Mother Nature Does Her Spring Cleaning

Dooly is having a night out with the boys. He sometimes hangs with the infamous McCroskey pack, eight mutts belonging to my nearest neighbors down on the main road. Before dark they run from one side of the road to the other sniffing things and working themselves into frenzy, after dark I have no idea what goes on. Perhaps they play poker. Whatever, Dooly is his own man. I got a new book from town, 1491, by Charles Mann. It’s about Indian life in the Americas before Columbus set his salty little toes on land in 1492. Anticipating a good long read I decided to take a little vacation from the cabin and campout on another part of my property. I have a Clark Jungle Hammock, which, in simple terms, is a tent that hangs like a hammock. It’s been raining for a couple of days but the sky to the west had a bright glow that usually signals the end to rain. One of my favorite places is the waterfall down near the old mill site. I figured with the rain it should be running pretty good. I set up right next to the creek and the falls in a little niche with a rock overhang where I planned to start a fire later on. I’m not sure there is anything better than laying in a warm hammock on a chilly rainy evening with a great book beside a waterfall in total solitude. Just before dark, totally engrossed in the book, two giant terradactyls (actually sand hill cranes) came flapping around the bend the creek about four feet off the ground and scared the pa-jesus out of me. These things were huge, fast and totally unexpected. An omen, perhaps? I got out of the hammock and noticed the creek was getting a little higher and running a little faster. I spotted a rock on the other side of the creek as a reference. If the water rose above the rock I would pack up and move to higher ground. Time to start the fire, calm down and get back to the book. Two more chapters in and “Crack! Crash!-KaThump!, Splash!” My first thought was a clumsy deer had fallen down the bank into the creek but there are no clumsy deer. Bigfoot? Aside from the fire glow the only light I had was a head-lite which is a small flashlight you wear around your head. Great for reading, but spotting Bigfoot on a moonless night, not so much. “Crack! Crash! Ka-thump!” This time it was up on the hill…something was falling through the trees. I was under aerial attack! Large dead limbs on trees hundreds of years old were becoming waterlogged from the steady rain and the weight was bringing them crashing to the ground. I moved to the overhang. The book didn’t seem that interesting anymore. I shined my light across the creek to check on the reference rock. It was totally underwater. In less than an hour the creek had risen over three feet. Time to move up the hill. Twenty minutes later the creek was a raging, angry thing, overflowing five-foot banks and carrying winter debris to the river downstream. It was roaring like a train through the valley. If the flood had come later that night after I had fallen asleep I would have been washed away. I found a dry spot among the rocks on the hill and crawled into my hammock, which I just laid out on the ground. I was safe from the tree bombs and the enraged creek. I don’t remember sleeping but I must have. It was dawn. The rain had stopped. I packed up and maneuvered down the hill. The creek was still high but had calmed dramatically. I crossed and headed to the cabin for dry clothes. Two days later I hiked back to the waterfall to look for my antique Zippo, which must have fallen out of my pocket during the excitement. The rock overhang where I had started my fire had collapsed into a pile of large flat rocks. During the winter month water freezes in the cracks and the expansion separates the layers of the rock. Whew! Lesson learned: When it’s time for Mother to clean, stay out of the way.

New Chick In Town

If you remember last fall, the local town folk had asked to allow my story to be publicized. They felt it would increase “tourism” in the area. Over Irene’s apple pie I had agreed. Although I claim our winter alone was some feat of self-sacrifice and endurance the fear of limelight it is probably the real reason Dooly and I hid in the woods for the last five months (of course Dooly didn’t know that). “Holy cow, I thought you had packed up and moved back to Florida”, were the first words out of Irene’s mouth when we stopped in to see her on our first visit back to town in five months. “No, just haven’t had a reason come down off the mountain”, I explained, thinking she might be impressed with our self-sufficiency. “I see. How’s old Dooly?” “Mean as ever,” I joked. “I see,” she said while glancing back at some papers on her desk. The conversation was dying at an alarming rate. She seemed to be a little perturbed that I hadn’t fulfilled my obligation of exposing my secret cabin in the woods to the public. At least that’s what I thought. I said a polite goodbye and drove over to the store to gather some supplies. It was the busiest I had ever seen the place. There were five or six people laughing and chatting with a lady who was obviously the center of attention. The only one to look my way was Harry the hardware guy. “Hey”, I said with a little wave, “I need some chicken wire and seeds.” “Go on back and pick out what you need, I’ll be with you in a minute”. When Harry finally came back I had to ask about the woman. “That’s Caroline McCoy” he explained,” she has a farm up on Rocky Branch and she’s a romance writer, a damn good one from what I understand.” “I see”, I said, trying not to appear too impressed. “She’s been the talk of the town since she got here. That’ll be $65.00, anything else?” “No, I guess not”. Driving back to the cabin I was a little sad. The town had found a fresh and far prettier newcomer to focus their attention on. My big fish days were over.

Spring

Dooly and I sat on the porch and watched spring arrive this morning. I thought about creating a dance or something to welcome her in…something that could be a personal tradition but I guess my muse had not yet come out of hibernation. We just sat and watched. It was spectacular. I would have been smoking a Swisher Sweet Outlaw Double Barrel Rum cigar to celebrate , but I ran out in mid February. Dooly and I ran out of a number of staples over the winter months. We did it though, we were totally self sufficient for almost 5 months. We were two righteous hermits of the highest order.

The Posse

Dooly and I went to town today and from the looks of things I’m guessing something is up. Everyone seemed to be talking about banks and the stock market in a very serious tone. Harry, the hardware guy, uncharacteristically had his 9” BW TV (that sits behind the cash register) tuned to CNN and there were graphs and pictures of Wall Street on the screen. Deep down there was something that made me want to hear bad things about banks and Wall Street. Perhaps those cheating souls with their artificially inflated wallets were beginning to crumble. Before I came to the woods I sold my house and I have a good deal of money from that sale. It is safely deposited in the bank of Sealy Posturpedic. I get no interest on the deposit, but with the money I save on fees, penalties and sevice charges, I feel like I come out way ahead. (and the customer service is excellent.) One of the reasons I moved to the woods was to keep banks out of my life . I was determined to buy my six-pound maul with maple handle and get out of town before I knew what was going on. When I got to register I put my finger to my lips and stopped Harry before he told me what the news was about. He smiled and took my money. Dooly seemed excited about coming to town so I took him across the street to what is sort of a park and let him explore. Poor Dooly had been staring at me back at the cabin. He’d sit right in front of me and stare. It’s hard to read Vonnegut when an animal is staring. It had been two months since we had been off the mountain, I had fallen into a daily routine that varied little and I guess he was trying to tell me that he had a little cabin fever. I lit up a Swisher Sweet Double Barrel Run Cigar and sat down under a tree on this beautiful Fall day and watched the World go by as Dooly sniffed his way down to the river. From my vantage point I could see most of the town’s commerce. Directly across the street was the Bank. The Library is just to the right to the bank and set back a little. Still moving to the right was the Volunteer Fire Department, Sheriff’s office and finally the combination grocery/ hardware/feed and seed. Down around the corner to my left was the Exxon, which, contrary to most of the rest of the World, still employs a mechanic. This guy will work on anything from a lawn mower to a BMW. Aside from a Taco Bell, what else would a person ever need? The Library door opened and I saw Irene come out. She looked directly at me and I waved. She gave me a little nod and went directly to the Bank. A short time later she came out of the bank with a man in a tie and they walked down to the Exxon. Those two came out with the owner and walked back to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff came out, looked in my direction, and the four walked to the Grocery/hardware/feed and seed. This was curious. Sure enough, Irene, the man in a tie, the Exxon owner, the sheriff, Harry and Mrs. Taylor came out the hardware and were walking straight towards me. If they had guns strapped to their waists and Stetson hats I might have thought it was a posse. I was pretty sure it was ok to be smoking a Swisher Sweet Double Barrel Rum cigar under this particular tree, and I didn’t recall being in violation of any local, state or federal laws. At least they were smiling. Irene spoke first as they came within about 15 feet, “Don’t get up”. I didn’t. “This is our town council…Earle Ruben from the Exxon, Frank Wood from the bank, Sheriff Bell, and I think you know the rest.” How nice, I thought, they were here to officially welcome Dooly and me into the community. “We have a question for you.” Irene said, “Frank’s daughter is attending community college down in Charleston and she’s taking some media courses. She was home the other night and Frank was telling her about you, how you became frustrated and moved to the woods and all. She thought your story would be one that people might identify with in these crazy times.” Irene moved her hands up like she was reading a headline in an imaginary newspaper. “Frustrated Florida Man Moves To West Virginia Woods To Find Simplicity And Solitude.” “ As a project for her classes she wants to promote you, and, in turn, get some publicity for our town. She’d start with some local papers and TV and eventually go National. As soon as the election is over they’ll be looking for stories.” I didn’t know what to say. After a short silence I suggested a good Big Foot sighting might get the town some better publicity. I didn’t want people to know who I was or where I lived. “Why don’t we all have a little lunch and talk about it”, Irene suggested. “I made a pie last night”, she added. We ate pie and talked and I finally agreed only if my identity and the location of my cabin remained secret. I excused myself to go and check on Dooly and as I was walking out I could hear them talking about postcards, tee shirts, fresh paint and new landscaping. Oh Lord, what have I done. Damn that pie. I found Dooly covered in mud and sound asleep under my truck. At least his visit to town seemed to have been a pleasant one. By the way, I was just kidding about the Taco Bell.

Visitor

Unlike the “other” world, background noise in the woods is very consistent. Once you become attuned it becomes very easy to pick out the more unusual sounds. Every animal and event makes a distinctive sound. I can hear deer up on the hill when they pass by, the click-clack of squirrel claws on tree trunks, whether the water level in the creek below is running high or low, the wind as it changes direction and the slow, cautious plodding of raccoons moving through the brush in the late evenings as they plot a raid on Dooley’s food dish. The human being is ordinarily not a stealthy beast unless they intend to be and the approach of a man coming through the woods is a sound I should have easily picked out. So, I didn’t know what to think when I saw a man sitting on the wood chopping stump in the front of my secret cabin. He was smoking a hand rolled cigarette and staring at a chainsaw on the ground in front of him. I walked to the top of the porch steps and gave him a glare that was supposed to evoke an explanation of why he was there. I guessed he was close to my age (fifties). He was husky, with a yellow gray un-trimmed beard. His thinning hair was combed straight back to a ducktail flip. He had a ruddy, deep lined, rosacea spotted complexion typical of the heavy scott-irish influence in rural West Virginia. I don’t remember much about what he wore with the exception of his work boots. The boots did not match. There was a black combat style boot on his left foot and a traditional brown work boot on the right. My dad had taught me that, as a rule, when two men meet unexpectedly the first one to talk is usually perceived as the weaker of the two. Apparently the stranger also knew this rule. He looked up but said nothing. There should be a second rule that states if both parties know the first rule, the rule is no longer in play. Except, of course, if you consider the first rule as just a suggestion there would be no need for a second rule to remedy the conflict of a simultaneous application of the first rule. (Oh, Lord, I’m sounding like a Congressman) Regardless, he was the trespasser and I felt I was owed the first “howdy”. In the twenty seconds of silence between us the residual paranoia from my previous life in Florida created a dozen or so possible scenarios to consider. I narrowed those down to four. 1. He was going to kill me, burn the cabin down and eat Dooly for lunch. 2. He was going to kill me, move into the cabin and eat Dooly for lunch. 3. He was going to kill me, leave, and Dooly would eat me for lunch. 4. I should forgo the rule and my sense of entitlement and say something. “Little foggy this morning, eh?” His name was Kenny. He lives about two miles away in an old, rusty, tarp covered sport trailer on a small piece of flat land along the road to town. I had seen the trailer but never imagined that someone lived there. I learned later from Irene he had moved to the woods in 1974 as a disillusioned post Vietnam veteran. In the early years he spent a number of days in the town lockup for various forms of civil disobedience and was something of an angry nuisance to the sheriff and the community. She assured me that he had mellowed with age and was thought of more as a colorful character than a threat. He had come to visit with a simple business proposition. On a small piece of paper he had hand-written a fifteen-word contract, which, if I signed, would allow him to come on to my property for one year and cut dead and fallen trees to sell as firewood in the winter months. He explained that I would benefit by having trees that often fell across the trails and roads on my land removed and I could stop by his place for free firewood anytime. Kenny’s proposition was simple and direct, no “ifs”, or “buts”, no asterisks, introductory offers or hidden clauses. Kenny could have taken the wood and I probably never would have known but he had taken the time and the effort to do the right thing. This was what I had moved to the woods for. I agreed, signed the contract and watched Kenny walk back down the path to the river. I don’t really know Kenny, but I hope his firewood business is successful . If he appears back on that stump one morning next year to renew the contract, I want to be able to say “howdy” first, offer him a Swisher Sweet Double Barrel Run cigar and compliment him on a new pair of matching boots.

Cigar Under A Tree

I went hiking this morning. Dooley chose to stay behind to keep an eye on the cabin. Somehow I suspected he was likely turning ideas over in his head to get the two strips of fried bacon I left on the kitchen counter. Dooley, as you might remember, is short. He is skilled at chasing chipmonks under logs and into narrow passages, but, without a a rocket pack there was no way he would ever get to that bacon

I was walking trails that were originally traveled by early inhabitants of these mountains, shortcuts between ridges and hollows used to visit neighbors and to travel to town, a trip that takes me about 20 minutes by truck. For them, it must have been a full day’s trek. As usual I was enjoying the smells, sights, sounds and peace of Nature. I’ve been in the woods for almost a month now and it has been a very comfortable transition from the contrived “other” world I left behind. Stopping under a walnut tree for a break I lit up a Swisher Sweet Outlaw Double Barrel Rum cigar and, unfortunately, began to think. Unlike the “other” world, everything in Nature exists for a reason and exists because something existed successfully before it. It is a system of shared wealth and sacrifice. What survives in Nature does so because it works. Every creature, plant, and rock has a role to play. I couldn’t, however, for the life of me, figure out what my role as a human being was. I was feeling uncomfortable and profoundly disappointed in myself. What, in my day-to-day life, did I contribute to sustaining these wonderful woods? Was I just a parasite on the top of the food chain, taking and never giving back? Somewhere in the past a human animal was born with one too many brain cells and decided his “superior” mind was exempt from the Laws of Nature. This never occurred to me in the “other” world. From under the walnut tree it was clear. Man’s artificial ecosystem has no checks and balances. Mistakes aren’t dealt with by extinction but with clever fixes. Except for the occasional bear mauling, plague, third world starvation, and with our self imposed sanctity of human life rule we have no balancing natural population control. We require more and more of the Earth’s resources each day to sustain us, far more than we should be entitled to. With no evolutionary selection process to weed out the successful from the harmful, Man’s unproven changes have had an instant and jarring impact on this earth in the short time we have existed as thinking animals. Sadly, I am ancestor to that first mutant human and with all those extra cells I was unable to think myself out of the guilt I was feeling. The American Indians had it right. To them, if I remember correctly, all things in nature were treated with the same respect they had for themselves, no more, no less. Before eating animals killed for food they would thank the animal for giving up its life so they might eat. The early American Indian must have must have had just the right number of brain cells. Maybe that was the answer. Respect. It was all I had to give back. When my cigar was finished I continued on the trail a short distance and then, feeling a little better about myself, headed back. When I got to my secret cabin the bacon was gone and Dooley was sleeping upside down wedged between a table and chair a short distance from the counter. Out of respect I let him sleep.

Hello Dooley

Irene Looney is librarian at the smaller of the two libraries in the County I now call home. I met Irene when I stopped in last year looking for a book on the history of the area. There is a highway placard on a bridge across from the library that claims the river that borders my property was used by early fur trappers to transport their furs 60 miles by canoe down to market. I thought that was cool so I wanted to know more. Irene sold me a beautiful leather bound book for 65 dollars. The book, although interesting, had no mention of my river or trappers navigating to market. Since Irene is the only person I know in the area that has a computer with internet access I stopped in to ask her if it would be ok to come in from time to time to post my blogs. She reminded me that the computer was County property and she would have to know the content before she could say yes or no on the matter. With her permission I brought up my posts to date and let her read them. Although Irene was one the best educated town members I had met so far, I was curioius what she might think of my early ranting. There is, after all, no Walmart within 60 miles, the bank is independantly owned, the only doctor in town works out of his house and invites patients to” just stop by”. The most serious issue in this week’s County newspaper was the removal of a family of raccoons from the drop ceiling in the County clerks office. I didn’t know if Irene would understand the anger I had left behind. With a great deal of seriousness she slowly and deliberatley read every word. When finished she squinted at the screen for a moment, looked up and asked, “Do you have a dog yet?" It wasn’t a minute later that I had agreed to have lunch with Irene and to meet Dooley the dog. The dog in my imagination when I decided to move to the woods was named “Ole Blue” but Dooley seemed a good name for a hound dog companion. I wasn’t about to accept just any hound. The dog I had pictured sitting on the porch of my cabin was a red tick hound, strong, brave, ready to sacrifice itself to protect my chickens and goats, and yet perfectly happy to sit in the passenger seat of my pick-up with its head out the window, long floppy ears flapping in the wind, or curled up next the potbelly stove on a cold winter night. He would never be further than 15 feet away as I worked my garden or walked down the mountain to the spring. He would listen as I complained about the weather or bragged about my tomatos. At lunch Irene warmed up some fried chicken and mashed potato leftovers. She told me about her enterprising brother who thought it might be a good idea to put in a quarter slot cinderblock self-serve car wash on a lot her mother had left her on the edge of town and of her son-inlaw who had developed some respiritory distress from breathing pesticide dust while working at the Taylor’s Market, a combination grocery, hardware and feed store down the street. Finally, when I had properly finished my lunch and rinsed off my plate she said, “Lets call Dooley, I think he’s out back huntin’ rabbits”. We went out on the back screened porch then down into the yard At the edge of the yard was a tall grass meadow and further up the hill a stand of woods. Irene called and clapped her hands and I looked up to the tree line expecting to see Dooley come running out with rabbit in mouth. As I watched, something caught my eye in the meadow. It looked like a small brown animal on a see-saw. First its nose would pop up and then its tail… nose,tail,nose,tail.. coming right at us. At one point it stopped and dissapeared completely. I looked back up the tree line again expecting Dooley break out in full stride. Surely he would love chasing this small animal whatever it was. The small animal that finally broke out of the meadow was, as you may have guessed, Dooley. The only thing he had in common with “Ole Blue” were two floppy ears. I knelt down to be polite and Dooley came right to me and seemed anxious to jump into my arms. (I discovered later that Irene had slipped a piece of chicken in my shirt pocket as I helped her clear the table.) I made it immediately clear I was looking for a more traditional country hound, one that was tall enough to walk across the low water crossing into my land without a snorkle. Irene asked, “How about some pie?” Driving back to my secret cabin in the woods I looked over at my imaginary dog, Ole Blue. He was sitting brave and strong in the passenger seat, head out the window, ears a flopping. On the floorboards in the backseat, asleep, was Dooley. Irene sold me Dooley for $65. I should never have had that pie.