Domestication

The inadvertent shepherd. Quietly amused. Three foxes now, waiting for apples. I take that to mean they're all female, as the males tend to wander off. The apple thing seems to have affected the family dynamic. I don't want to be an agent of change, but I like watching them. This morning the two young deer (I haven't seen their mother in a while) are rooting through the leaves for anything green. They're playful and a bit plump, putting on their winter coats. I don't go outside until they've wandered off, down the logging road. A lovely walk, clipping brush, mostly green-briar and young sassafras off the driveway. The sassafras smells wonderful and I pulled a few roots, to dry over the stove. There's been a particularly vicious pack of dogs recently and I don't want them around, so I've been keeping a shotgun propped in the corner. I want to kill the alpha male of that group, an awful pit-bull with a mouth full of teeth, and I feel terrible that I want to kill a specific individual, but I've whacked him several times with the slingshot and he doesn't seem to get the point. Better he shouldn't pass along all those aggressive genes. Sunday afternoon, I listen to a couple of cooking shows on NPR, humming that cowboy tune "I see by your outfit..." steam another sweet potato and barely sear a small strip steak. I'd made a hot vinaigrette with bacon fat, balsamic vinegar, and a little mustard, use it to wilt a mixed salad then slice an avocado on top. Wilted Lettuce was a favorite salad around our house. I didn't realize we were poor until we weren't anymore. Career Navy paid ok, and Mom was a great seamstress, later, after I left home, she was making costumes for strippers and doing quite well. Poor meant eating a lot of cabbage, fried salt-pork, and greens, but I liked all of those things so I never felt deprived. Sweet potato patties with butter and a dollop of molasses. And my obsession with cornbread certainly dates back to the fact that there was almost always some left over, and you could smear it with almost anything. Canned tuna or sardines in oil, with slices of fresh onion, are my current favorites. "Pone" is Powhatan for 'something baked' (John Smith, Virginia, 1612). Variations on corn dishes were things like ponipop and apona. From the quotes in the Dictionary Of Americanisms I can almost reconstruct some recipes. Actually, I've eaten most of them. A soup of cornmeal and corn, johnny-cake, a pemmican, hominy. Raining again, so I cycle through some wash water, and spend the entire morning referencing 'pone', which naturally leads to several other things. End up having to put away a few books after lunch (hash and eggs) because I've clogged my walkways. In the afternoon I read an Elmore Leonard, drank several cups of tea, grazed on pickled things and cured meats. A wonderful horseradish mayo that I had on crackers. I love setting up this little buffet, where I have to get up and walk over to get a bite or two. Read a chapter, roll a smoke, get a drink, look out all the windows. Big winds and the rain is fairly hard at times, the driveway is vulnerable, because the green is gone, with its ability to soak up acre feet of water, and all the run-off forms channels in the ruts. Sometimes makes it difficult to make it in or out. And the rain, Jesus Christ, it went on forever. Another mouse, I can't believe it.