the blackberry canes. Bent to my chore. And I saw myself from the outside, old dude, ratty clothes, dragging a sapling back home, gap-toothed grin on his face. As good as it gets. Read more...

Arcane Explanation

You can look for that, something that would make sense; in my experience, it's never quite there. But you can look for it nonetheless, a white lily, like Emily presented to Higginson, a field of black poppies, Norton, Virginia. Cold house, so I start a hot fire of poplar and red maple. Ice on the back porch and the leaves crunch when I go out to pee and dump my nighttime piss-pot. Overcast. My three crow friends await their morning repast, so I go back inside and microwave a couple of frozen mice. The field mice are moving back inside. Early in the mouse trapping season they're quite stupid and I catch two or three a night. A Pileated woodpecker arrived and set up quite a drumming in the early morning air. They are a beautiful bird, the crest so vibrant. I love watching them, they're so goddamned industrious they make me feel like a slacker. I don't get everything done that I had intended. Split wood for a while, then walked down the logging road. Slipped into a meditative state in which I pretty much questioned the validity of everything. How did I end up here? Have I wasted my life? Is the reward worth the sacrifice? On the way home I found a nice edible boletus, probably the last mushroom of the season, and I immediately imagined mushroom slices and beans on toast. I have eggs and bread in reserve, I'm a careful guy, for the most part. And it is worth it, whatever price I pay. The biological imperative becomes a footnote. Ultimately you're left with yourself. It's the hard lesson, that we are utterly alone. All that ersatz communication plays into the myth. Those French guys were correct. When I raid the Tim Horton Fall Arrangement for the squash before they rot, I feel I'm doing a public service. Doing right by doing wrong. Read more...

Battened Down

If all the wet leaves freeze on the driveway (20 degrees tonight) it'll be slick as a hockey rink. It was fine today, zero slippage. Went to the library, met TR for lunch; though Brandy, who works with his mother, had arrived before him, and we had a chance to gossip. She left me half of her lunch for my dinner. Excellent. There's some ground veal for half-price at Kroger, so I get a package, with no idea what I'm going to do with it. Meatballs maybe. Supposed to be cold but clear tomorrow, and I'd like to get two more ricks of wood inside, and haul a couple of barrow loads from down the way. Everything is uphill to the ridge. Everyone warned me about the weather today, which is interesting, because I don't have to drive in it and they do, and there's very little chance I'll freeze to death. I pull a chair up to the stove and read for eight hours. Then spend an hour with the dictionaries, checking definitions. I don't qualify as a threat, nor as a defense... I just don't qualify. The temps start falling mid-afternoon, no smell of rain, but I picked up some whiskey and tobacco just in case. I made my yearly raid on Tim Horton's Fall Arrangement of corn stalks and squash. I salvaged three acorn squash and two butternuts, before the freeze could turn them to jelly. Later, I halve one of the acorn squash, putting the seeds in a small bowl of water, so I can clean and roast them, with a little garlic powder and salt tomorrow (I love them). Stuff one half with sausage, and put a tablespoon of orange juice in the other. Prop them up in an iron skillet (I have some small rocks I use as shims) and put them in the oven. I made corn bread. When the squash was done, I took out the sausage half, filled the second half with raspberries and popped it back in the oven. This was a very good meal. I only burned myself once, which is pretty good, considering two extremely hot cast iron skillets. The eggplants were lovely at Kroger today. I want to make a parmigiana with thin slices of cured loin on the side, for which I can buy all the ingredients; but I also want to cure a loin, which is one of those things that I enjoy doing. Make it your own. Read more...

Wood Work

Outside at 8, lovely morning, but clouds moving in and rain tonight. I split enough stove wood for three ricks, one of them of larger nighttime logs. Wheelbarrow them to the back door, then carry them in and dump them on the kitchen floor. I make one trip, with the barrow, to the outside pile of rounds furthest away. Put up my tools, then come inside and stack the three ricks. 2 x 2, twenty splits in a rick. Filled the kindling bucket and split starter sticks. Feels great but I'm a fucking mess, tattered clothes, unshaven, dirty hair, so I heated water. Washed the few dishes, then a wonderful sponge bath, hair wash, and shave. Left-overs for one more night, then I need to either make a pot of soup or a casserole. Meat balls and egg noodles is a possibility. Also, I'm hankering for some fish cakes. I'm more than a little sore, so I self-medicated, thank god I have some left-overs. I have a few minor dings but nothing that required stitches. The house smells great, fresh split chestnut oak giving up it's surface moisture, I'm building a hash with the last of the left-overs, and it smells pretty good too. Another common interest I share with B is making hash, using up everything. I make a duck breast hash, with parsnips, that is fantastic; serve this on a slab of country bread, with a fried egg on top. Now we're talking. Because I have almost everything I need, I decide to cook a stew. A stew, I figure, with cornbread, would cover all the bases. The rain starts just after dark. A Bach cantata. Too tired to think. Dozed off for a couple of hours, listening to the patter song. Woke up to pee, got a wee dram, rolled a smoke, made a cup of tea from willow twigs. I'd overheated the house, burning junk wood from the woodshed; so I stood in the back doorway, in a tee-shirt, until the cool night air had settled me. Temps are supposed to drop thirty degrees tomorrow. I need a few things from town, not actually so much need as simply want, and I need to get down to the bottom of the hill to collect my mail. The rule is that if you get to the bottom of the hill, you might as well go to town. I have things to do there, the library, the liquor store, butter and bread, AND it's the authentic world. What did Emily say. "I only plant perennials." Don't get me started. Read more...

Vade Mecum

Phone is out again. My guy was right out, late morning. He monitors the line now, to see that it's working (for all I know he works for NSA) and calls me in the afternoon, with his handy snap into the line anywhere phone, and tells me he's going to be another couple of hours, so that he can splice in a new piece of line. The line is beat to shit coming into the forest on Mackletree. Dozens of dead trees have fallen on it, the white oaks especially, since the ice storm, and then the fire. I'm a little sore, I have to admit. Slept late because I was back up finishing last night's piece, even if I couldn't send it. Because of circumstances I know that I spent 6 hours writing yesterday's page. That may be typical, I'd be lying if I said I know. Spending so much time alone, I don't differentiate that much between the ways I spend my energy. The Weather Service has given me another day, tomorrow, to get some things done, so I don't work too hard today. A finite but vast amount of wood, and it all needs splitting, but the new system, the hatchet and a three pound hammer, works very well. The last pieces, if they're unsplittable, you just keep as night-time logs. You load them through the top. I don't have a notebook, what I have is a folded sheet of paper: a shopping list and the numbers to call if either my phone or power goes out. Foot-free. I've cut wood in several places, and need to collect the rounds. I'll bust these in half and put them in the back of the woodshed. It's all wheelbarrow work, and I'll need to clip access through the briars, which means I'll be bleeding and bitching. It's fairly brutal, but I love it, and when I get back to the woodshed, with another wheelbarrow load of wood, I tend to kick my heels together. Uncertainty comes into play. A wheelbarrow load of wood might last two days or two weeks, but it's still cause for celebration, and I have 10 or 12 loads yet to haul. Just short of gleeful. I look at this pile of wood and tears come into my eyes. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. Read more...

Taken Alone

Bundled against the chill, sitting on my foam pad on the back stoop. Very dark night, but after a while I can just discern a deep gray where the moon is above thick overcast. I feel a bit fragile and I've never felt that way before, intimidated by what I need to do and uncertain in my resolve. The good news is I've burned all the bridges. It's the ridge or oblivion. I can't imagine what else I'd do. Stopped down at B's, on my way back home, and we talked about books. He'd read the Tuchman and we talked about the 14th century as if were yesterday. The Mid-Term elections. Listen, I retreat to an island in the stream. The stupidity of the electorate, I mean... really. I try not to get sexual or political, our relationship seems to preclude that. I didn't want to damage my body, and as the forecast was for another nice day tomorrow before the outrider of the Alaskan storm arrives, I only split wood for a couple of hours. The oak is lovely, straight grained and sweet smelling. Splitting wood in this new fashion, on my knees with a hatchet and mallet, is very precise and I can split everything, kindling, starter sticks, overnight logs, from a single round. It's interesting and enjoyable work. There's a disconnect that happens when you focus on the task at hand; and there's something about spending a few hours out in the natural world, where the woodpeckers are screeching and the dry top leaves blow in concert, that allows me to give up aspiration. This is fine, I think. The uncertainty of outcome. It's not any political conviction that motivates my action, I'd just rather spend my time alone. Another product of being a military brat, my answer was sitting off in the corner and reading a book. Or finding a brook or pond where I could catch pan-fish. Later, in Colorado, I took to catching trout and cooking them over a twig fire. I enjoy good conversation, but there's something about camping alone, above 10,000 feet, where the only sound is snowflakes melting on the outside of the tent, that seems to me to be absolutely essential. Not that you have to suffer, just that you have to experience. Basho hiking the last few miles to an unheated hut.

The leaves are all dead,
color a thing of the past,
and still the green briar.

This is not me, I mean it's very close to being me, but memory is fickle. I was reminded, recently, that most of what I remembered was fictitious. Over a long life. I had to laugh, what's the alternative? Read more...

Deep Silence

Something woke me. I was napping on the sofa, after reading and writing, and it was so quiet I was sure it had snowed. Put on slippers and a robe, went outside to pee, and it was so still I sounded like a mule pissing on a flat rock. The air was heavy but it didn't smell like snow, not humid enough. Cold enough for hoar frost and a full moon behind layers of cloud so there was dull gray glow. Pleasant. I cracked open a bottle of Irish whiskey and got a wee dram in the glass I favor, rolled a smoke, went back out and sat on the stoop, a foam pad for my bony ass. I had been dreaming, I remembered, about that time my sister stepped on a moccasin that would have bit her, but had a frog in it's mouth. Dad had shipped over and we were spending some time in Tennessee. It's very vivid, in memory; my favorite cousins, a stock pond where we caught the same fish over and over, Aunt Sadie frying sweet potato rounds in bacon fat. Memory often comes from a specific smell, or from hearing a specific sound. Sitting on the back steps, I lost track of where I actually was. I propped the door open and put on the Cello Suites. This usually works for me, in terms of bringing myself back to normal, but occasionally Bach, with his change-ringing, takes me further out. I sat there until I was shivering against the cold, finally came inside and nestled under a blanket. Low thunder. Excellent. A storm would be good. I could hole up and read about the 14th century, butterfly some tenderloin slices and stuff them with wild mushrooms. Dealer's choice. High-Low splits the pot. In the parlance, I'm all in. My sleep habits have gotten wacky. I was having a large breakfast at 3:30 this morning. To town, to meet TR and see the new shows at the museum. Drew did a great job with the historic photographs show upstairs. Odd thing about the trip was that the driveway has completely disappeared under many layers of leaves. I know where to drive, but especially coming back in, it was comical. The Miss Ohio pageant is at the university theater, this weekend I guess, and the judges came into the pub for lunch with last year's queen, and I saw several of the contestants around town. Of a type, a kind of plastic ideal of beauty. One thing though, they really know how to apply makeup. Twenty years in theater I know good makeup. I never worked this pageant, the years I was at the university, though Leo always asked me to; there were plenty of eager seekers for my job and I found the whole event depressing. Picked up a few more things for the larder. A pint of ultra-pasteurized half-and-half with a long shelf-life, an extra dozen eggs, a loaf of bread for the freezer; I'm waiting for butter to be on sale, so I can buy a couple of pounds. I have beans, I have rice, and now I have this Tuchman person that I have to read completely. Read more...

Bourgeois Rising

I'm concerned with the confusion of road and row. If you've never held a hoe you might not understand. One doesn't hoe a road. One hoes a row, to clean the weeds around a plant you favor. Hoeing a road might mean planting ornamentals along the verge, but that's a stretch; though there are vast reaches of the Interstate in Iowa that are beautiful. As soon as it warmed up a bit, I pulled on bib-overalls and went outside. Filled the wood box, then took a walk. Brisk and lovely. Picked up a batch of acorns from a white oak tree, they're somewhat less bitter, to make some meal. Totally captivated by the Tuchman book, the 14th century was truly awful. The Black Death, of course, and the endless fighting between France and England, the incredible suffering of the peasant class, a chaotic church (three popes at once) literally selling salvation. A sorry state of affairs. Interesting to note that the first thing Gutenberg printed at Mainz, 1454, were indulgences. I'm very careful, using tools, but I was splitting an oak round today (I set a wedge with the back of the maul-head) when a fox appeared down the driveway. I hit the inside of my left hand with the maul. Nothing broken, but it hurt like hell and I gave up splitting for the day. Getting dark anyway, now that we're back on Standard Time, so I went inside and made a pot-roast and root vegetables on toast that was excellent. I don't have the stamina anymore to work hard physically for 8 or 10 hours at a time, but I do like to push myself, now and again, though I end up tired and sore. I was so happy to get back inside today, strip off the outer layer, wash my face and hands, get into slippers and bath-robe, stoke the fire, get a drink and roll a smoke, that I was almost ecstatic. I like not being accountable. I'm pretty sure it's Friday, finally change the calendar and listen to the radio to get a fix on time and place. I was close. Which is all that matters. Navaho sense is not the same, and ever since I lived on their reservation I view clocks with suspicion. Read more...

Reading Emily

I had no intention of reading Emily for hours, but in the letters, I stumbled on the line "November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.". So I read for a few more hours. She takes walks, entertains a few friends, bakes bread, tends her flowers. She writes incessantly, and bitches when people don't write back immediately. I can read at the island, while I cook, so after the cookstove is fired move over there, start the roast, prep the vegetables. Foreshortened time, but over the course of hours, I braise the roast and roast the vegetables, mix them together. The liquid has become something special. I love root vegetables anyway, but simmered in that liquid, turnips and parsnips become transcendent. Seriously. A pone of corn bread might provide the key. Assume you thought you knew what you were doing, all I have to do is split wood tomorrow. Easy enough. In many ways, a man is judged by his woodpile. Read until dawn, then napped for a couple of hours, awakened by the rattle of wind-blown leaves. It's too dreary to go outside, so I make a huge breakfast and resume reading. The Tuchman book on the 14th century is 700 pages of small type and will take me a while, but it's not a novel and doesn't require a reading straight through, so I intersperse my time with the history of cheese making in America and Emily. She often signed her name Emilee until 1858-1860. A wonderful thing happens for me when I read her now, in that whenever I reread a section we used in the performance piece, I hear Linda's voice and Zack playing TR's music. An unexpected transport. Written word becoming something more, an audio-visual experience. It's always interesting to hear an author's voice, the parsing. It's not necessary, for a close reading, but it helps. Linda does Emily so well, it's like an introduction into the inner circle. I've heard Pound , and Olson, and Bly, I can hear their voices, but for Prince Hal or Macbeth I have to rely on a specific interpretation. We all have our favorites. Linda sets the bar for me, when it comes to Emily. As the evening wears on I realize I'm not going down to B's for dinner because the weather threatens and I don't want to get stuck down there. Wind and scudding clouds, far off thunder. It's not cold yet, but the temps are falling. I'm sure I'd have enjoyed the comradery, but I'm secure, wrapped in a blanket, my headlamp close at hand for when the power fails, reading about goat cheese. I'd rather not risk a driveway slick with wet leaves. Wet leaves are like goose shit, I swear. This morning, walking out to the woodshed, I slipped, but was saved from a fall by my mop-handle walking stick. That third leg. Joel would argue that I shouldn't be doing it at all, working that hard, physically, and Kim would argue that he couldn't wait to get the use back into that arm, so he could lay brick with both hands. I don't know. I'd rather be left alone. Read more...

Winter Wheat

What opened up the plains was tractors and combines. And white bread spread throughout the land. I make a whole wheat bread I proof overnight. I'd rather eat simple country corn-bread, hot from the oven, with butter; or tortillas fried in lard. But a good solid loaf makes a great eatable plate. Soaks up all those juices. Always turn the pasta back into the sauce, look both ways before you cross the street, even if it's one-way, always wear a hard hat, and never, ever, forget, they are going to mess with your head. Got up in the middle of the night and wrote for several hours, then slept late again. Low overcast, tree rain, then a cloud (not fog) settles on the ridge. Had to put off cooking the roast because I didn't have any onions. I'll cook it tonight. I always braise a pot roast on a bed of onions with chicken stock and wine. I cut up one small potato, to disintegrate into the liquid and thicken the gravy. The rest of the vegetables I'll add tomorrow. Lunch with TR, then I stopped at Kroger and got a bag of Spanish onions, stopped at the in-house liquor store and got a backup bottle of whiskey. I have backup coffee and backup juice, and a bag of tobacco in the freezer. I'll be able to split wood, under the overhang of the woodshed tomorrow, even if it rains. I needed to go to the library, but when I stopped at the bottom of the hill, to get the mail, there were three books; one on American cheeses, one on the calamitous 14th century, and a collection of Emily's poems and letters. Plenty of reading matter, what with magazines and book reviews. Go right to the parking lot, outside the back door of the pub, roll a smoke, and peruse the new books. TR is a bit harried, applying to grad school. My focus is cooking a near-perfect pot roast. Splitting a couple of ricks to bring into the house. Keep it simple. Read more...

To Town

Other than the brief chat with B, I'd had no converse for days. I have a list of things that I need for the winter, batteries for my headlamp, lamp oil at Big Lots (on clearance, I buy several quarts), a stop at the library, then a pint with a giant pretzel at the pub. Then Kroger where I get everything for the pot roast dinner, including a lovely large piece of chuck for half-price. I'll braise the meat, after browning, in chicken stock and red wine, with a handful of herbs. I'll start this tomorrow night, when I last stoke the stove, and leave it on all night as the fire cools down. I need to invite someone out for dinner, because with hot corn bread, this is going to be an amazing meal. Thursday I'm supposed to eat dinner down at B's, to meet the young couple that might move into his old cabin. I like the idea of someone living there, but the idea of delineating driveway protocol is daunting. B's a good cook, so I look forward to that, and meeting new people is always interesting. I thought it was a bad idea for anyone to move to an extremely isolated place at the beginning of winter but they had already seen that, thought they'd keep the rental in town and move out in the spring. Sensible. Sensible is good. Otherwise you freeze into that rictus often confused with a smile. A parting gesture from the quick to the passing. A single finger that indicates the way. I going to go, heat some soup, toast some left-over corn bread. The big questions are beyond me. I'd picked up a Jim Harrison book I had missed, Returning To Earth, and a new book of Paul Theroux short stories, and read half the night, slept in, then went out and worked on kindling and small stuff, by hand, because I didn't want to run a chainsaw. Forecast is for snow on Friday morning. I stopped at a favorite stump, where the next hollow to the north drops off steeply. It's a very quiet place, and I have a coffee can of sand there, that I use as an ashtray. The fattest god-damned woodchuck I have ever seen in my life waddled out of the underbrush, and we stared at each other for a few minutes, then she went about her business. Lots of birds today. Dusky dark, the setting sun dove into a cloud bank. I should have busted those last rounds of oak, and got them under cover, but I wanted out of my boots, and a drink, and the house was warm. I'm in pretty good shape, considering that I mostly burned kinder-garden desks last year, and lived to tell the tale. And last winter was hard, my olive oil froze, or at least solidified, and survival was an actual issue. Walking in, at ten below, with a pack, all of it uphill, is difficult. If it's after dark, and you're lighting the way with a pen-light, and the house is cold, it might be construed as a critical situation. I cleaned out the fridge, so there's the usual scrabble at the compost heap. I run the dogs off just because they're loud. Later, cleaned up, with a drink and a smoke, the world seems just fine. Read more...

Severe Clear

A trip down to B's. He'd saved me a trip to town by picking up a bottle of whiskey which I knew I'd need tonight. Last time at the store I was thinking about the winter larder and spaced out. The larder is 'a place to keep bacon'. Spent the afternoon in the woods, collecting sticks I had propped against tree trunks. Then I sawed stove wood from them by hand, with the bow-saw, just because it's not as loud as the chainsaw. The house is easy to heat, nights at 30 degrees, and there's no reason to dip into the pile of oak. Got the house warm and put the pot of soup on the stove. The birds were very active all day, and those damned young squirrels that chatter like crazy when they perceive I've invaded their space. I have to admit I fuck with them, take my sling-shot and bounce marbles off the branches they're sitting on. They get really pissed off. I love that tail thing they do. The crows were back today, and I had mice for them; the field mice are moving back indoors, and I have three traps, set with peanut butter. I catch a lot of mice, this time of year. It's clear, rapid cooling, and they're saying, now, it could get down into the teens tonight. Then it's supposed to be in the fifties for the rest of the week, with some frost at night. I'd best bring in some supplies. I want to cook a pot roast, for which I'll roast potatoes and other root vegetables separately and serve on the side with gravy, then it'll become a stew, then a hash. The nature of things. It all becomes hash. Is a pretzel the crossed arms of prayer? Parsnips, when they've been kissed by frost, are the sweetest thing. A tang of watercress. Every year I try and harvest the Tim Horton fall display of squash before it rots. I've even been guilty of making a gruel from feed corn. There was a piece on NPR today about eating acorns. I had to laugh. I've been eating them for years. I make a dried acorn- tofu jerky that will outlast the apocalyptic end of it all. The last thing we need is a recipe. Grind meal, add some garlic, pound it with some fat. Fry thin cakes over a twig fire. Sure. I can do that. A sharp blade, and enough time, I could make a mold; and then, if I could kill a whale, I'd have a lamp. Read more...

Cold Snap

Woke up and the power was off, the house was very cold, the leaves on the front porch covered with hoar-frost. Too cold too soon. I need to bring in a couple of ricks of firewood. Supposed to be even colder tonight, then a bit warmer. The good news is that the snakes will be gone and I'll be able to get under the house. It's dismal outside, gray and cold, with a stiff breeze; the leaves are whipping off the trees, no squirrels, no birds. The green-briar is still vibrant, those hard waxy leaves like holly or mistletoe, but everything else is turning toward the winter drab. I can see the other side of the hollow quite clearly now, a golden brown wash. I watched a nice young buck deer, beautiful six-point rack, and a doe I believe to be his sister, for most of the day, they napped about thirty feet away. They live mostly in the five or so acres framed by the driveway and my house. They wander out, to feed, but they bed down close by. They're very safe there, and they know it; I've had a Mom and one or two fawns every year that I've been here. Enough that I can pick out the sound of a deer walking carefully among all the extraneous noise. It takes several hours with a good hot fire to chase the chill. TR and I talked on the phone about the opera. I knew he'd be bored silly at the museum, by himself, a miserable day, no guests, so we talked at length. I napped at some point and woke up with the moon squarely behind the little stained glass window high in the west wall, and the house was quite warm. Lovely. The soup is very good and I made a fresh pone of corn bread that's close to my idea of perfection. Simple pleasures. TR and I agree that there needs to be the character of me, upstage, just a reading lamp, face not visible, reading paragraphs that are seasonal in nature. We seem to have arrived at this independently, which is both surprising and not surprising. I spend a good part of the day reading some paragraphs out loud, with rain drips and leaves blowing about. The pieces sounded good, an isolated voice, the broken rhythms. I think we're on to something. I had forgotten the sight of a waxing moon through stick trees, and tonight it plays with my heart. It's so beautiful. Even a couple of stars, rare along the Ohio. I was depressed this morning, nothing was working, I was reading Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable with a headlamp and I couldn't brew my morning double espresso, and the house was cold. By the end of the day I'm warm, the soup is great, and I'm eating a thin slice of cold butter on every mouth full of corn bread, hot from the oven. It doesn't get any better than this. Read more...