The perspective captured in today’s header image is one you’ve seen here many times. Usually I’ll catch dramatic skies late in the day, most often at sundown — it’s the view from the front door of the cabin, looking west.
It was 8am this morning when I snapped today’s photo. The rising sun behind me cast a long shadow of The Mountain across the valley below, stretching over the ridges toward the outskirts of town.
While that moment may not have the wow of a crimson-and-violet Ozarkansas sunset, it’s a gift presented to us every bright morning. It has its own character, its own beauty — its own wow.
Perhaps you’re tired of seeing this vista over and over again. I can assure you that we’re not.
Repairs made yesterday to the furnace and the water heater are holding. We emerged from one day of heavy rain and two days of strong wind into a clear, fairly calm, positively sparkling Wednesday. The afternoon high reached 55°F, feeling springlike.
I got started on routine and ordinary chores much earlier than that, though, well before the mercury topped the freezing mark. I took out trash, shot WD-40 on the camper doors’ latches, added a little more pipe insulation to the hydrant, burned cardboard, relocated the compost tumbler, put the soft shed back where it belongs (yesterday’s high winds tried to pick it up), and checked to make sure that heat lamp in the well enclosure is working. Little stuff.
While I had the Ranger out, I ran down the road to stretch its legs some, stopping in at a neighbor’s to chat. The well-known protocol is that if his garage door is up when we pass, we’re required to stop. It’s too chilly this time of year, of course, to leave that door open, so he turns the outside lights on — different signal, same message.
The lights were on this morning, thus my visit.
Later, I dumped the waste-water tanks and revived our Mountain One trailcam with eight (count ’em) fresh lithium AA batteries.
Just a gorgeous day on The Mountain. Tomorrow is looking like a carbon copy.
Things are fixin’ to change, however — and for the bitter, not the better. Temps will slide during the day on Friday, in advance of a winter storm said to be bringing significant (for Ozarkansas) snow Sunday and into Sunday night. Early next week we won’t even see 20°F for a few days, with low single digits overnight.
There’s a minus sign in one of those forecasts.
We’ll do what we always do — check systems, stock up, and get our preps squared away. We’ve seen worse, and we’ve done more with less.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB
One thought on “The view from here this morning”
Comments are closed.