Night Sky

I generally use a piss-pot when it gets cold, but I do like to get outside to pee, to smell the air. Half a moon and a couple of stars, nothing like a western Colorado sky, but it's just fine. I roll a smoke, before my fingers freeze, and get a wee dram, sit on my foam pad on the back porch. Small change in the coin of the universe. A train, across the river in Kentucky, always throws me into country song. I have my Agnes hat, my fingerless gloves, I could pass for homeless. Black and white bath robe, some gray where they cross, even this limited world, the ridge, is too much to process. Much warmer in the house this morning, the stove was still warm (800 pounds of stove), and I relit the fire to start heating water; dishes, then sponge bath, the hair wash. Bring in some wood, big breakfast of refried grits with eggs and toast, finished the Elmore Leonard novel that fell out of my hands last night (Be Cool), and thought about physical stress, designing a railing for the back steps. It's all in my head. Maximum stress would be me carrying an arm-load of firewood in the snow and the steps are iced over, if I slipped and crashed all of my weight into the railing. The railing for the house stairs is a curved Dogwood stick, a nominal three inches in diameter, that is actually only secured at two points. It runs for six steps, and has saved many a drunk. I have the rail itself, for the outside railing, drying under the house, though I'll bring it inside for the winter, a beautifully curved branch of Slippery Elm; but I need two posts, and I want them to be Osage Orange. Then I think about extending the railing, with another stick, going right to the back door, where there would be a covered shelf, where I could put down whatever I was carrying, to get out my house-key. I can spend hours thinking about these things. The mice keep coming into the house in droves, my little plastic-drawer morgue is overwhelmed. Last night I heard a trap go off, and then a mad scampering. I didn't get up, I was warm, and in the middle of a dream, fuck a bunch of reality. This morning I was looking for the trap, which I finally found, several feet away, behind a piece of cast iron I'm restoring. It was empty, the mouse had not been killed, or was going to die in my walls. Your basic spring-loaded mouse trap is a good piece of design. Usually it breaks their little necks. They rarely escape, like this little devil, to stink up my house for a week. I found the Slippery Elm stick on a walk a few weeks ago, went right back home for one of the bow saws, in order to cut it. It's a perfect symmetrical curve, 180 degrees in eight feet. Lovely. I'm trying to cure it with the bark on, because it would be so much better for gripping, so I'm giving it a daily spray of poly-glycol, to replace the water in the cells. I read about that somewhere. Finally finished the rest of the day, looked up some words, wrote for a while, stared out the window, and the house was warm, very warm, so I stripped down for the sponge bath and washed my hair. It feels good to get clean, I'm dirty so much of the time. I figure to get into town one more time, before Xmas, get a dozen oysters, maybe some lamb shanks, a few crab cakes, have to listen to those Salvation Army bells one more time.