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.