Local Flooding

Rain and wind all night. When the power went out I just sat in the dark (absolute) and listened to the storm. No idea how much time passed, eventually I put on a headlamp and read for a while. Temperature dropped thirty degrees so I wrapped up in a blanket and finally slept until the lights came back on. The radio was on and the first thing I heard were reports of flooding. The usual places. Why people settle on the floodplain is a mystery to me. The wind is supposed to keep steady, which should dry surface roads fairly quickly. I haven't been out in a week and I'm beginning to feel like Batty Thomas. Talking to myself and bumbling about. The crows come out, then a few other birds, shaking their feathers, announcing at least a break in the rain. A welcome break, as I need to move some water around. I left the radio on, so I'd remember to listen to Science Friday, which I always enjoy when I remember to listen but I was distracted by sunlight breaking through the cloud cover. It's spectacular. Questions of beauty aside, or maybe not, it does attract my attention. The play of light on a lichen covered stump, a freckled neckline, wild orchids. Recently I made cornbread in my one square skillet and when I sliced it, corner to corner, then cut across the middle, I had six equal segments. I felt like I had uncovered a major mathematical concept. Finally did get out, supplies and a few things for the larder. Huge volume of Anglo-Saxon poetry, modern translations on one side and Anglo-Saxon on the other, from Jude. I once stayed in the library at Marshall University reading through the volumes of Earliest English Texts, must have been a week. My VW Bug had blown up in Nitro, West Virginia, and I ended up taking the bus back to Cape Cod. Not much sign of flooding, a little debris. Left-over cornbread doesn't last that long, Just keep it in the microwave, covered with a cloth. Toasted cornbread, with peanut butter and sliced banana is very good. I talked to Jude, to thank her for the book. Then roasted the week's oysters and had them with salsa, an avocado with lime juice. I picked up another smoked jowl to make cracklings, as the weather has indicated the need for a pot of beans. Fine tuning the winter larder, I found that Hormel still sells pickled pig's feet, in jars, and immediately bought a couple. A festive night in February I'll eat one of these and actually be a happy camper. The usual fish-camp always had a jar of pickled pig's feet and a jar of pickled eggs, crackers on demand. Roy and I thought we could break into the pickled pig's feet market, but we ate all of the product. Gristle, fat, gristle fat. Saltine crackers smeared with chicken grease. Nothing ever was.