“I don’t know where it all comes from.”
Deb, often, after reading one of my blog posts
I may not post here every single day, but that doesn’t (necessarily) mean that I have nothing to say. I could write about politics and culture more than I do — these days were made for the benediction, “May you live in interesting times” — but I want Ubi Libertas Blog to be more than just a repository for my opinions.
As for chronicling our American Life, I’m constantly inspired to tell y’all what’s happening here. In fact, this (Ozarkansas in general, and The Mountain in particular) is the most inspiring place I’ve ever lived. And when I don’t share, I’ve judged the subject either too ordinary or too difficult to convey in words and images.
Most often, it’s the latter.
Tuesday morning, for example, I stepped outside with Smudge around 5:30am. Still dark at that hour, of course. I looked up into the clearest, blackest sky imaginable — a waning moon directly overhead, the stars impossibly bright.
Now I just told you about that the best way I know how, but words are inadequate. No photograph could capture what I saw with my aging eyes. Nothing could give you the chill that ran up my spine.
Later, I walked Deb to her Jeep. We paused to watch a whitetail doe in the woods, mere yards away.
Sure, I can show you a photo of that doe, snapped by Mountain Two shortly after we saw her — but that’s documentary. It’s not the moment. It’s not the same.
You’d have to be here, and you’re not. You can’t be.
I know how I feel when I see friends’ photos of a sunset painting the plains of Oklahoma, or early-season snow dusting the mountains of Idaho. I smile, and yet I know that the image doesn’t approach their experience.
But I want them to keep sharing.
I will, too.
It seems like I’ve been putting a lot of miles on my truck in recent weeks. Short, single-purpose trips, mostly. That runs afoul of my penchant for efficiency, and yesterday I chose to break that pattern — a simple matter of bundling stuff that had to be done with a couple of things that could be done.
Necessaries took me to the far west side of Yellville. As long as I was out that way, there was no excuse not to drop trash at the transfer station, even if it was only one bag.
And it was. And I did.
I stopped at Miller Hardware, right down the road, and picked up some supplies I needed.
Back toward town, I came to Powell’s feed mill, where I intended to buy two bales of straw. I bought four. (More about that in a minute.) And a bag of fresh-roasted peanuts — admittedly an impulsive purchase.
Checking the time, I saw that Deb was about to take her lunch break. I messaged her, and we hung out together in the park.
I drove back Home with the satisfaction that I’d made the best use of my time.
I pulled up next to the camper, unloaded two straw bales from the bed and stacked them as a winter windbreak for our freeze-prone water connections. The other two bales I tossed down over the bank.
And then I did something I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time.
Picking out a spot nestled in the trees at the south end of the lower level, I stacked one bale on top of the other. I brought over an archery target, set it on top of the bales and secured it with a pair of rubber bungees.
I turned my back to the target and stepped off 25 paces. There, I planted a driveway reflector. After confirming safety downrange and doing a little more fiddling, I called it good.
The Mountain has its first formal shooting range. It’s meant for bow and slingshot, roughly 25 yards in length. I may bring in several more bales of straw and place them a few yards behind the target, and I have my eye on a second location in the woods beyond the shed, but for now this’ll do nicely.
When Deb and I met in the park earlier, I showed her the peanuts I’d bought at the feed mill. She messaged me a few hours later:
“Thinking peanuts and beer outside after I change out of my work clothes. Thoughts?”
That sure sounded good to me. I gathered kindling and tinder, built the season’s first fire in the ring off the driveway and sat down in a camp chair to await her arrival.
The dry cedar crackled and sparked as it burned. Through now-leafless trees, I could see a rosy glow at the western horizon. Soon I heard the crunch of the Jeep’s tires on the road, followed by the glow of headlights.
In the quiet and the darkness, stars arrayed above, we relaxed by that fire a good long while, lovin’ this Life. The best of times.
Winter preps continued this morning. Instead of picking up where I left off with the water supply — which I’ll probably need to get done sooner than I’d thought, thanks to a chillier forecast — I was in the mood to sling firewood.
No felling. No bucking. No splitting. Just moving.
I went straight to the first wood I stacked last fall. According to the guy we bought it from, it had seasoned 11 months at that point, and I put it up 14 months ago. For oak and hickory, that’s just about perfect.
I parked the Ranger in the wood yard, pulled the tarp off the stack and began pitching lengths into the bed, piling it as high as I could without risking losing the load on my way up to the cabin. I didn’t have a strong sense about how many loads it’d take to stock the rack, but I figured it’d be more than one.
That first trip, as it turned out, was about two-thirds of what I needed. A second, more modest load finished the job.
I didn’t stock the rack indoors on the hearth, and I won’t until we’re burning regularly. Still too many bugs on the wood this time of year.
The rack I built outdoors holds more than I thought it would. I was able to (mostly) segregate small chunks from all-nighters, which is great. Since the rack is deeper than the log-lengths we burn, however, I had to build up the ends carefully to prevent the stack from collapsing.
Next time the rack is empty (or close to it), I think I’ll attach horizontal slats between the vertical posts. I have plenty of raw cedar planks to be able to do it, and that’ll solve the problem.
With a good stock of cordwood up at the cabin, then, I rolled back down to the wood yard, re-set the long stack I’d pulled from (for stability’s sake) and draped the tarp back over it. I tidied-up the other stacks as well.
My plan for tomorrow is to winterize the hydrant and the water line to the camper. Maybe I’ll also place a couple of space heaters in the basement, like I did last year. We have some sub-freezing nights coming up, and I want to make sure we’re ready.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB