Nothing Further

Needing a plan I started a list. Way too much trash, recycling and Goodwill stuff for one or even two trips, so I have to break it down. What to take to town, what to bring back home. Strike up the band, it's another cycle. Make a list first, of back shelve items, toilet paper, a new grinder of black pepper, staple food stuffs though I'm well stocked with staples, I do need another box of push-pins. I have the laundry sorted out. I do a large laundry in the fall and in the spring, the rest of the year I do a single load every two weeks. I often dash underwear and socks in a butter churn. The house needs the moisture, so I never mind the drying lines in the kitchen, there's something old-country about it. B said it was spring break at the collage, so I need to go for a little dumpster diving and to get rid of some trash. In the country, trash accumulates, there aren't many ways of getting shed of old broken stuff. You burn what you can. Glossy, clay-filled paper, is awful stuff, on the other hand I started almost all of my fires last winter with cash register receipts and that seems pretty cool. I walk that narrow line between cool and stupid most of the time. The continuing snake saga. Sitting out on the back porch, last night, a slight coolness from the river and hollows. Then this morning there is a six foot, four inch skin casing of a male timber rattler, stretched across the back deck. Molting. It's quite delicate and beautiful. In an attempt at preservation I put it to soak in salted water then intend to stretch it out and 'fix' it with something, to try and preserve the color. Snakes are, amazingly, quite dry; and these molted skins generally turn to dust quickly. Ground rock and desiccated organic matter. That mote, that lodges in the corner of your eye? it's been around forever. Symmetry became the subject of the day. I looked at a great many leaves and some very small flowers. I thought about tractors, post 1954, and the phrase "apparent symmetry" came to mind, mostly a product of cowling. What covers the workings, what you actually see. Cars, planes, trains, flying insects and birds; with moving things balance comes into play. In the field, if you look closely, there is a lot of failure. Failure is the impetus for change, or success is the impetus for change, however you view that; I lean toward failure, until it becomes an excuse. Nothing succeeds like failure.