Place Setting

Another morning of mist/fog in the hollow. It laps up and over the ridge, just about waist high. I walked over to the driveway, a couple of hundred yards, and watched it transpirate into the air above. Magical. Working in Colorado, often above weather events, it wasn't unusual to watch very small crystals being sucked upward into extremely dry air. I sat too long though, and my pants were wet, came back home and changed, made a mug of tea. Nosed around in yesterday's books and cryptic notes. A frazzle is a frayed end. Old French, to rub. Got side-tracked by "flay" which led to several hours of gruesome reading; first, saints, then that strange American habit of flaying your enemies and wearing their skin. The scare: I got up to get a drink,, I'd left the back door open, to get the threshold area completely dry, and when I walked over to the kitchen, there was a rattlesnake, right there, in the entry. Young and slender, therefore a two-year old male. I squeaked a kind of stage squeak. I thought the occasion called for it. It was still fairly cool and he wasn't moving fast, so I got a five-gallon bucket, a shovel and a hoe, and I was able to get the snake into the bucket and get him relocated in a couple of completely focused hours. I didn't have any other plans. Relocating snakes is cool, otherwise I'd just be feeding crows, or reading a light fiction.