Strange Noise

It doesn't take much to wake me up, and I'm sure it isn't actually a monkey, but it sounds like what I would imagine a monkey to sound like. If it's a bird, which I suspect, I've never heard it before. Maybe it's a parrot. At the height of selling raw milk to people raising exotic pets, which was a lucrative sideline, I attended the birth of several camels; they made a sound like that. Plaintive. I have a auditory file of sounds that I can't identify. The death kneel of a rabbit, two ewes a lambing, that little song and dance a hen gives when she's laid another egg. Bats in the belfry, seriously, I carry a tennis racket wherever I go. A second cup of coffee, and I was sitting on the back porch, lacing up my work boots, considering where I would walk, when I heard a car on the driveway. I'm a little irritated at being interrupted, but I see it's The Law, so I put on my friendly face. Two guys, one is the Highway Patrol investigator I'd met before and the other one is in a suit complete with tie, introduced as Doug, from the Ohio Bureau Of Investigation. I ask them inside, for a cup of coffee, and apologize for the extreme clutter; they don't seem to mind, and seem to notice everything. I have to explain a few things for them, lifestyle choices and such. Doug takes shine to the cookstove and I explain the double damper system. Getting down to business, another tractor had been stolen, up where Rocky Fork meets 125, and they wondered if I had seen or heard anything. I laughed out loud. Not, I said, anything that would be relevant to their case, that mostly what I heard was the wind, and for the last couple of months most of what I saw was water in one form or another. After they left, I wondered if I was being assessed as some sort of potential problem. I am guilty of passing along some tripe recipes, and I've advocated civil disobedience on occasion, but I don't see how I could be viewed as a threat. I'm trying to arrange a trip to town to do my laundry, I don't actually have the time to be a bad guy. Mostly I feel like a runt pig, sucking on the hind teat. My Mom and my cousin Jackie both talk in southern idioms, you can never expect a straight answer. A simple question, "Is Jim picking up beer?" is met with a story about bird dogs. There's a tangential meaning implied, the implication that there's an overlap somewhere; even if I can't find it, and I find it exciting that language can do that. I'd much rather spend an hour in a 'tense' situation, thinking about tense, than create a plan for getting to the laundromat. I want to wash everything, all the towels and washcloths, the linens, then clean the kitchen, then vacuum all the corners, and recycle at least a ton of paper. My goal, when I go to town anymore, is to not set off any alarms. Late for my walk, because of the interruption, so I mentally check off any idea of getting to the laundromat. Take some Trail Mix and a cup for drinking spring water and set out to find the headwaters of a nameless rill that flows south and west. I'd set out some watercress there last year, near there, I'd never actually found the source. Ends up being a seep where a shelf of sandstone forms a solid layer. There's a bit of an overhang, not a cave exactly, but a protected spot, and I sit there for a long time, watching the water flow. It's very cold and quite delicious. I have some very good maps, and I'm sure that when I get home, I'll be able to figure out where I was. The wind is blowing a full gale by the time I get back to the house. I duck inside, check my batteries, shut down completely. I got the whole winter laundry scene together and headed of to town, straight to the laundromat, not straight exactly because they had closed down Mackletree and I had drive back then all the way around. Everything I own is clean and dry. The staff at the pub all agreed that my hermit look was coming along nicely. Came back home up the creek and it was lovely, there must be a dozen little waterfalls. Stopped at B's and he was building some rock steps at the front of his house, we took a water break and chatted about his family, then I beat it on home, with groceries and laundry. By the time I got everything put away the day was gone. Made a plate of pickles, kimchee, cheese and crackers, settled in my chair, and read a New Yorker. Satisfied with my efforts. Tomorrow I want to put the remaining inside wood in the wood-box and sweep. Rain forecast for Friday through Sunday, but still warm, so I can use some water, maybe vacuum and mop; and now that I have clean clothes, I'd like to clean up personally, and powder my privates. Citrus pips are non-determinate, any of the various (and they are various) species can grow from any seed. You don't know what you have until you harvest a fruit. Grafting, which I had thought of as a fairly late development, must have been early. Quite a leap. Grafting is quite sophisticated. The library calls, and they're holding a book for me. Probably a new Sanford novel. On my way out of town, I could get some potato wedges.