Country Life

I called B today, to find out what bird Harrison was referring to as a Trogon. Seems it might be a parrot that only occasionally wanders north of the US, Mexico border. House Wrens are Troglodytes. My Internet connection didn't allow me online, the pigeons were on strike. I thought about killing a male Grouse today. He was right outside the back door and a real temptation, but I didn't feel up to the chore of plucking and dressing a bird. I thought about fried gizzards, which I love, and made a mental note to drive to the Briar Patch, a cross-road gas station and store out west of Lucasville, where they fry everything. I only go out there a couple of times a year. KFC fried gizzards are an abomination, they were always fried yesterday and resemble soggy lumps of dough. I make a stir-fry from sliced gizzards where they have the mouth-feel of water chestnuts. It's a pain in the ass to make, but no one ever knows what they're eating. Not that I would not tell someone what I was fixing. The people that know me well will eat anything I cook, knowing I wouldn't bother wasting our time. Cranking up the stove because I wanted to make a batch of biscuits. Hot bread, as it was always called in my family. Sliced bread came later. It was good for sandwiches. But hot biscuits are a thing unto themselves. Later, I was in a kind of stupor from eating one too many, staring into space, wondering about self-control. Free will is a cute conceit. B said someone had stolen his chainsaw off the back porch, he knew who had taken it, a dim-wit vaguely related, pawned, no doubt, for a couple of pain-killers, a case of the truly poor robbing from the lower middle class. The landed gentry encourage this shit, because it removes them from the fray, where dogs actually do eat other dogs, and smallpox cleans up the rabble. I need to read some pages out loud, to time them, and get the pauses correct, for the reading tomorrow. As usual, I have no idea what I'm going to read. There are literally thousands of pages and as I read, walking around the house, stopping at the island, I mark particular paragraphs, some of which have been marked before, which must mean I like them. One time I only read pieces that Linda had liked, she's my ace reader. At this point I could do a reading of only pages that had been written on February 28th. I could probably do thirty minutes for every day of the year. A foot locker with 365 booklets, and one smaller pamphlet for three leap years. I finally settle on reading a sequence of pieces about leaving the museum and starting to spend all of my time reading and writing. Late afternoon, the birds are very active, and I go for a walk, to clear my head. I give that up fairly quickly, because the six inches of settled snow has crusted over just enough to almost support my weight. Every step crashes through. Awful walking conditions. Settle in with Barry Lopez. A toddy, roll a smoke, listen to the snaps and crackles of the fire. The left-over chorizo dish has become a kind of fried rice and it's very good, toasted biscuits are always good. I did have a moment of near panic. I'd dozed off, awoke with a start, thinking I was confined; I just had my feet tangled in the lap-robe. Another toddy, read some more Lopez. Arctic Dreams is a magnificent book. I actually begin to feel warm, go outside and see that it's 30 degrees, perfect conditions for an ice storm, so I go to the shed and get an armload of wood, get out the candles and an oil-lamp. I keep my head-lamp in a specific place that I can find using only my sense of touch. It's been a beautiful but brutal February, and I want to dust off, and clean the house. Read more...

Feeling Good

Something about just getting it done. Getting the Jeep down, getting what I needed in town, hiking back in, getting a good fire going, making a meal. Simple stuff. And the birds were out in force. I tend to forget myself, in the midst of the mundane. I clear snow off of stumps and the edge of the print shop stoop, so that the next time I arrive at one of those places, there's a dry spot to park my ass. I want to build a crude bench halfway up the driveway, so I'd have a place to sit and roll a smoke. The tendency is to be in too much of a hurry, getting from one place to another. It's always best to slow down. When I walk in, with a turnip and a parsnip, I'm not trying to make a point. It's just that the last time I had them, roasted with clarified butter, salt and pepper, they were very good. I fall into my below zero survival mode, eat early, crank up the fire, read for a while, take a nap, then get up after midnight, nurse the fire, and write for a couple of hours. The second sleep is good for dreams. I usually get up the second time, stoke the fire, then listen to NPR until I get pissed enough at something to throw off my blanket, turn off the radio, and make a pot of coffee. I reread what I was writing, add or subtract a comma or two, have a first cigaret, and consider my breakfast options. Like John Thorne, I cast a wide net for breakfast. I seldom put left-overs away at night, when it's this cold, so a breakfast hash with a fried egg is fairly common. As mentioned often, an egg yolk is the perfect sauce. Grits have become a fixture. Grits, with a sausage patty and a cheese omelet is more often to be dinner. I just ran out of squash, rescued from the Thanksgiving displays, just before the first hard freeze, and I'm very fond of half an acorn squash, stuffed with compote or berries for breakfast. Biscuits and gravy if there are left-over biscuits. Toasted corn bread with molasses. I still have a steak and a pork tenderloin in the freezer and it's almost March. I need to get out next week, because I'll need almost everything, but I'm pretty secure right now. One of my new rules is that if I extend myself physically, splitting wood or walking out and in, is that I just take the next day off. I might read Ezra Pound or Levi-Strauss, Gunter Grass, or Delillo, I might take a walk and get completely sidetracked by a narrative I create (at zero degrees all narratives are suspect), or cook marrow bones because of some atavistic desire. The hours slide by. An acquaintance asked what I did with my time. If she had to ask, she couldn't possibly know. Well, I spent several hours thinking about cannibalism in North America, then I thought about ground water contamination, then I thought I'd better pop the Chorizo into the freezer so it would slice more easily, listened to early blues while I chopped onions. Read more...

Getting Out

I'd visualized driving out for a couple of days, so this morning I just did it. I figured the crust on the snow would help slow me, and it did, also the undercarriage dragging. Four-wheel low in first gear. The only slight slippage was when I needed to tap the brakes at the second curve. Got to town, dropped off books at the library and didn't check out any more because I didn't want to carry them back up the hill. Stopped at the pub for a huge open face pork and provolone sandwich and a sample of Russian Cabbage soup, all excellent. Stopped at the museum, to see the new African Art show which is very handsome. Then Kroger for whiskey and tobacco, some vegetables and another package (on sale) of link Chorizo sausage. I'm imagining something on rice. Picked up a wad of mail, including a new chapbook by my favorite Canadian poet, Guy Birchard, which I read through for the first time at the pub. Loaded my pack and parked at the bottom of the hill. So much easier walking back up in the tire tracks. It's still a hardy trek, make no mistake, and I stop several times, but it's lovely, the snow such a pristine napp on the landscape. The contours and old logging roads, sensuous mounds and stumps, everything smoothed out and rounded. It gets to 25 degrees, but the sun is so intense there's dripping everywhere. After the hike in, I was done for the day, took off my boots and shed the outer layer. Made a nice toddy, about four in the afternoon, with cider and a pat of butter. My needs satisfied. I might make a pan of biscuits later, but I'm stuffed from lunch and samples. And I've brought in considered supplies, and I can get to my reading on Sunday. If I split and made another rick of wood inside tomorrow, that would be a good thing. I need to pick some pages to read on Sunday, read them a few times, to check my punctuation. But I don't need to fret, I can do that. We writers are an arrogant bunch, even as we float off on our individual icebergs. We are many and various. I have to go nap. Read more...

A Story

Dupree running his trap line. It was late. He made arguments for and against. Several of the traps were in bogs, where water inevitably crept over your boot-tops. Dupree puts his shoulder into freeing another stuck wagon. Nothing you wouldn't do for any other pilgrims. No matter what they say, I would never eat your babies. I draw a line, somewhere south of there. Dupree had a penchant for moving targets, he told me, this could hardly be ascribed, that he was only ever comfortable when the ducks flew in without a decoy. I had to think about that. We either become the ducks or the shooter in his blind. Shocked out of my reverie by a small helicopter that seems to be examining each of the hollows. Google Maps? I have no idea. It's difficult to escape the notion, what with recent events, that someone is interested in me. Not in a good way. Odd, if so, because they would find me at a point in my life when I'm rather remarkably almost spotless as concerns any important laws. It's probably nothing, a State Forest survey of trees damaged in the ice-storm of '04, a close study of extremely local drainage, or fuel to the rumor that 'they' want to buy up the land that would connect two wilderness areas. If that rumor was true, and they caught me on the right day in February, if the price was anything short of disgraceful, I might sell. There would be the problem of where I would go. Further south. Truthfully, though I have moved a great many times, including moving a print shop twice, I'm not sure I could do it again. I'm finally living in a place designed by me, built by me, for me; all of my books about me, my beautiful Stanley Waterford cook stove, windows that look out on deep forests, and, often, a serene stillness that calms the soul. Then there are the crows, who interrupt the interruption. I did have a couple of mice for them, they're like spoiled kids who expect candy and a present. Still, they function as a scratch on the sound-track album. A hitch, where Bob forgets his own lyrics. The day got away from me. I woke up imagining a fictional character and was soon brought back to point. Stoke fire, melt snow. I'm tired of lifting my feet so high to walk, it makes my hips hurt. It dripped for a couple of hours today, so it might have been above freezing, at least where the sun was shining. Read more...

John Clare

The darting mind: Christopher Smart, Skip Fox. "The pretension of biographical reality," as Harrison says, is sometimes overwhelming. Something woke me. Took a few minutes for me to come fully awake but there was a noise inside the house, something small and frenetic. I knew it was a bat before I turned on a light. A merry chase ensues, me in my long underwear with a butterfly net. It's difficult to get a bat out of a butterfly net. By the time I get it safely released outside, I'm completely awake, so I get a wee dram and roll a smoke. Bats are vectors for rabies, so I had put an oven-mitt on one hand, being careful not to get bitten. I'd heard a piece on NPR about rabies recently, and I had retreated to what might be called a careful mode, not wanting to die that way, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, no matter how appropriate that might be. Later, staring into the middle distance, I had a minor epiphany that involved Mormons and all the women I've ever loved. There were pillars of salt, and a freight train loaded with coal. B told me to wear ear protection. I'm good at reading sign, but I made no sense of it. I have a history of not understanding. I don't give up, if we did that we'd all be dead at 18, but fifty years later, I'm still not sure I get the point. Antony mentioned that he hated going to events, openings or such, that he hated getting ready, felt like a gadfly; but that once he was there, he enjoyed himself. I knew what he meant because I hate going anywhere, but once I'm on the road I feel great about the prospects. It would be so easy to just give up, the temptation is everywhere, but something in the DNA makes you cast the net one more time, for old times' sake, and you find something new. Enough to stumble on. Keep ample supplies of animal fat, a bag of potatoes, usually there isn't any reason to exist; but the birds seem to think otherwise. Read more...

Another Front

Harrison says that knowledge gives shape to scenery. Which is certainly true. The ridge is packed in snow, and I might try to get the Jeep out tomorrow because I think that breaking through the crust would result in even slower speed. I think I could hold a line, going down. I'm thinking about it. More severe weather coming tonight, 10 below, it never got above 15 degrees today, but I had to get outside, so I refilled the wood-box, split some small stuff, brought everything inside. Two or three more nights below zero. It's been a fairly brutal February. I had a divine sardine and onion sandwich for lunch, then went back outside, because I was dressed in insulated everything, and it was so beautiful. I'd cleared one edge of the stoop completely, so that it would be a dry place to sit, and I use it often. Hermit dressed in tatters, smoking a badly rolled cigaret. I read some Sidney Lanier today, thinking about music and words. Then some more Harrison. Read a nice piece about the comma queen at The New Yorker, which was actually a history of the comma and where it stands today. A subject dear to my heart. I end up spending several hours looking at commas. I was sore and a bit sour, from working in the cold and getting older, but I bucked up enough to spend the evening slightly altering meaning by where I placed a pause. Seemed like a pretty good use of my time. I made a great mayonnaise with Adobo sauce and a finely minced chipotle, then made a great grilled cheese sandwich with several different shredded cheeses. Simple pleasures. Got a good fire going and tucked in for a nap. I need to get up after midnight, and tend the fire. If I do get out tomorrow, I'd have the vehicles tracks to walk up and down in, easier than the high-footed dance I have to do walking up in the same footprints I made going down. My potter friend, Antony, called and wanted to visit, and actually did. Drove out, parked at the bottom of the hill, hiked in, drank coffee, and we had a couple of hours of conversation. A rare mid-winter treat. I didn't get the Jeep out. After Antony left, I took a little walk, down the logging road, thinking about the choices we make. He's at a crossroad, a choice between one life or another, and both of them are attractive. Henry Miller could have played competition table tennis. Something killed a rabbit, an owl probably, and there's an interesting kill-and-eat circle in the snow; I studied it for so long that my feet got cold and I had to go back to the house. Simon Ortiz said "There are no truths, only stories." Which seemed germane on several fronts. The first of which was the story I made up about what had happened at a very specific place recently, bird kills rabbit. Anyone might notice something else, which would tell a slightly different story. Also, that there could even be a consensus, Penn And Teller would blow away with a nod. I'm having a steamed artichoke for dinner, with the chipotle mayonnaise and a pone of cornbread. I've been looking forward to this. I'm going to listen too Bach, then take a nap. Read more...

The Forecast

Maybe changing over to rain, we're right on the line (often described as the Ohio River) where ten inches of snow might just be one inch of rain. I'm sore, my body aches and creaks, but I'm careful, and the world is glorious. A dawn walk along the logging road, knocking ice off overhanging brambles with my mop handle, lest it fall down my neck, and it's like walking in a crystal palace. It's so beautiful I'm left speechless. I know I need to eat more, so I fry up some potatoes and sausage. It got above freezing, briefly, all the snow and ice is off the trees and the snow on the ground has crusted-over at ten to twelve inches. I worked outside for a while, but I didn't like the footing, so I went inside for a toddy and read Harrison, then John Thorne. Made an excellent omelet with the last of the roasted vegetables. I slept long and hard last night and didn't need a fire right away this morning. The wildlife enjoys the brief reprieve before another round of cold temps. The birds are out, rabbits, and a family of grouse down near the print shop (I think they have a nest underneath, out of the snow). There's a set of deer tracks, a young buck, that cross the logging road. I read back over some writing, as Linda had suggested, and it held together quite well. The way that leaving the museum was a jumping off point for so much more reading and reflection. Not worrying about the boilers, not cleaning the bathrooms, not setting up tables and chairs; but pursuing avenues of thought, forming mental constructs, remembering. Also cooking hash with a coddled egg, eating hot fresh biscuits and cornbread, or cooking a great bean soup. Walking outside and being distracted by everything. Actually having in my pocket a list of words, with a note of the specific dictionary that I wanted to look them up in. Time better spent, in my estimation; and I save money by not going to town, I don't buy a damn thing and I eat well but cheap, and my finances are recovering from the new tires and shocks, land taxes, and car insurance, all at the same time. For my land line, my long distance service, and AOL, I pay about $80 a month; I don't need satellite TV because I don't have a TV, but I'd like to cut down on that cost and improve service. It's difficult to sort things out. All of the companies lie about their service. Read more...

HIke Out

Much more snow overnight, and still snowing when I get up. Warmer, though. I dawdle around, warming the house, reading some Harrison, then head out to B's. The top of the ridge is awful, and the driveway, because I had to break trail through a foot of snow. The roads hadn't been plowed, so even when I got down to Upper Twin, it was slow going through eight inches of increasingly heavy snow. When I got to B's I was breathing hard. We talked for a while, an hour and a half, about building projects and book, he commented on my lack of stamina, which is certainly a fact, mostly because I haven't been walking up and down the driveway. He drives me back to the bottom of the driveway, and I have a pack with mail, whiskey, tobacco, and I stopped often. I knew it was going to be a slog. But then I could see around the last curve, the top of the driveway, then I could see the print shop, and I knew I could stop there and rest my weary ass. Just a last hundred yards to the house, and because my exertions, it actually felt rather warm. Built a fire, put things away, read my mail, put my outer layer near the stove to dry. Sleet was pelting me, the last couple of hundred yards, but it's difficult to express how excited I was to get back home undamaged. I sat in the open door of the print shop, reattaching a crampon that was caked with ice, letting my heartbeat return to normal, watching the wetter snow start clinging to everything. It's incredibly beautiful. Every stick is encased. Late afternoon ground fog, which is what you get when a great deal of snow is sublimating into almost saturated air. It tends to hang around. If this turns into an ice storm I'm going to follow Mac's advice, hitch a ride into town, and rent a motel room for a week. I could take a great many baths, lotion my entire body, watch TV, and trim my toenails. A cruise at the Super Eight. No housekeeping, ground floor, a smoking room, $250 for a week sounds like a deal to me, there are places to eat nearby and machines that distribute candy. I have a list of shows people think I need to see, and I occasionally do see one of them, in a motel room in Nebraska, and they're usually pretty good, if a discerning friend had recommended it. And I don't mind watching a movie, it's a little like reading a book, it can be a good way to fill time. I'd rather be discussing a particular piece of punctuation, but what the hell, hot running water. My outside thermometer was ripped asunder by a snow slide off the roof. When I get back from my adventure, I sweep the back porch (actually just a path across the back porch) and the snow is up to the second step. At the head of the driveway there's 14 inches. Tentative arrangements to ride into town with B on Wednesday, it's his early day at the college, he can pick me up and drop me off at the bottom of the hill. I can walk to the library and Kroger, and wait for him at the pub. I'll have to carry a full pack in, but I won't be in any hurry, and if it doesn't snow much more, at least I'll have a path. The shopping list is very considered, for a hike out and back in deep snow. I'm pretty well set on meat, grains and beans, but I need vegetables, and I'll need juice (frozen, mixed with melted snow is the lightest solution) and maybe a library book. The book is optional because I have several thousand at home. I need to make another soup. I'll split some wood and stamp out some trails. I can use the Jeep, I think, to make a trail over to the head of the driveway, and leave it there, so I can ferry myself the last two hundred yards back and forth to the house. Arrangements. Confusing tracks, on the last leg in (after stopping at the print shop to regain my breath) where something had happened, a rabbit had been killed by either a hawk or an owl, the entire narrative was spelled out, but it was a confusing blur in the snow. I find myself, often, reconstructing what might have happened, in a medium that disappears right in front of my eyes. Read more...

Bottomed Out

More or less as planned. I had a nap, TR called at midnight, so I got up for another couple of hours, stoked the stove and put on the last of my gnarly night logs, took another nap and just caught the fire again this morning. It did get to fifteen below, then just before noon, finally, one degree above. I suited up, swept the new snow off the back porch, and it was way too cold to be outside. This weather saps all of my energy. Clear for a little while this morning, snow clouds building in the afternoon. Another Winter Storm Watch through tomorrow night. Woke with a terrible charley-horse in my left leg and it ended up so sore I didn't dare try the hike out to B's. The whole experience was awful, a terrible way to wake. Actually stumbled a couple of times, when I'd forget to favor it. I did walk out and get most of the snow off the Jeep, started it up after last night's cold. The extent of my labors. Rereading Harrison's essays. He's a good food writer, all of his writing is very good. I walked around in the house all day, trying to work the soreness out of my leg with some success; put away a few books, some of which required climbing the stairs. Next year I'll use nothing but the composting toilet, I'll maintain the outhouse for guests. I'll have to clean and dump the composting toilet. I need to fix the light in the bathroom, so I can read in there, when I'm using the composting toilet. I need to fix the drain in the kitchen sink, not that I could be using it now anyway. I'm melting snow for wash water, there's so much of it, and it's so clean. I need 50% more firewood which would halve my electric bill (I've used a lot of back-up heat this winter) because I'm home so much, and I want to be a little bit more comfortable. I'd let the fire go out, to dump the ashes, and realize just as it's getting dark, that I hadn't dumped the ash bucket, never remembered when I had boots on, so I have to go do that, and with all the snow, it's still quite light after six. Lovely and not as cold, 15 above has never felt so good. I do need to get out to B's, as this rationing nonsense is ridiculous. But I get a good fire going and heat my left-overs, spend an hour reading Harrison at the island. The wind picks up, with the next round of weather. The rookery has moved to a more protected space, but my three old friends still roost in the dead poplar out near the outhouse. It feels very solitary tonight, not depressive, I'm perfectly happy to kick back and read for eight hours, but I have a strong sense of being alone. I'll go on the record here and say it, roasted sweet potato chunks, with red sweet pepper chunks, and rounds of Chorizo is incredibly delicious. You eat it right out of the skillet and dip everything in the Chorizo fat. I talked with Linda, which is always a treat, about the threads in my writing, and she recommended that I look at just the work since I left the museum; when I became so much more solitary. I'd had the same thought. I find it reads pretty well, and there are a lot of threads, only a few of which are ever explained. When I turn on the radio, to see what day it is, it's a Miles Davis set, where he leaves out almost everything. It's beautiful. I have a picture of him, tacked to the wall, and I look at it almost every day. You don't explain, you just play. Read more...

Celebrity Crap

I don't know who any of these people are, I don't recognize them. I haven't seen a movie in twenty years and I don't own a television. I don't listen to popular music. The snow has muffled all sound. Six below when I wake, supposed to get up to five degrees today, then fifteen below tonight. I suit up and go out, to cut some poplar starter sticks, but it's too cold; my days of working outdoors at zero degrees are over. I keep a stash of mop and broom handles (these are common in dumpsters) and I just bow-saw a couple right in the entry way. Theses are usually Ash and they burn very well. I'm going to roast the last of the sweet potatoes and my last sweet red pepper when I move over to the island later, to be closer to the stove. My plan is to have someone call me at midnight, because I don't seem to own an alarm clock, so that I can get the house warm for the early morning hours. I blew it off this morning, because I was so snug in my mummy bag. There was a skim of ice in the pickle buckets of wash water by the back door. This seems extreme even for me. When it's zero, you absolutely have to get up and tend the fire. I need to buy some sort of alarm thing. As long as it doesn't tick. I hate ticking. I do need to hike out to B's tomorrow, he called and said he had my supplies, whiskey and tobacco, and that trip will exhaust me. The biggest problem is breaking trail through a foot of snow. Once I'm off the ridge I can walk in the road, which I heard them plow today. B will probably drive me back to the bottom of the hill; crampons and a mop handle, walking back up in the trail I had broken coming down. I think I'll take the Jeep over to the head of the driveway, so that as soon as I achieve the ridge, I can knock off the snow and turn on the heat, drive the last 200 yards to the house. I might sit for a while, with the engine running and a book on CD; the seats are heated, I'm a cheap date. I call TR and he agrees to call my phone and let it ring a few times, to wake me up, when I need to tend the fire. Otherwise, I need to go chop a few vegetables. And a link sausage, a chorizo. Stoke the stove one more time and curl up in my bag. Needless to say, the roasted vegetables with the sausage fat is incredibly good. I eat it right out of the pan, no mediation, and there's enough left over for a hearty breakfast. Probably because I made a point of calling TR, I'm awake before he calls and have the fire roaring. Well below zero and the only sound is branches snapping, the quality of mercy is somewhat strained. At ten below, my manual says, tuck in your toes and breathe through your nose. Read more...

Passing Fancy

Nothing could be further from the truth. I love the concept of a Cheba, a wooden cage with a cleric held over the public square. Held accountable, which, of course, is a myth. But it's easy enough to sacrifice a fat priest. Two geese go into a bar. Later, of course, no one remembers anything. The twelve step program on the ridge is you either live or die. Phone was out so I couldn't SEND, then it got very cold and I went into hibernation mode. Four inches of new snow, more in the forecast. Up to fifteen degrees today, near steady down to ten below Friday night. Blowing snow all day. A great many birds, stocking up on Sumac seeds, including two pair of Cardinals looking out of place. Even a Pileated Woodpecker joins the fray. I needed to split and stack another rick, but put it off until tomorrow, despite the fact that it's supposed to be colder, because it's likely to be at least partly sunny. All day today, when I decided to go out, it would start snowing harder, so I finally just gave it up, put on my slippers and got a toddy. My survival plan is to stay wrapped up, eat roasted vegetables, and reread Barry Lopez's great Arctic Dreams. My phone is restored and I call B at the University, and ask him to get me whiskey and tobacco and hold them at his house. Maybe I can hike down there on Friday. The radio is a flood of closings for tomorrow. Athens is closing down, and in several counties you're not supposed to drive unless your wife is having a baby. I might be able to get the Jeep down on Saturday or Sunday, if not I'll hike out and ride into town with B on Monday. Ran out of aluminum foil, so I nuke a couple of potatoes, so that I can fry slices with sausage and eggs. Just at dusk a wave of snow that obscures everything. From listening to the local news and weather, I get the idea that everyone is just writing off tomorrow. Schools, post office, State and County offices, everything closed, stay off the roads, stay home and watch a movie. Stay tuned for our list of cancellations. I've never seen the Towhees eating the Sumac until today. No one is singing. The crows check in, but I have nothing to offer, they bitch and moan. The trip to the outhouse was an adventure. I had the warm seat under my arm (which stores next to the stove) but I saw right away there was a problem. The outhouse is only three-sided and doesn't have a door, snow was drifting, and I was in the teeth of the wind. Pooping thus, I had to consider my career choices. Now it's wind, it came out of nowhere and took the stage. I sign off as quick as I can. Read more...

Below Zero

Ten degree high and below zero for the next several days, but the sun was out today and I needed wood. First I had to sweep eight inches of new snow off everything, tramp a path to the woodshed. I managed to get one hour of work done in about four hours and I was all in. I had to switch into my insulated Carhartt bib overalls, add a fleece vest and my work boots, wear a face mask and a hat, and wear insulated gloves even though I don't like them because I can't feel what I'm doing. I got another rick inside, in the #1 position, right next to the stove; and some starter sticks that I store under the stove. Tracked crap into the house, so after stacking the rick, I had to sweep; I left the insulated bibs on because they're so warm. I might sleep in them, the next few nights, sleeping on the sofa to tend the stove. A slightly flattened grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup for lunch. Roasted vegetables for dinner. I'm actually quite comfortable, in my bathrobe, with a lap blanket, a muffler and hat. The crows were back, and I had one mouse for them in the freezer, so I nuked it and tossed it up into the snow on the outhouse roof. Pretty funny routine for a few minutes, three crows, one mouse, deep snow. The hot mouse had sank right down through the dry snow. Would have made a great little instructional video on how to work together. When I came in the last time, traded boots for slippers, I made a wonderful hot chicken broth cocktail with a shot of whiskey, a small pat of butter, and a couple of drops of hot sauce. Both of my shoulders sore, but nothing serious, I'd barked a knuckle on my left hand; the air seemed thin, and I needed a lot of it. By damn though, I had tramped paths where I needed them, split out kindling; positioned myself for what might be a difficult couple of days. Add another blanket, over my back, I can always read and sleep. Read more...

Tort

We could argue. We could. I'm sure we could disagree about almost everything. It gets this cold, though, and I tend to forget the point. I nap for a few hours, get up and stoke the stove. I need to stay up for a couple of hours, so I wake Black Dell and go a few rounds. Read some essays. Rereading myself, I stumbled on a sentence that didn't say exactly what I wanted to say, so I rearranged it several different ways, changed the punctuation. I'd add a word, then take a word out. The meaning, if we can call it that, was morphing right at the ends of my fingertips. I was reading the words out loud, rolled a cigaret, fetched a wee dram. While I was at the island, I opened the stove door and looked at the banked coals. It's a lovely thing, stirring the coals, watching a fire rekindle. It engages several senses, and the combination of smells and sounds and vision, the way memory comes alive, is not something we control. I put a couple of logs on the fire. I'm still repeating this set of words (look up 'set' in the OED) out loud, dressed like a homeless person. The stove is so hot I had to make a pan of biscuits, a major distraction. A whole new realm of smells and tastes. When I make a batch of biscuits (which is usually eight) I just leave them out, split them open and toast one, whenever I think about something that would be good on a split, toasted, buttered biscuit. Almost anything is. I never had a biscuit go bad. And I'm still working on this line, trying to make sense. Hours have gone past and I'm still working on the same sentence. Anyone who could move at all would be faster than me. Tom The Slough. I'd better go, serious weather forecast. When I finally woke up the second time, it's five degrees and snowing hard. Winter storm watch until Tuesday morning. It's quite beautiful out but deadly cold. I have to put on full facial covering to go dump the pee pot and the dish water. Supposed to still be very cold tomorrow but partially sunny, and I'll have to restock all the stations of wood. Next year I'll need more of everything, I'd underestimated the demands of being home all the time. The cooking and eating aspect of things has been fine, soups and stews and large fried rice dishes that I can eat for several days, making biscuits and cornbread frequently, dried beans. The isolation is interesting and necessary for me now. I can mimic the actions of a fox digging for a vole, mumble, or even talk out loud, as I was doing last night, teasing the meaning out of a group of words, without calling attention to myself or trying to hold up one end of a relationship. I can turn off the refrigerator and listen to snow settling on leaves. I couldn't be a decent partner right now. And my lifestyle would be difficult for most people to embrace. Not having running water and having to walk in and out on a very steep hill through deep snow tends to be a turnoff. It's hard to imagine a Mrs. Basho. Thoreau, on the other hand, went home on the weekend for a family meal, and the help would do his laundry. Where you place your faith seems to be the luck of the draw, either your mother is Jewish, your father is a Protestant minister, or your best friend is a Catholic. Incredibly, it starts snowing harder. I'm going to go toast a biscuit. Read more...

Idle Thoughts

Gone down the wrong way? What did that mean? There was a sound, an irregular tapping that might have been water, but it sounded dry. I couldn't find the source of the sound, and I looked everywhere. This had gone on for several months. Something, clearly, was making that sound. It took me an hour, but by sitting in various places and using a flashlight, I finally discovered a leaf hanging on a braided thread of cobweb tapping on a metal door. I got back to sleep then woke just at dawn. Overcast, cold, but it hadn't snowed yet and I jumped at the chance to get to town. I may have speeded, and I was certainly a complete fright, uncombed, rather dirty, truth be known; with a ratty sweatshirt and rubber boots. One of the perks of living in an extremely rural area, is that no one seems to notice if you look completely out of sorts. I got everything I needed, plus a few other things (a couple of sweet potatoes, some vegetable chips, a stinky cheese on sale, a bar of chocolate) and got back to the ridge as quickly as possible. As soon as I get unloaded it starts snowing, then it starts snowing hard, and I feel like I've pulled off a magic trick. I can dip into my back-up bottle of whiskey because a have a new back-up bottle. I stopped at the Bridge Street Carry-Out to get an extra package of cigaret papers, and the lady there knew exactly what I wanted, we talked briefly about the weather. She recommended that I get my ass home. Fucking wind, on the way home, I fought for control. I'm sure I'll lose power and phone, so I get out an oil lamp and some candles. The power is back on now, maybe four hours off; I just read, in the failing light, adding candles as the darkness thickened. The wind is howling up a gale. I'm going to go curl up on the sofa. It's ferocious outside, with the blowing snow; the last time I went out to pee, was painful. I went into survival mode, unfortunately, I fell asleep, woke at three in the morning and the house was frigid. Zero outside. Got up and put on a lot of clothes, then built a fire and stayed up to feed it. A fortified mug of chicken broth, some chocolate, and I curled up on the sofa, under my heaviest blanket, and reread some Annie Proulx stories. Not a day to be out and about. It's beautiful and the birds are all puffed up like crazy, and the harsh sunlight sublimates the snow, but not a day for a walk. I was perfecting my mumble today, as I edited myself. For the most part I don't change much, but little changes can be difficult. The oven was hot, so I roasted a cubed sweet potato, with red pepper chunks and small whole onions; a dipping sauce of very good balsamic. I had to eat the onions with a spoon, because I couldn't spear the damned things with a fork, or if I did spear them, they squirted apart, but I have to say that charred small onions are a treat. I get them canned, at Big Lots, and drain them as well as possible, but they always hold a lot of moisture and they are best eaten with a spoon, in a single bite, with the mouth closed. The last of he fried rice, it's been hanging around for a few days and the starch is fully developed; what I like to do is form a hollow, with the back of a spoon, and poach an egg in there, the egg yolk being the mother of all sauces. Read more...

Usual Problems

Another storm moving in with snow, zero temps, and wind, so I spent the day working on firewood. In the mid-twenties today, bright and clear. It was treat to be outside but I certainly tracked in a lot of crap. Two more ricks of wood near the cookstove. Frozen wood chills the house right down, but I get a good fire going and put on my bathrobe over four layers, put on my Linda hat and fingerless gloves and I'm actually quite comfortable. I have the fried rice for two more dinners, then I'll have to come up with something, which isn't a problem because I have several options. I could make a large pan of scalloped potatoes, I have another acorn squash, another pound of sausage, another dozen eggs. I have Korean sardines, canned eel, and a jar of pickled okra. I'm not without reserves. I still have blackberries in the freezer, I have cornmeal, I can make biscuits on demand. I need a few things, but I'm not desperate, I can drink my coffee black, I can melt and boil snow for drinking water. Once I break into my back-up bottle of whiskey, I might start to get worried, but I can always hike in and out, ride into town with B, and stash some things at his place. If it doesn't snow too much tonight, I could get into town tomorrow. It seems unlikely. If it's a snow day, as predicted, I'll just read and stoke the stove. It's supposed to be bitter cold. I went to bed early, pretty much exhausted from working outside. It's not a bad feeling, to be physically tired, to roll about a bit and find a comfortable position, and be instantly asleep. About three in the morning, something woke me; my ears didn't pop exactly, but it had to do with atmospheric pressure. A very strange dream in which I was sitting on a stump at the edge of a small pond. It had started to rain, isolated large drops, and they were dimpling the water's surface, all of the circles overlapping into a three dimensional Venn Diagram that was seeming to make sense. I don't put much stock in dreams, leaning toward random neurons firing; but this one was lovely. I'm a fan of patterns, and not quite patterns. Always danced to the off-beat drummer. I credit this to the endless number of characters that enter your life if you move twelve times before you graduate from high school. A larger sampling. In some ways it's a blessing, seeing that there is a range of human experience; and in some ways it's a curse, noting the number of dead-ends. Read more...

Blowing Snow

I can't quite see the other side of the hollow. As soon as I got the stove hot (an hour) I started cooking. Fuck a bunch of weather. I did fix the huge breakfast for a late dinner, and it was splendid, and I have left-overs that I'm making into hash for breakfast; then I intend to make a world-class Pork Fried Rice. I see no reason to leave the house. I hear the county truck spreading gravel on the hill where Mackletree comes down into Upper Twin. It's very quiet otherwise. No wind, just light snowflakes drifting about. One of those black and white days until a woodpecker flies in, flashing a showy crest. Mid-day it started snowing harder and even the trees close to the house were difficult to see, but the sky is getting lighter. I don't remember, if I ever knew, the forecast. In a separate file I start writing a letter to my father, which is a project I've managed to put off for years. I have several skillets to clean and cure, and two books that I'm rebinding, both of which I think of as 'non-electric' chores. While I still have power I listen to Casals playing the Cello Suites, in order, which is a pain in the ass, because no one ever records them in order. I'd moved my base of operation over to the island, so I could cook, and I noticed a joint I had cut, 15 years ago, for a support post under the stringer for the stairs. I remember cutting it, it's a Dogwood post and I could take you to the very spot where it was harvested. The joint itself is cut at a compound angle, and it was cut with an electric chainsaw. I couldn't do it today, but it is very nearly perfect. The test for nearly perfect is that you don't notice it at all: you finish a very nice poplar ceiling and trim it decently and only you will know its imperfections. The chickadees swoop in to feed on the Sumac. They're so fucking cute they make me smile. They appear so fat, puffed up against the cold. True to form, I venture only as far as the back porch, where, Gardy Loo, I dump out wash water and the piss-pot. I was working out a chess problem, just to understand where my mistake had happened, what I hadn't seen; I used to play Go with Harvey, before he killed himself, he was much better at the game than me, as B is with chess, but that doesn't preclude me examining specific moves. My mistake. I assume full responsibility, I moved the rook one round too soon. My tell is that I broadcast my intension with a grin. Of course I can fake that, we all learn to fake reaction, but I don't play games very well. I'm only good at Scrabble because a have a good vocabulary. The Pork Fried Rice is very good and I eat a couple of servings as the cold settles, and it is cold, make no mistake. The last time I go out to pee, my beard freezes. Even inside my hands don't work correctly and I have to warm them in my armpits before I roll a cigaret, but I'm comfortable enough, in my three or four layers of clothes; the biggest problem is having to start disrobing before you feel the urge to pee. A night like tonight, I set the timer for when I want to put a last log on the fire, then roll into my down bag and play dead. Assume a fetal position, under two blankets, in three layers of clothes, it's doubtful you could die. The last thing I hear on the radio, says that tomorrow will begin with frozen fog. I don't know what that is. Is it in the air, or does it settle on things? Frost on the window or a sheet of ice? Frozen fog sounds like a film technique, where everything fades to black and white. Black fingers and toes that have to be amputated. Bone-fishing on the flats, you only ever see a shadow. I'm good at this, but I miss most of the time. Mostly, we miss the point. Read more...

Broken Clouds

Partly sunny in the afternoon, with sunlight in those occasional slanted shafts that illuminate a narrow band of the forest floor. Spent most of the day in and out of reverie, remembering things, reading myself. Crazy swings, and it got warm enough (45 degrees) that I let the stove go out so I could clean the smoke chase. Temps are supposed to fall to near zero tomorrow, so I put off my cooking until then, and make do with a sardine sandwich. With a slice of raw onion it's very good. Dappled light, in the late afternoon, is beautiful. If it doesn't snow too much, I should be able to get out and in when the driveway freezes again. I'm pretty well supplied right now, though I wish I had some almonds and chocolate. Later, I think, I'll make a re-fried potato, sausage and cheese omelet; I have these onion flakes I get at Big Lots, reconstitute in Sherry, and make an interesting salsa with halved grape tomatoes and watercress. Toast, with a fairly bitter marmalade. Bitter, they say, is an acquired taste. I've acquired it. I think about the word bitter, for a while, bitter taste, bitter experience, then watch a pair of cardinals signaling their intentions. The Anne Tyler didn't ring any bells, maybe I'm just dense, maybe it was a mistake, maybe some devious person is shoveling red-herring on my stoop. No reason to mislead me, I'm misled enough. It does seem like a Dorothy Sayers novel, though; Lord Peter noticing that the perp was left-handed, quite tall, and favored his right leg. Harriet noticed a water-mark that was wrong. The whole narrative fell apart, he could have been there, slashed her throat, been out the back door before anyone noticed. Even facts are a relative thing. The dumpster was moved by the garbage company, words were shared that triggered some response. A perfectly thrown elbow and a broken nose. Everyone loves a good mystery. Actually I spent the day reading On The Run by Alice Goffman. Her father Erving is who got me reading Sociology in the first place. He was brilliant on 'other'. The book at hand is several years' study of a poor inner-city black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Quite different, but somehow equivalent to the time I spent immersed in black culture in Babylon, Duck Hill, Mississippi. My entry into that was mostly the food, but I was often the only white person around, trying to understand what linguists call African American Vernacular English, and cooking with Roy. We had some times. His family and friends had no choice but to accept me, because Roy was the Patriarch, and he was also six feet four and weighed 300 pounds. He was on hard times one winter and I told him to come out to my place and I'd give him a hog, I had dozens of pigs, and we'd cook it as a fund-raiser. He had a great grill, mounted on a trailer, maybe three feet by six feet, a firebox at one end, chimney at the other; and didn't like cooking whole pigs unless they were small, because 'the requirements were different', so we slaughtered the hog at his place, then set up for cooking in downtown Duck Hill, which is essentially a cross-road. In a big pot we cooked Liver And Lights, a kind of Southern haggis, slow-cooked hams and shoulders and ribs, made sandwiches from the loins, made head-cheese and sausage, and raised over a thousand dollars, which was big money, rural Mississippi, 1985. Roy is my patron saint. He introduced me to a world that I didn't know existed: Big Head White and his crusted cured hams, persimmon chiffon pies, sweet potato rounds cooked in butter. The vernacular is always important. Read more...

Uniformly Gray

Warm enough early this morning (temps falling all day) that I could shave and clean up, then a quick run into town for supplies. Library, then a pint and a bowl of clam chowder at the pub, then Kroger. Just as I was pulling up at B's place he was getting home and we chatted about books for an hour. I'm sick of the news, so I leave the radio off, put away groceries, get a slightly early drink, roll a smoke, and sit down for some editing. Beans on toast. Some ferns are still green, the Mountain Laurel, and green grass in B's creek bed. I picked up everything to make a large pork-fried rice. I got an extra pound of butter and feel that I'm getting close to making another pate. Veal liver, ox-tail marrow, mushrooms, and ground pork. With shallots and pistachios, be still my heart. I just need enough wash water to clean  the necessary utensils and it's supposed to rain before the next round of cold and snow. Chop wood, haul water. I'm not sure monotonous is the same as boring. I've grown fond of being idle (I like the word idle, and the word fond, so spend an hour looking them up) because it allows me free-range to just think about things. Sitting on a stump, trying to roll a cigaret in the rain. You could go anywhere from that. Francis Bacon, bacon, St. Francis; horny priests and an endless stream of acolytes. The library called and they have a book for me, Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe, which is from the 90's, I read it years ago, and I hadn't requested it. Still, I might pick it up, as it could be a message from the ether. Quite sore, but feeling good anyway. If I go to town to pick up the book I think I'll go ahead and get the mushrooms, the veal, and shallots for making the pate. The idea of using the ox-tail marrow has me salivating. Then I'll just have to wait for it to rain or snow so I'll have wash water. After a quite complete taste-test of the various methods of transporting pate to the mouth, I come down on the side of generic saltines. I don't use much salt, generally, so I like the bite of it on the cracker. Also, they're cheap. The pate isn't, I lose money making this stuff, but it is so goddamned good, I'd be a fool not to make it. Read more...

Coal Train

As I often do, after a day like today, I look around and can't believe that I got off my sorry ass and actually accomplished something. The wood situation is good. I walked out to the woodshed and was pleased it wasn't a dream, that I had actually gotten fifteen half-rounds under cover. I'll split them into quarters tomorrow, if I still have a body, then each of them into quarters, what is that, 120 pieces of wood, six or seven ricks, enough to see me through the winter. I'm beat, all in, collapse on the sofa and wrap up in a blanket, when I hear a train over in Kentucky. Such a lonesome sound. I wake up, four in the morning, go outside to pee, and the wind is warm, fairly howling through the stick trees. Winter isn't done, but I don't even stoke the fire when I come back inside. I've lived in this house for fifteen years, the longest I've ever lived anywhere. The ridge, it's seasonality, the fucking mud, the wild rhododendron, so many morels that I have to dry them, peace and quiet. And the wind, lord god the wind. In that way that the wind is the breathing of the world, the ridge is a great place to be. Content with a splash of whiskey and the sure knowledge that, later, I'll be eating stuffed acorn squash. I'm still eating squash that I liberated from Tim Horton's before the first freeze. I love those Thanksgiving displays. I don't grow anything anymore, I just harvest waste. There's so much of it that I've become a distributor, I thought about an extra comma there, but dismissed the idea. The isolated adverb. I reread the Nick Adams stories. Needless to say, I crashed early and slept late. Glad I pushed yesterday, got all the wood under cover before the rain. My body is a bit stove up, but nothing serious. I read the final volume, of six, in Frank Herbert's Dune series. It holds up pretty well. I loved them back when. I read a lot of British Speculative Fiction in the 70's and early 80's, Brian Aldiss, J.G. Ballard, but then I've always read widely. I don't read romance novels. Linda calls and we talk easily; she's going into rehearsal with a new play. She's one of my best readers. I'm always shocked she knows so much about me. She was telling a friend of hers about me nuking frozen mice for the crows. The friend was incredulous but Linda thought it was just a good indicator of my personality. Which it is. Never hurts to have a crow on your side, even with those beady eyes they see pretty well. When the rain sets up a staccato beat on the roof, I pop a couple of aspirin, and pull the blanket over my ears. Read more...

Pride

Proud of what I got done today. Split the two halves that were still in the shed, split out starter sticks and kindling. Then went down the driveway and busted the last seven rounds into 15 pieces (the ultimate butt round I split into three pieces) then wheelbarrowed all of them to the shed. These are heavy pieces, I had to bust them to be able to lift them into the wheelbarrow. I wanted to stop at least a dozen times, but I'd just sit on the back stoop and stare into the middle distance, then make one more trip. I focused attention on using my body correctly, and it seems to have worked because I'm evenly sore all over. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but I cleared out a space next to the firebox side of the cookstove, where I used to keep two five gallon buckets of wash water (now I keep the wash water under the stairs) so that I can final cure a rick of firewood in the best possible space. B called, to verify my survival, and to tell me he had some books for me the next time I got out. Maybe Monday. I just know it's a muddy mess right now, up to 50 degrees and the frost coming out of the ground. Tracked in copious quantities of crap today; I'd stop, every once in a while, and sweep up the worst of it, but I tend to kick pieces of bark into the corners. I may hire someone to help me clean in the spring, it's a state of almost crises. I think it's Jock, in Sean O' Casey's Juno And The Paycock that thinks the world is in a terrible state of chaos. Like that. Still, with my newly instituted foot blanket (another lap-robe, $1 at the Goodwill) I can survive very low temps for extended periods of time, as long as I have a good book. It's only later that I realize my feet are cold or that I had forgotten to eat dinner. The last of the chili on crumbled cornbread is fantastic. A pork-fried-rice is next, using part of a tenderloin, I'll hold out the center slices as a breakfast meal. I'm very tired. Read more...

Late Blues

The refrain is "Everybody got something that he can't hide." I'd made a pot of grits, so I had another bowl of chili on polenta. Excellent fare, beans and corn. I have to turn off the radio when they switch over to some hip-hop crap. The silence is stunning. I'm sure it has to do with atmospheric pressure, or maybe I'm going hard of hearing, but it actually sets up a ringing in my ears. Supposed to be fifty degrees today, after very cold for a couple of nights, so the freeze/thaw cycle will be in full swing. I have left-overs to eat, and an acorn squash to stuff and bake, and a solid day of work, to fill all the stations with wood. More cold weather coming, but it won't matter as much, the days are longer, and I'm coming out of my hibernation mode. Green shoots will be poking out among the leaves in a few weeks. I'll have a bitter salad of dandelions and watercress, then it'll be morel season. Jenny emailed to remind me about the March 1st reading, then in May I'm reading for the Nature Club. TR wants to come up and spend a day working on the opera, which he now sees as a Passion. I'm excited that after working up wood later today, it'll be warm enough for a thorough sponge bath, I'll be able to wash my hair and soak my feet in Epsom salts. Small mercies. It's been a good winter, how difficult is it really, to curl up with a lap-blanket, a drink, and a good book? I need to get a current calendar because I'm not sure what day it is. I was thinking about ammunition today, the logistics involved, getting bullets to the front lines, how, ultimately, we were completely dependent on a couple of truck drivers. Clem, who has proven his uncanny ability to avoid craters, and sweet Polly, who wears camouflage better than most. I reread that set piece in Blood Meridian about making gun powder, it's masterful. Read more...

Physical Labor

Cold but sunny, and I needed to get outside. High of twenty degrees today. I split a rick of wood, then split starter sticks and kindling. I had to take a couple of breaks, drink something hot. I've been drinking chicken broth with a pat of butter. Got a good fire going in the late afternoon and I have a range of night logs. Supposed to be zero tonight. If it gets to 45 on Saturday or Sunday, which is forecast, then I can take a sponge bath and wash my hair. I have a reading at the Lodge on March 1st, so I want to get a motel room before then, take a bath, then a shower, then another bath, and rub lotion on my entire body. Skins cells are a significant component in dust, and I'm doing my bit. Winter skin. When I change socks there's a white cloud. My habits of winter hygiene are suspect, I brush my teeth and wash my face, now that I don't shave I never look at myself in a mirror. Heaven knows what you might see looking back. I ate crumbled cornbread with a very hot chili, later, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Throw on a log, take a nap, catch the fire. Exhausted, working in the cold will do that, but even the sore muscles feel pretty good. I slept for ten hours. Very cold this morning, and the house was cold, but I made a double espresso, wrapped up in a blanket, and finished reading a Thomas Perry novel. I've read nearly all of them, in the order in which they were written. I'll need another reading project soon, maybe another Barbara Tuchman. I had another day's work lined up outside, but I decided to just get comfortable and read. Besides, it was Science Friday on NPR. This is almost always an interesting couple of hours. I subscribed to Scientific American for years, but then Martin Gardner died and it got to where I couldn't understand the articles. Have you followed this discussion about the city Z in the Amazon? I'm most interested because of the way it reflects on the various migrations. What, I wondered, was the coin of trade? Read more...

Green Briar

A long slow walk today. Started over at B's old cabin, along a path he had carved for firewood transport, down to a lovely hollow where two springs merge to form a creek. It's one of my favorite spots and I stayed there for a couple of hours, lunching on sardines, cheese, and crackers; then looking closely at how a very protected spot affects plant life. I hiked out going west, away from my house, because I wanted to check a watercress patch I'd established in another stream. I came back on the main ridge that is continuous for a great many miles, connecting all the minor side-ridges that define the hollows, which got me to me to my cemetery, from which I can see my house. Being lost is relative. I had some protein bars and water, a Bic lighter, and an extra-heavy-duty 55 gallon garbage bag with a hole cut out for my head, so I wasn't in any actual danger. Discomfort would be the worst of it. Rain down the back of your neck. Being uncomfortable can be instructive, the codes of behavior are mysterious, and they wary, from tribe to tribe. Levi-Strauss talks about that flip, where the meaning of something turns 180 degrees, where the frog was fucking the princess becomes the princess fucking the frog. I go back and take out a comma, I hadn't thought about what I was saying. I was merely trying to keep up to speed. I do appreciate myself sometimes, when I get it right, and things fall into place, not that it happens that often, just often enough to keep me awake. That can't possibly be a bear on the back porch, more likely a rabid coon. Whatever, I'm not going to open the door. Fucking can of worms. I see a way out, but it involves cutting my way through a thicket of green briar. No one said it would be easy. After a dinner of baked beans on toast, I was physically shot, my legs especially, from a day in the woods, so I took a nap, awoke to the sizzle of sleet on the roof. Around midnight it turns deathly silent, snow for sure, and I roll back over in the dark, smiling at what it might look like tomorrow. I'm set, I think, in terms of survival, a pork fried rice in my future. I really need to wash my hair and clip my nails, so that I look a little less like a werewolf, not that I care what I look like. A banker goes into a bar, it's a joke, of course, add a pink elephant and you have a jazz quartet. What I mean, buried in the rambling, is that everything is distorted. Our simplest memory is a fiction. A rabbi, a priest, and a UPS driver go into a bar. No, wait, a bat, a marmot, and three crows go into a bar. I love the look on their face when they realize I'm an idiot desperate to claim my spot under the interchange of the interstate. I like waiting until the last minute to decide, which identity I assume. One who, whatever. "Black birds singing in the dead of night." Later, the wind kicks up, and I wonder if thinking about the sixth cello suite might be viewed as a terrorist act. More likely Boz Skaggs, Duane Allman on lead guitar, buddy can you spare a dime? Read more...

Staying Ahead

Hard freeze, 20 degrees, and it wasn't supposed to get above freezing, so I got up early and went to town. It's one of the strategies of getting to town in the freeze/thaw season. I can get to town, go to the library, quick shop, and be back home in 90 minutes, before things thaw. It did get above freezing, fairly early, but I made it back fine. Got a slice of feta, olive, pizza, on the way out of town. It made the inside of the Jeep smell wonderful, and I managed to wait until I got back home to eat it. A couple of hours later, I'd been for a walk, but everything was a muddy mess, and I'd retreated to my desk chair with a hot toddy, when I first heard, then saw someone approaching on an all-terrain vehicle. An older guy, in a fully insulated body suit, with a yellow vest, he's with the power company. He may be with the power company. He had a bunch of electronic gear. Too many strange people at the house in the last month. Just because you're not paranoid. Assuming someone was watching and listening, what do they get? A phone conversation about the St. Matthew Passion, maybe some photos of a guy who sits in the same chair reading and writing for eight or ten hours a day, takes a great many aimless walks, pokes at things with a stick. Of course, I'm harmless, but I do know a lot of liberals, and I get a lot of books in the mail. More than 90% of my card transactions involve gas, whiskey, or the ATM, and I pay in cash for almost everything. I don't have a cell phone. I've never played a computer game. I didn't watch the Super Bowl because I don't have a TV. I don't have running water, therefore no flush toilet, so I have to deal with my shit. Picked up a lovely discounted Angus strip steak and baked a potato in the coals, made a wonderful reduced butter sauce with a splash of apple brandy. The stove is creaking and popping, I'm eating at the island, in my bath robe over several other layers, with Linda's knit hat and fingerless gloves, my current book propped against a rock, and I realize I'm incredibly comfortable being that person, in that specific place. A node, as far as things tidal. In Key West, tide is measured in inches, but I once camped at Bear Creek, in Nova Scotia, and the tide was nearly fifty feet. Clearly, I don't understand this. Fortunately I found a book about tides, at a library book sale. I'll know more soon. Read more...

Blowing Snow

A serious winter day. The temperature started falling this morning and just kept falling. Flurries all day, windblown and totally erratic. I sat in my desk chair so that I could glance up from my reading and watch a few flakes as a distraction. By the end of the day I have fifteen books piled around me on the floor, processing data, reading text. I love doing this, being able to stop and think about anything. I read about salt today, and the micro-biology of meat, read about Claxton, codifying English, some properties of frozen water, a passage of Higgins, a Thomas Perry novel. The chili is great and I'm sorry I didn't make a double batch, because I already have to think about the next several-serving meal. I've been eating soy beans recently, Mukimame, and they're very good, drizzled with walnut oil, salt and pepper, and I might try them in a soup of some kind. Mukimame with hot Italian sausage and some bitter green. Chicken stock, caramelized onion and red pepper, I prepare the dish in my head, so I can make a list for the next time I might get to town. It could be a very good soup, and it would certainly be healthy. Van Morrison on the radio, "She's as sweet as Topelo honey." Late in the afternoon a few rays of sunlight broke through and the sky was full of prismatic flakes. It was spectacular and lasted maybe five minutes, you had to be there. It was incandescent. I went out and let it hit me in the face and it seemed mildly electrical, but I suspect that was just the cold. This roasted green tea I've been drinking makes a great hot toddy with cream, a shot of whiskey, and just a hint of something sweet. Yak butter or the nearest equivalent. It's like drinking black coffee with bacon fat. Not that bad, actually, when you need the fat. The wind has kicked up a notch and I'd better go. Read more...

The Forecast

Rain, then snow, then falling temps. An early morning walk, a scramble really, in the deep woods, because the driveway and the logging roads, and the newly cleared power easement, are all quagmires of the ninth degree. I figure southern Ohio is epicenter of the freeze/thaw cycle. With all the ash and dust, pieces of bark, dormant and dead bugs, added to the crap I track in on my boots, and the leaves that attach themselves to anything, my house most resembles a library that has suffered budgetary cut-backs and has fired the janitor. On the walk I was looking at things that still seemed to be alive; at one point I fell into a tangle of green briar, the vines of which actually held me two feet off the ground. I always carry clippers, in one of the outside tool-pockets of my Carhartts, and it took me fifteen minutes to cut my way out. I had to laugh that this little adventure qualified as amusement for me. Don't know where I fall on the projected line for a foot of snow forecast starting tonight. Just after noon a wave of sleet passes through (defined here as small pieces of ice, like rain, that fall when the ground temps are above freezing). The nucleus of each specific particle of sleet is a dust mote. This is true for hail and snowflakes too. Puts dust in a different perspective. Nature mimics nature, the inorganic mimics the organic. I wanted to get out, over to the Lodge in the State Forest, where Drew was reading, but there is no way I would chance the driveway. Imagine a layer of ice, then imagine a layer an inch deep on top of that which is composed of clay and water. A sled run for the mud Olympics. An older dog shows up, a lovely Blue Tick hound, I call it over to the door and wipe it down with an old towel. I love hounds. I fed it corn bread and bacon fat. She had a good set of tags and I called the owner. He was so happy to hear from me, that his dog was safe, and he'd drive right over. I told him he couldn't drive his truck up the driveway and he understood immediately, said he'd bring a four-wheeler. A nice old guy, Simon, and the dog is Abby and they're very happy to see each other. He slipped me twenty dollars. Job well done. The cool thing was that I got to spend an hour with a very well-behaved dog. Blue Ticks and Red Bones are smart, and they're beautiful, that marriage of form and function. And she smelled so like a drying dog. All together an 'exterior experience' because it wasn't anything I'd planned or imagined. The real world is tough, but it has it's moments. Read more...