Fully Engaged

On my hotline "Complex Loading Questions" I get into some strange conversations. A builder friend called, from Arizona, wondering about parallel cuts on natural tree-trunk posts. Arcane discussion. Building an eight foot miter-box out of 2x12s, and teasing out methods of dogging down the log. Designing the 'cutting chute' for the actual chainsaw cut. Marking a face of the log (thereby labeling it as 'top') and staying as accurate as possible, within an eighth of an inch over eight feet. There are four natural log posts in this house, three of them are nearly perfect, the fourth one I had to do some sanding on a beam that had twisted slightly in drying. I peaked at this twenty years ago, but I still remember the moves. Increasingly all I do is wander about the ridge and look at things. The deer are beginning to nudge through the leaves for green stuff underneath. The next time I go out I should be able to find cattail shoots. I put a couple of mesh bags in my day-pack, in case I find anything. Also one of those little sample bottles of hot sauce. There's a dish I prepare on the trail, that I would never ask anyone else to eat. Fried minnows with hot sauce. I perfected this recipe walking into a Indian ruin, nameless, in southern Utah. I'd chew a willow stick down to a brush, and I always carried a junior baby-food jar of bacon fat which was half-melted from my body heat, brush the minnows, impaled on sticks, doused with hot sauce and slurped in a single bite. I carry a cornbread mix, add boiling water and heat on a rock, pone cake, which is either a fat tortilla or a hoe-cake cooked on a flat surface, but always sops up the goodness. Rain starts overnight, so I get up, empty a bucket of water into the soup kettle (for heating later), and set the bucket out to harvest rainwater. Second nature, things done as a matter of course. Soon I'll have to start filtering the wash water, to strain out the pollen. A square of tee-shirt (six per tee-shirt, Goodwill, dollar bag day) in a strainer that perfectly spans the top of a five-gallon bucket. Strainers, I think, have been around for a long time. Almost dawn so I just stay up, brew my double espresso, eat a bowl of cheese grits with bacon bits. Monet was a good cook, Vincent not so good. I can't actually find any Monet recipes, but I know, from his letters, that Van Gogh ate beans on toast quite often. It's good to know small details. They tend to humanize. Emerson changing the conversation when Thoreau started talking about the breeding habits of turtles. I know a lot more about olives than I used to. I'm always interesting in foodstuffs that require complex preparation. Tapioca. I forget what day it is and haven't changed the calendar to March yet; I had to admit to the police the other day that I didn't remember what day last Saturday even was. A feeble witness to nothing. Incessant rain, but the frost is out of the ground and I can at least travel freely. A dreary afternoon and I entertain the idea of taking a road trip, get out the atlas for a look at possibilities. It's a fantasy, and one I love, because I do love maps, but decide, ultimately, that I'd rather stay at home and buy a nice single-malt. A trip to town is adventure enough, I can take a thorough sponge bath, eat a great meal, and still come out ahead. It's very cool to sleep in clean linens and watch cable, I'd be the first to admit, but it does seem to dodge the question. The rain goes on forever.