Comb Wash

Outside of Blanding, Utah, you follow the birds to where water might be. Simple geography. A box canyon with a small pool and the barest trickle could support a family. Two springs I know, one outside of Moab and the other on the line between Colorado and Utah south of Dove Creek could support a village. Water is the factor. Grow some corn and kill some rabbits, big-horn jerky and wild greens, it's not difficult to earn a living. You need oil or fat of one kind or another, cotton-seed or coconut; there were no milk animals in Mexico because avocados were twenty per-cent oil. Then the pig explosion, wild and domestic pigs and all that salt-pork. Assumes salt, a mineral we eat directly. I was curious about my consumption of salt and sugar, so I set up a study, completely free of any restraints. I use less then a pound of salt and less than four pounds of sugar a year. A pint of honey one scant teaspoon at a time in herbal tea. That damned Barnhart got me drinking expensive tea, also that expensive Polish salami, but to his credit he always brings whiskey when he walks in to solve a problem I've usually created for myself. His son is way too bright too soon, I think he's scheduled to graduate from college and high school at the same time. I say send the kid to Finland for a year, or someplace where you have to wash plates with sand. The salt study is tainted because I use salt-pork all the time, and a particular cod-fish cake, made from salted cod, is a favorite of mine. Samara called, to talk about Oregon, and I'm designing a house they could live in there, a simple pagoda with an overhang for an outdoor kitchen.