‘Jim Dandy to the rescue!’

Merica

On a distant slope, a lone coyote sings. Dogs call back from domestic dens somewhere down below.

Their howls come to my ears on a breeze that hints at rain.

I step back into the cabin, close the door and switch off the porch light. Just then, I hear raindrops begin to tap on the metal roof.

It’s just after three o’clock Monday morning.

That’s when the Heeler asked to go outside. That’s when the fire needed another log.

That’s when my day began.

As I enjoyed my first cup of coffee and watched flames dance behind the woodstove glass, I congratulated myself for having knocked-out generator maintenance on Sunday. It would’ve been a much less pleasant task on this soggy Monday.

At daybreak, fog.

It was another otherworldly day on The Mountain.

Northern red oak, chinquapin (chinkapin) oak.
Turkey tail fungus on a stump, along with remnant signs of southern red oak, winged elm, mockernut hickory and eastern red cedar.
The trail to White Rock on a misty late-November morning.
The Citadel, looking east toward the summit.
One day, I met a girl named Sue.
She was feeling kind of blue.
I’m Dandy, the kind of guy
Who can’t stand to see a little girl cry.
Jim Dandy to the rescue!
Go, Jim Dandy! Go, Jim Dandy!

(If you understand the caption under that last image, we can be good friends.)

A quick follow-up to a photo I shared yesterday.

It’s an image of a pasture along the county road between here and Flippin, taken from behind a row of mature trees at the fence line. In the background is a thick grove of cedars, behind which rises a ridge.

Two prominences are apparent. The lower of those is The Mountain.

That’s the east slope. The red arrow (above) points to right about where I’m currently harvesting a downed oak.

I don’t do Instagram, really. My personal Facebook account links over there, but I never use it to share content.

Occasionally, of course, I do see Instagram posts on other social media. The video that follows below was shared by Council Tool, and I thought it was worth passing along here.

I’m nowhere near the stud this guy is. I also don’t have the advantage of processing rounds that surrender as easily to an ax as the softwood he’s swinging at. But the splitting technique he suggests in his brief, undramatic video is absolutely spot-on.

That’s how I do it. That’s how it’s done.

Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.

#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable

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