Sure is Fun

Bad day to be a squirrel

I slept late this morning, and it was nearly 6:30 by the time I’d roused my myself and made my way downstairs. The kitchen was chilly; it’s been the coldest November and December in recent memory and already there’s an alarming dent in the woodpile. So we’ve pretty much quit stoking the fire at night. It’s not bad, really. The place warms up right quick once both stoves are humming along and the simple pleasure of perching myself by the kitchen fire and feeling the heat settle into flesh and bone is not to be dismissed. It is yet another reminder that many of most gratifying moments in my life are enabled by some small sacrifice or another.

Once I’d gotten the fires going, I chopped an onion and the handful of dried chanterelles I’d rehydrated the night before. On the counter next to me lay a muskrat carcass, thawing in its own pink juices. The boys are scheming some sort of bacon-wrapped roast muskrat for lunch, which means I’m scheming a rather large snack at, oh, about 11:30. Seeing the small purple-brown flesh of the creature, along with a deer hide the boys are soaking in a broth of egg yolk and water, I had one of those softly surreal moments when I realize just how far my life’s path has deviated from anything that might be considered normative to contemporary America. How many of my fellow countrymen and women awoke this morning to a thawing muskrat on their kitchen counter and a soaking deer hide by the wood stove? My guess is not terribly many, and as usual when I experience these moments, I felt both a little lonely and a bit pleased. I’m not above a bit of self satisfaction from time-to-time, particularly when I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to have meandered onto this path in the first place. I’d like to think everybody feels that way about their respective paths. I hope so.

Christmas was real good. We’d already completed our seasonal celebrating; a spitting rain sledding party on Solstice eve, along with a small gathering of immediate family on the 21st, and so we awoke on Christmas morning free of obligation or self-expecation. I worked at my desk for a few hours before heading outside to drop a few more trees in the copse of spruce and fir we’re clearing to make way for yet more food-bearing trees and bushes. It’s pleasant work, particularly on a cold, clear day, and I’ve been enjoying the challenge of threading the two slim landing runways between trapping cabin and old barn, and between honey berries and new barn. A year ago, I’d have been uncertain of my abilities, but my training at the GOL has increased my sawing skills exponentially (if you’re an aspiring woodsperson, I can’t recommend it enough), and with two trees to go, the only damage is a single pane of barn glass that got kissed by a wayward branch. Considering the slim margin of error and the backward leaning nature of most of the trees, I’ll take it.

We are excited to expand our perennial crops. Indeed, once I finish clearing this patch, I have yet another, more ambitious clearing job ahead of me. We are saving our pennies toward a sizable tree order, slowing weaning ourselves off nonessentials (did you know that plain baking soda makes a serviceable shampoo? By gum, it is so), and much as I’m fond of waxing poetic about “living in the moment” and “being satisfied with less”, it sure is fun to scheme and dream future projects. It sure is fun to think about expanding the capacities of our little holding. It sure is fun to imagine all those fruit and nut trees in their summer splendor, their leaves soaking up all the that good sunshine, their limbs heavy with the harvest.

Truth is, it sure is fun to want something.