Scroggy Hollows

Spring, at last, comes in with a cold rain. I can't listen to the Trump news, so between showers I sit out on the back deck and listen to the frogs fuck. I made a small casserole, from the leftover mussels, buttered a small dish, a layer of mussels, breadcrumbs, and the strained liquid, served on top of the leftover smashed potatoes. Scroggy was a pet word of Sir Walter Scott, for tangled underbrush. The local peaches and plums are all lost, D called, with an agricultural update, but the apples seem to be fine, unless we get another freeze. The pent and flow of water jumped the grader ditch and the driveway is a mess, the ruts washed out, in several places the outer rut has broken through, carrying roadbed into the hollow. Decision time, as to whether I pay for a quick fix, or pay a few thousand dollars for a serious upgrade. I have to think about that, and in the meantime I use four-wheel low more than I ever have in my life. Batty Tom was one of the nine bells in the wonderful book, The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers, and I'm feeling increasingly like Batty Tom, or Tom a' Bedlam, or Peeping Tom. In the afternoon I made a beef stew, and because I don't know how many more times I'll have a fully heated stove, I manage to take hours. Dice the meat (a flank steak) brown it in pork fat, caramelize onions and red peppers, roast potatoes and turnips and carrots, a broth of chicken stock, in which I dissolve a couple anchovies and add a dollop of tomato paste. Mix it all together, pull it off the heat, and let it simmer, over night, in the waning heat of the stove. I do this with lamb too. The daffadils and the crocuses are lovely, suddenly color after months of black and white, and the stew is a grace note. Life is good: I have dry wood inside, I have a pot of food, books, tobacco, a bottle of single-malt, the moon rising above the ridge. Who could want for anything more?