Good Timing

Because of the cold weather I'd fallen behind on stocking firewood and temps were up to thirty degrees. Frozen rain in the forecast so I went out first thing, split out some knots for nighttime logs, split out kindling and starter sticks, split out three ricks. Hauled everything inside. Just as I finished, the sky started spitting pellets of ice, brought in my tools, overturned the wheelbarrow, went inside. Rolled a smoke, and had a hot toddy. Not bad for an old guy. It felt great, to be outside, but it felt even better to be back inside, with the chores done and dinner within my sights. I made a batch of biscuits last night, and I'll eat soup again, for one more night, but tomorrow I want to cook something else. Lamb stew, maybe. I ate everything I could find on toasted biscuits with kimchee. Cant and recant. G Spenser Brown. The Laws Of Form. I spend an hour with the dictionaries, then take a nap. The silence wakes me, some time after midnight. It feels like snow. I stoke the stove with a couple of knots, but the house is comfortable; no sooner than I get a drink and settle in reading, the history of the fork, that frozen rain starts hitting the roof. It'll change over to something else, and there may, or may not, be an ice storm. I have candles and oil lamps in place. Batten down the sails, change into insulated overalls, add another layer of socks: the game begins. Game, of course, is suspect, and 'begins' is always suspicious. I read until almost dawn (the spoon and the knife are obvious, the fork less so) and the sleet had changed over to rain. Temps above freezing for the first time in a week, but zero again by Tuesday night. The crows are occupying the trees on the edge of where the dozer cleared the power easement. I don't know what they're up to (I tend to confuse Tippi with Veronica) but it's a little frightening, just when there's almost enough light to see, to have a cacophony of crows outside. Spell-check wanted to make 'kimchee' "incoherent', which side-tracked me into translations generally. Another book I'd like to write, Translations From The English. A haze, not fog exactly, water vapor hanging in suspension, and it's very interesting, the way it collects in the hollows. You could cut it with a knife. Obviously it's heavier, so it sinks, condenses. It's the pound cake of atmospheric conditions. The ice formations are exuding from road-cuts. So much water, it hits a layer of sandstone hard-pan and oozes out, freezes instantly, and you get these shapes, a VW Beetle, a butterfly, a two-story crane. You need to remember, meaning doesn't always apply.