Scatology

A game warden found his way to the ridge. Came up to tell me bow-season opens next week, for deer, and that I should get a posted sign for the bottom on the driveway. I tell him about the bear and he looks around, when he comes back inside he's excited, you have a bear, he says, living under your house. He was a little perplexed that I didn't seem to care, I explained that both of us were careful and I carried firecrackers with a Bic lighter in my hand; and that I felt the bear would be safer there, during hunting season. The ranger and I had a good conversation about black squirrels and yellow timber-rattlers. He noted that I must read a lot and I told him that he had no idea. He finally left, though I sense I haven't seen the last of him, and I can get back to what I was doing, which was dissecting scat on butcher-paper (it's very white, and everything shows) to see what various animals were eating. I salvaged a great large poop from a Pileated Woodpecker and it was fascinating. Pieces of shell. There's a word for that. Most of these insects are 50% protein. Insects and rice, a few wild vegetables, you could get along fine. Elderberry wine, and maybe some botanicals. The possum scat is filled with grass seed, as is the coon scat. The fox scat is full of hair and small teeth. After I reread Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf, I ate a few mice, just to see what they were like, and they're not bad, like with small birds, you can eat the bones. Sometimes I chew the shells of boiled peanuts as if I had several stomachs, wash the cud in several changes of water, then make paper. Papyrus lasts for three or four hundred years, parchment for a thousand years, vellum (unborn calf) maybe for twice that; and oak-gall ink fails, releases from the paper. True staining only comes in with aniline dyes. Something that penetrates. I think again that I might have spent an entire contented lifetime repairing damaged books. I'm sure I could have made a living at it. Which leads to a thought about fiber. Several thoughts actually. Skins, first, used for clothing and shelter, then plant and animal fiber. Rotting flax to produce linen. A process involved. Making tapioca. Bacon. Eating a few mice is not a big deal, nor is eating a cat; imprisoned, you'd probably eat Frank, if he happened to die. If one of you had to die, so that the others could live, how would kill him? I'm thinking about the Essex here. Probably knock him on the head because you'd want to save the blood because you were probably thirsty too. I'm pretty sure it's Tuesday, from a careful study of the clock and last year's calendar, and I was trying to remember B's schedule so I might stop down and check on his well being. I should worry about him, he's older than me (than I am) and in much better shape, but we talk as equals, in whatever strange algorithm time and space has transpired to produce.