Wash Out

The driveway did wash almost out in several places. The top culvert, which eliminates the water from the grader ditch for three-quarters of the length, is clear and running strong, but the first and second culverts are completely silted full. Hours of shoveling and I'm not going to do it. I'll pay some college kid. I'll do the minimum amount necessary for passage. A huge amount of snow melt. All the creeks in spate. A churning urn of burning funk. Driving in with Emily yesterday, she slowed down at all the same places I do. It's drainage writ large. I hope the driveway thaws and dries fairly quickly because I'm hesitant to leave the Jeep down there. It's not comfortable to feel insecure. I'd rather avoid conflict. I could set a trap, but that might well lead to escalation. I'm becoming a little paranoid. I don't intervene much, in the flow of data or event, and that might make me look like a likely victim, prey, as it were. I put together a double sealed plastic bag, with a twenty dollar bill and a note that says "PLEASE don't drill the gas tank, $10 dollars worth of gas, and here's $20" with a Velcro attachment to the rear bumper. I'll try that first, and if it doesn't work, I'll shoot their asses with bird-shot. I'm good at doggo. Set up three nights, once, to see a mountain lion come back to a kill. Ground fog in the morning, so much moisture in the air it seems too thick to breathe, the frogs are vocal and the young squirrels are chattering like maniacs. The sun comes out in the afternoon and I have to take off a layer of clothes. I just sit on the back porch, leaning back, eyes closed, soaking in the heat. Trent calls from the garage, the Jeep is fixed, and B can take me into town tomorrow, because he's meeting a daughter for coffee. He'll call, to alert me I need to be at the bottom of the hill at a certain time. I can do that. I know what's required, an insulated mug of coffee and a straight face. Nothing passes by unnoticed. Try not to be a burden. Loren, at the pub, had asked me what I was reading, and I had to stop for a moment, consider the parameters of the question. Well, I said, the history of mining, Olmec sculpture, certain scripts, and the way memory affects what we believe. The frog orgy, for instance, which I have observed, or rather experienced, for years (the aural at least as significant as the visual), and how it was, well and truly, the beginning of a new year. A wan and waning moon, the frost is just coming out of the ground, and the frogs are procreating in a frenzy that boggles the mind. Under the last of the melting snow, some vibrant green, the first ferns, some tiny white flowers. The way it plays out, the days get longer and warmer, you wear less clothes; then it reverses and you obsess with fires and multiple layers. I'd rather not have to worry about assholes who would drill holes in my gas tank, life is difficult enough.