This is another long post (and I shortened it a good bit). It concludes with a tribute to a friend.
It’s been my dream since I was a kid to live in a cabin in the woods. I began realizing that dream — the “in the woods” part — when I moved to The Mountain almost two years ago. I remain optimistic that my childhood vision someday will be a reality in this place, but there’s still much left to do.
The proverbial elephant in the room, I know, is how the dream changed on February 3rd, when I unexpectedly found myself alone (with the dogs) on The Mountain. I can sum that up in two words: It didn’t.
The list of people who’ve contributed to making this place what it is, such as it is, is long. Contractors who ran backhoes, bulldozers and skid-steers. The well-drilling crew. Electricians and carpenters. Neighbors and friends who brought their time, expertise, and labor.
Within and around and beyond all that, I made countless and significant contributions of my own, which I talked about here a couple of days ago.
What I just described happens between dreaming the dream and living the dream. It’s called work.
“If you can dream it,” the saying goes, “you can do it.” Thing is, you actually have to do it. That’s work.
A dream without drive is imprisoned forever in imagination. It’ll never be realized or lived. Thoreau knew that:
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.“
On The Mountain today, the dream is alive. The drive survives. The work happens every day.
And in that way, in this space between the dreaming and the living, nothing has changed.
Comeuppance is seldom instantaneous, though we often think it is or wish it was. It rarely resembles the FAFO videos we see on the Internet.
Karma, the Indian concept of consequences, usually manifests in slow motion. We don’t notice its birth. We don’t see it unfolding.
Whether we ourselves are about to be peened by payback, or we’re witnessing someone else being served their just desserts, it begins long before it’s obvious. The evidence is there.
I see it now. Karma is afoot.
(No, that isn’t a veiled reference to X2B.)
Wisdom, born of experience, instructs us to avoid arrogance — maintain perspective, stay humble. Each of us will reap the harvest of our actions, good or bad.
So stand the high ground. Be the better person. (Quite often, that’s a low bar to clear.) And wait.
Yesterday’s NWS SPC map, showing The Mountain at “marginal” risk for severe thunderstorms, had me puzzled.
Usually, that sort of thing is reflected in detailed forecasts for this area. Other than increased winds in the afternoon, I saw nothing.
Then I checked my Windy app — sure enough, it showed a chance of storms between 1pm and 4pm, with winds gusting as high as 33mph into the early evening before tapering off.
And what did we get?
The wind began to stiffen around 11:30am. Sensing that the passing threat would arrive sooner rather than later, I quickly picked up around the property and re-filled the dogs’ food canisters at the shed.
In the end, threatening cells stayed north and well east of The Mountain. By 8pm, the wind had abated.
I’ve mentioned my missing boots here a few times, which inspires like-minded consternation among some readers. I’ll confess to chuckling about that.
Those boots, like everything else that left that day, is just stuff. In the grand scheme, stuff doesn’t matter.
While working in the cabin yesterday morning, an item occurred to me that I hadn’t yet checked on. And so when I took my next break, I looked.
It was a pair of walking sticks, crafted of American hophornbeam (aka ironwood) harvested in the Black Hills of South Dakota, bought at Wall Drug in 2021. I knew mine was secure in the cab of the Ranger.
The matching staff, always leaning against the wall in the northeast corner of the cabin, was indeed gone. Fine.
A third walking stick, kept in the corner with the other, was gone, too.
Longtime readers of this blog may remember the stick that I made over the course of two years, from a cedar sapling harvested on the third day of clearing this property. It became a birthday gift in December of 2023.
I guess taking that one surprised me a little, since it’s a very personal representation of me. Again, though, fine.
Except it wasn’t gone.
I stumbled upon it, quite literally, laying on a stack of scrap lumber. For some reason, it had been moved there and left.
I picked it up and ran a hand over the sanded-and-oiled surface. Memories of the hours I’d poured into it came flooding back.
And I smiled.
In that moment, I was able to separate the making from the giving. I held in my hands an object that came from my hands.
It signifies nothing else.
I leaned it in the corner, where it belongs. If someday it’s claimed and taken, fine. But for now, this piece of The Mountain remains on The Mountain.
I got sad news yesterday afternoon — a friend, former colleague, and devoted reader of this blog passed away.
When I started work at the gun shop ten years ago, Frasure was the first to train me. He was tough — hell, he was damned near humorless. But he was good, and he’d been there forever. What he taught, and the way he taught it, took root with me.
Whatever success I had behind the gun counter, I owe in large part to Frasure. He was proud of me and told me so, but never without adding correction or advice.
He retired before I left the company. We kept in touch via social media and private messages. Recently, he’d been in poor health, and his mobility was severely limited.
At every opportunity, he’d let me know that he looked forward to reading Ubi Libertas Blog every day. Whenever I was tempted to skip a day or two, I’d remember Frasure and try to find something to write.
I hated like hell to let him down.
He was totally invested in progress on The Mountain. When I revealed last month that life here had taken an unexpected turn, he was devastated.
“The thought of you possibly losing your mountain home is gut-wrenching to me,” he wrote. That was two weeks ago, I think.
To some, Frasure was a bit on the crusty side, which meant that he wasn’t always liked. But he was admired, universally respected and widely loved. A good man.
I’ll miss my friend.
Thanks for everything, Frasure. Godspeed.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable