Country Life

I called B today, to find out what bird Harrison was referring to as a Trogon. Seems it might be a parrot that only occasionally wanders north of the US, Mexico border. House Wrens are Troglodytes. My Internet connection didn't allow me online, the pigeons were on strike. I thought about killing a male Grouse today. He was right outside the back door and a real temptation, but I didn't feel up to the chore of plucking and dressing a bird. I thought about fried gizzards, which I love, and made a mental note to drive to the Briar Patch, a cross-road gas station and store out west of Lucasville, where they fry everything. I only go out there a couple of times a year. KFC fried gizzards are an abomination, they were always fried yesterday and resemble soggy lumps of dough. I make a stir-fry from sliced gizzards where they have the mouth-feel of water chestnuts. It's a pain in the ass to make, but no one ever knows what they're eating. Not that I would not tell someone what I was fixing. The people that know me well will eat anything I cook, knowing I wouldn't bother wasting our time. Cranking up the stove because I wanted to make a batch of biscuits. Hot bread, as it was always called in my family. Sliced bread came later. It was good for sandwiches. But hot biscuits are a thing unto themselves. Later, I was in a kind of stupor from eating one too many, staring into space, wondering about self-control. Free will is a cute conceit. B said someone had stolen his chainsaw off the back porch, he knew who had taken it, a dim-wit vaguely related, pawned, no doubt, for a couple of pain-killers, a case of the truly poor robbing from the lower middle class. The landed gentry encourage this shit, because it removes them from the fray, where dogs actually do eat other dogs, and smallpox cleans up the rabble. I need to read some pages out loud, to time them, and get the pauses correct, for the reading tomorrow. As usual, I have no idea what I'm going to read. There are literally thousands of pages and as I read, walking around the house, stopping at the island, I mark particular paragraphs, some of which have been marked before, which must mean I like them. One time I only read pieces that Linda had liked, she's my ace reader. At this point I could do a reading of only pages that had been written on February 28th. I could probably do thirty minutes for every day of the year. A foot locker with 365 booklets, and one smaller pamphlet for three leap years. I finally settle on reading a sequence of pieces about leaving the museum and starting to spend all of my time reading and writing. Late afternoon, the birds are very active, and I go for a walk, to clear my head. I give that up fairly quickly, because the six inches of settled snow has crusted over just enough to almost support my weight. Every step crashes through. Awful walking conditions. Settle in with Barry Lopez. A toddy, roll a smoke, listen to the snaps and crackles of the fire. The left-over chorizo dish has become a kind of fried rice and it's very good, toasted biscuits are always good. I did have a moment of near panic. I'd dozed off, awoke with a start, thinking I was confined; I just had my feet tangled in the lap-robe. Another toddy, read some more Lopez. Arctic Dreams is a magnificent book. I actually begin to feel warm, go outside and see that it's 30 degrees, perfect conditions for an ice storm, so I go to the shed and get an armload of wood, get out the candles and an oil-lamp. I keep my head-lamp in a specific place that I can find using only my sense of touch. It's been a beautiful but brutal February, and I want to dust off, and clean the house.