Copacetic

Beautiful leaf-fall. I can see across the hollow now and it's a lovely sight. Trees that are red and trees that are orange, but mostly shades of yellow, the poplars and oaks. I remind myself to remember the colors, soon enough it all becomes black and white. It's all to the good, cleansing the palette; this time of year I'm drying peppers and mushrooms, I have a cold-frame where I raise bitter greens. A very exciting day is when I cook chick-peas with greens and sausage. If I make a pone of cornbread, this could be an exceptional day. Town, for back-up whiskey and tobacco, pick up a few other things, exotics, canned tamales, a couple of dried Thai things; and Justin, at the pub wants to come out, bring a band mate, eat, drink, and talk. I tell him to give me warning, a couple of days notice, and we'd cook a meal; but he'd have to bring two people and one of them can't drink. They've opened Mackletree again, two weeks ahead of schedule. It looks like it was a sink-hole where the overflow at the spillway undercut the bank. I'll find out. It was funny, I'd been to town, I'd stopped at the Buckeye Dairy Bar for a footer and onion rings, a small vanilla shake, and I wanted to take them home, eat at the island with a good book, so I zipped right by where Mackletree had been closed off for weeks. I was half-a-mile down the road before I realized the barricades had not been in place. Turned around, went back, and yes, there were no barricades. Went home the old usual way, everything familiar, every curve, despite being knee-deep in leaves, absolutely instinctive. I don't even unload the car, I just go inside, prop up a mystery, and eat a footer with onion rings. The vanilla shake is because one of my favorite large persons works at the hardware store and he told me that if I was serious about gaining some weight, that I needed to drink as many milk-shakes as possible. I'm going with peanut oil this year, because it was about half the price of olive oil and I love it. There was a display, because deep-frying a turkey seems to require peanut oil, I got two-and-a-half gallons for $28. I prefer peanut oil for frying potatoes, if I don't have bacon fat. I watch a young doe, about eighteen months old, root around in the leaves. There's still green stuff under there, and she noses it out. Plump, as she should be this time of year, her coat is sleek and full. She's lovely. A walk in the afternoon, all the way out the logging road, examining tight little buds that hold the promise of spring even before winter begins. I collect some dandelion greens and a couple of late Boletus mushrooms. Experimenting with a couple of recipes, a bean soup and a stew, that you can make with canned and dry ingredients. A chili made with jerky. Jerky is expensive, but it keeps really well. And I have some packs of cured ham bits that are dated out several years. I need to buy a couple of gallons of Arizona green tea because I need the containers for drinking water. Filtered drinking water is just 39 cents a gallon in your own container. And I keep forgetting to get a back-up battery for my headlamp. I have to do some laundry and plan my under-layers. I found another cashmere sweater at the Good Will, it had a turtle-neck which I immediately cut away. I hate things around my neck. And I was left with a very fine under-garment. Listen, yea motherfuckers, I'm wearing cashmere, and I'm eating real butter. Beat your head and appeal. I tried to complain once but clearly that would never go anywhere. At a minimum 2.4 percent of what you ate is human. In some cultures this rose to 50%, boned thigh and polenta.