Physical Labor

Cold but sunny, and I needed to get outside. High of twenty degrees today. I split a rick of wood, then split starter sticks and kindling. I had to take a couple of breaks, drink something hot. I've been drinking chicken broth with a pat of butter. Got a good fire going in the late afternoon and I have a range of night logs. Supposed to be zero tonight. If it gets to 45 on Saturday or Sunday, which is forecast, then I can take a sponge bath and wash my hair. I have a reading at the Lodge on March 1st, so I want to get a motel room before then, take a bath, then a shower, then another bath, and rub lotion on my entire body. Skins cells are a significant component in dust, and I'm doing my bit. Winter skin. When I change socks there's a white cloud. My habits of winter hygiene are suspect, I brush my teeth and wash my face, now that I don't shave I never look at myself in a mirror. Heaven knows what you might see looking back. I ate crumbled cornbread with a very hot chili, later, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Throw on a log, take a nap, catch the fire. Exhausted, working in the cold will do that, but even the sore muscles feel pretty good. I slept for ten hours. Very cold this morning, and the house was cold, but I made a double espresso, wrapped up in a blanket, and finished reading a Thomas Perry novel. I've read nearly all of them, in the order in which they were written. I'll need another reading project soon, maybe another Barbara Tuchman. I had another day's work lined up outside, but I decided to just get comfortable and read. Besides, it was Science Friday on NPR. This is almost always an interesting couple of hours. I subscribed to Scientific American for years, but then Martin Gardner died and it got to where I couldn't understand the articles. Have you followed this discussion about the city Z in the Amazon? I'm most interested because of the way it reflects on the various migrations. What, I wondered, was the coin of trade?