I know winter is far from over, but this is The South. It’s different here this time of year.
We’re in the last few days of January. Overnight temps don’t fall to freezing, and by 9am we can turn off the furnace and open the windows. Bees buzz. Songbirds serenade us.
While I go about my chores, a whitetail doe watches me from the woods. A ways behind me, a wild turkey lets out a yodel.
As the afternoon draws to a close, I set up a chair facing west, open a cold beer and feel the warm sun on my face. I am not shivering.
Honestly, I’m hoping for just a little more cool weather so I can get some of The Sweaty Stuff done. I’d be okay with low 30s in the morning, low 50s by afternoon. There’s brush to clear, trees to drop, rocks to move and firewood to split and stack.
When wind and wet allow, I want to burn some of the brush we’ve amassed.
This morning I devoted a couple of hours to tidying up the area around the well shed. The too-rotten bucked wood I tossed aside a month ago had to disappear, so I chucked it onto the massive brushpile by the road. (What’s a little more, right?)
A whole bunch of rocks left over from excavating for the water line needed to go away, too, but I did something constructive with those. They now form a sort of protective curb around the well shed.
After taking a breather and making myself a sandwich for lunch, I addressed the area just south of the cabin, the place where I’ve been parking (sort of) my truck. Originally it was going to be a parking pad, back when we were planning to put up a stick-built house. That unraveled, of course, and we ended up cannibalizing the structural clay that had been laid down there.
It turned into a mess — an uneven, rock-strewn mess.
Today I rid the pad of loose rocks, including some that must’ve weighed three or four times what I do. I dug up others that made the surface less than ideal. Everything I moved got added to the adjacent rock border separating the parking pad from the woods — an accidental wall, appealing in its own rustic way.
When I was finished, the usable space was about three feet wider and a couple of feet longer, free of impediments that could punch a hole in an oil pan or dent a bumper. All it needs now is a layer of gravel.
As you might expect, at day’s end I’m feelin’ the effects of pushin’ around big rocks and small boulders. I am, without a doubt, too old for that shit — and there’s a lot more of that shit still to do.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB