“Is it foggy?” Deb asked early this morning.
I had to admit that I didn’t know. When I took the dogs out around 5:30am, I was focused on what they were doing and not on weather conditions. And it was dark.
An hour or so later, after depositing Deb’s lunch and coffee in her Jeep and doing a couple of my own chores, I noticed that it was, in fact, foggy — not up here, but in the valley, where Deb soon would drive the county road. I took a photo from the driveway and sent it to her as a heads-up.
We rely on each other for reports like that. As she commuted after work yesterday, for instance, she told me about a downed power line near the low-water crossing closest to The Mountain. She saw nothing indicating what caused it to fall, but brush surrounding it had caught fire.
Shortly thereafter, she was passed by a responding fire truck. (Flippin, probably.) We agreed that an outage was in our future.
Sure enough, we lost power by the time she got Home. We were back on the grid before 7:30pm, less than two hours later.
Power distribution in Ozarkansas is, for the most part, an overhead thing — very little is buried. That makes lines vulnerable to wind and water and wayward rednecks who zig when they should’ve zagged. Outages aren’t uncommon here.
So far, we’ve been impressed with the electric utility’s restoration efforts. Damned speedy.
Deb reported this morning that Entergy accomplished this particular quick fix with what appears to be a temporary pole. It’s reasonable to predict, then, that we’ll lose power again when permanent repairs are made.
I didn’t move much yesterday. Crappy weather made that pretty easy. I awoke this morning with conflicting instincts — should I extend my hiatus, or was it time to get back in the game and do something productive?
Being naturally biased toward work, I considered a couple of options for the latter.
Start building the propane shed? Nope — still too soggy out. Tomorrow, maybe.
Bushwhack with a chainsaw to the downed tree on the east slope and start pruning? Nope — I need a bit more of a break from lumberjack stuff.
It began to look like another day of being stationary, and that wouldn’t do. I reconsidered my second option, adjusted it a bit, and piloted the Ranger down The Mountain a ways.
“But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
John Muir, Steep Trails
Leaving the buggy parked by the roadside near the crest, I entered the woods armed with walking stick, machete, and flagging tape. I spent the next hour refining and marking the route to the east slope, reaching both our planned getaway spot and my next woodcutting target.
It was woodswalking, sure, but what I did also moves us forward — I wandered with purpose. Those yellow-green flags will guide me when I return with brush cutter, saw and loppers.
When I’d finished plotting the course to my satisfaction, I dropped my gear, flopped on a rock, chugged an electrolyte cocktail and basked in the cool winter woods.
A pair of red-shouldered hawks swooped back and forth, treetop to treetop, and bitched me out for disturbing their hunting grounds. The half-dozen black vultures circling silently overhead were more reserved, unbothered by my presence.
A westerly breeze carried the smell of carrion — there was a carcass of some sort nearby. Not a small one, either, though I never laid eyes on it. Maybe our resident coyotes, which have been more active lately, got themselves a whitetail.
Eventually I followed the flags I’d left back to the Ranger, and I had Gaia GPS record my walk. The path, according to the app, covers almost 150 yards, with a net elevation change of +57 feet AMSL (east to west).
The activity got my blood pumping. And it accomplished something that needed to be done. Time in the woods is never wasted.
I’d say I chose wisely today.
I don’t think this qualifies as “knife content” — and I really do want to include more of that here — but I switched-up my woods carry today. This time, my Spartan Blades Alala (pictured) came along for the ride.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
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