I wonder how I might’ve reacted, say, 30 years ago, if I’d come upon a wild-looking white-haired man in a fedora, buffalo plaid shirt and muck boots, burning trash in a barrel in his front yard. That would’ve been the sight greeting a passerby on The Mountain around 7:30am today.
Deb and I talk often about how we came to this American Life at precisely the right moment, both as individuals and together. For a great part of our lives, spanning decades, neither of us was ready. The simple, traditional Southern culture we love now wouldn’t’ve attracted us then. Sure, we might’ve thought about “moving to the Country,” but only romantically — as a practical matter, we weren’t “there” yet.
Now we are.
“If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?”
Henry David Thoreau
It’s by sheer luck that we arrived in Ozarkansas when our appreciation of rustic living — “the condition of things which we were made for” — coincided with a climate in our country that makes this the best possible place to be. I believe we got here just in time. At least I hope so.
Had events unfolded differently, or faster, we would’ve been pressed to make the move sooner, ready or not, and we would have.
And that goes back to what I said yesterday — we can’t always wait for the perfect moment to act. Deb and I are fortunate that it worked out for us, especially while we’re physically still up to the rigors of this Life.
Look around you. Is the place in which you live a match for your values? Does the Life you’ve built for yourself reflect what’s important to you? Are you waiting for the right time to make a change?
Like, what — when you’re ready?
How often do you say, “Someday…”?
Again, I’m simply asking you to think about it. The hour is late.
Doing much better today, thanks. Deb, on the other hand, is nursing a sore back. On this springlike Saturday, she’s the one confined to quarters. I feel her frustration.
I busied myself with a little of this and a little of that, balancing my sympathy for Deb’s predicament with my own wish to be (at least mildly) productive. Yes, I burned trash. I topped off the stack of firewood I put up last week with big’n’ugly chunks, then covered it with a (camo) tarp.
I’d noticed a while ago that the very first pier I built back in September had shifted — a couple of pieces had popped out and it was leaning. Rather than re-set the whole stack, I buttressed it with the last of the large oak rounds. That should hold it.
At some point, I predict, we’ll be stacking more firewood in this area off the lower driveway. Looking at it today, there’s not much room left — I might be able to squeeze in two more pallets, accommodating not even a full cord, and that’d be it.
When the time comes, I believe I’ll expand our wood yard west into the utility right-of-way. That offers space for a few more pallets, which will let us get a year (or more) ahead and rotate our supply.
Later, I resumed work on the footpath to White Rock. Today’s task was simple — find all the stubby stumps protruding from the trail and cut them off even with the ground.
At the fire pit itself, I took a shot at splitting some of the bigger bucked lengths in that woodpile. It didn’t go particularly well, given that I was standing on a slope and swinging toward a block that wasn’t level.
I didn’t bother to fix that. I just wasn’t committed this afternoon.
I did notice, however, that some of the wood is American ash, probably from a downed tree near The Amphitheater. I removed the bark and found telltale galleries of the emerald ash borer — the death knell for whatever ash there is on The Mountain.
On the bright side, we can look forward to some standing dead ash trees that’ll make damned good firewood (provided I can get to them and haul them out).
It’d be accurate to call today a mixed bag. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Life is good.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB