You Silly Goose

Caretaker’s Log, Friday, April 18, 2014

 

I wake up sore. No surprise there. Not after a full day of shoveling snow off the roof. I tumble out of bed and head downstairs. It’s already 45 degrees at 9:00 AM.

There’s a grey-lit, dusky cloud sliding over the east mountains. Eyeing it, I take my coffee and book and go sit outside in the sun. The cat joins me. The wildlife is displaying temerity. For example, the cat jumps in my lap. “Uh, no, Cat,” I tell her, disengaging her kneading claws out of my jeans and gently encouraging her to jump back down. “We’re not getting that friendly.” I scratch her behind the ears and she eventually plops down under my chair like a companionable dog.

Later, as another example, when I’m back inside a spider jumps down my shirt. We both survive the experience and I relocate the spider to the great outdoors.

There’s precipitation—tiny pieces of ice, not quite hail, not quite snow. The temperature drops ten degrees and it begins to snow in earnest. I start my morning fire at 11:30.

“How’s the isolation?” my grandmother asks each time she calls. Without the cat and the geese this place would feel much more isolated.

In the evening, I see the beaver again, by chance, through a window as I pass. It reminds me of Rat and Mole and I think it’ll soon be time to read The Wind in the Willows again. Maybe that’s the promise of spring. Or I’m just confusing that the book begins with spring.

The snow fell for three hours and is already gone. Who needs a coat when it’s 40 degrees outside?

Caretaker’s Log, Saturday, April 19, 2014

I find some heavy whipping cream in the back of the refrigerator. It expired on the 10^th. So I open it and dump it in my coffee. This is the first awesome cup of coffee I’ve had since I got here. Who knows how long the cream will last. I’ll have to drink it up quickly.

I see a chipmunk on the woodpile.

My grandmother calls.

Although I’m feeling lazy and wanting to procrastinate, I gear up and go outside to chop wood. I’m down to about a day’s supply. I chop for four hours. It’s not so bad once I get started. I split wood until I’m out of strength. If the weather keeps getting warmer, this supply will last me much longer than a week.

I see the beaver swimming about.

Now that the spiders are waking up I’ve started shaking my boots out before putting them on. I learned that from reading Louis L’Amour and from staying out at my grandparents’ farm in East Texas where there was real chance scorpions would be in one’s shoes.

A robin redbreast flies up on the porch as I’m finishing up my dinner. The harbinger of spring has arrived. I hope it eats the giant mosquito-like creature I just saw.

There go the ducks.

Caretaker’s Log, Sunday, April 20, 2014

Coffee laced with heavy whipping cream is splendid. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

I’m not as hurt or sore as I thought I’d be from chopping. Maybe that’ll come tomorrow.

A goose was one-legging it at the beaver’s water descent area this morning. I had to get the binoculars to see what creature was there. At first sight, I thought there were two beavers, but it was only one silly goose and a rock.

I water the plants.

There are things being revealed out from under the snow. For instance, a bright orange fishing hat and a pair of scissors on the propane shed’s roof.

Yesterday and the day before I heard the sound of melting snow, a fizzing, a cricket’s song, like something living taking air, or something dying giving up its last breath.

There’s a chipmunk playing statue in the front yard snow. It’s frozen on account of me. I’m moving too much as I sit in the sun and fend off the flies from my place here on the porch. The cat abandons me after I go warm up my coffee.

I want to do nothing today. The question is: where to do it exactly.

Late in the afternoon, following the sun, I go sit on the log outside of the sauna room. A kingfisher with a black plume crown trills at me from the fence by the river. A swarm of white-bellied birds, nuthatches maybe, flit overhead. One dips its beak into the water as it flies by. The river sings around a rock, a bend.

The beaver is out. While I’m watching him slowly munch on a reed I see a second beaver! His reed eaten up, the first beaver swims right past me.

I hear an owl.

The hydro-electric battery float charge is 49.8 when I check it at 7:30. That’s the lowest I’ve ever seen it. While I’m checking the caretaker’s manual to remind myself what the dangerous low is, my brother Phinehas calls. He distracts me with funny stories.

But the low float charge worries me. I find the range in the manual. It’s not supposed to go over 64.2 volts or under 46.8. The volts are currently within the acceptable range. I hope it doesn’t go lower tonight while I’m sleeping. I’m not exactly sure what will happen if it does. I just know that I’ll have to fix it.

 

Now my hands are sore.

I calculate the remaining weeks, my wine supply, and worry about the upcoming Kinky Creek spring flooding. Then I chide myself. Don’t worry about things that won’t happen in the dark of night. Be calm. Enjoy the fire. Enjoy the music. Enjoy the night.

 

I finish the last Tecumseh Fox book by Rex Stout. I’ve read all three in the series in less than three days.

Call in the Cavalry

Caretaker’s Log, Tuesday, April 15, 2014

I stay up until 1:45 watching the lunar eclipse. There are no clouds to mar my view. I sit in the living room and look out through the windows to the east, and to the southeast. I don’t even have to go outside. I watch the blood moon, and it’s surrounded by stars. Moon eaten out by shadow and then released.

7:45 seems too early to get up, but I can’t fall back asleep. Now for coffee. I get the fire blazing. Kindling is the key. Well, that and the diesel dust. 

I eat my breakfast granola with water.

Outside the wind roars like an engine.

My mother calls.

At 3:21 it’s snowing.

I eat pancakes for second lunch or first dinner, take your pick, and watch the snow, as if in some eye of the storm center of a snow globe.

It disconcertingly feels like Sunday all day.

When it’s time to take the weather I get to measure the precipitation for the first time. I measure out some hot water, add it to the metal container holding the snow then pour it all back in the measuring glass, subtract the hot water and there is the amount of precipitation. Today’s was 0.09.

Caretaker’s Log, Wednesday, April 16, 2014

An inch of fresh snow covers the ground, the roofs, the trees, the fence posts, the porch, the uncut logs. The snow glitters in the sunlight, tiny sparkles of purple, gold, orange, pink against the blinding white.

I’m feeling lazy. But I will get out in a while.

Today marks two weeks that I’ve been here at the Darwin. Time goes slow. Time speeds by. Maybe I’ve already been here forever and I’ve never known any other place.

I make another batch of granola. This time I add some of the pure vanilla extract I find in the cupboard.

I dreamed I saw a wolf through the kitchen window. In my dream I scrambled to get my camera and take a picture of it.

I vacuum.

Finally set to get out, I put on my ski boots and coat. I grab my backpack and pull on my gloves. Thus geared up, I go out for my downhill ski lesson. There are big paw prints in the snow along the fence line, by the water. Maybe my wolf dream was no dream.

I ski the flat east field and then choose some gentle slopes for my downhill practice. I also work on turning around. I’m getting better. Not content with my little hill, toes out I climb the steeper slope heading up the way towards Kinky Creek Dam to find a perfect bunny slope.

I find it. A good incline with an opposing slope.

Downhill is so much fun.

Bent knees, body slightly forward, grin plastered across my face, I feel the speed with the wind in my face, and revel in how happy I am in this moment, doing this thing. Up the hill, and quickly back down. Then up again. And again. And again. I fall some and forget to keep track of the number. I fall mostly when trying to turn around on too much of a downward slope. The falls don’t matter today. I’m learning to control the speed, to control the motion, to feel the snow underneath me. Slowly, I’m learning.

My ski lesson goes for an hour and twenty-five minutes. Perfect snow. Perfect hills. Perfect day.

I go back to the Lodge.

I wash my hair.

Later, I check the spot where I’ve laid out a towel to soak up the droplets that are leaking from the back room door lintel onto the wood floor. There’s more than before. I clean up the pool, put a bowl under the main drip, and send off an email to Karen.

Caretaker’s Log, Thursday, April 17, 2014

I sleep in a little bit. Just as I’m getting my computer warmed up to check my email Karen calls.

“Did you get the email?” she asks.

“I just turned on my computer to check,” I tell her.

“Well, Loring sent a very detailed suggestion about what to do. I figure better sooner than later. Read it and feel free to call him if you have questions. He’s got to go into town around noon so be sure to get in touch with him now if you need to.”

Loring is the original owner of the Darwin. He recently sold it but is still available to troubleshoot the systems that he built and spent so many years tending.

I fire up my email and read the instructions on how to deal with this snow melt leak I’ve got in the back room. It involves attic crawl spaces, shoveling snow off roof valleys, hoses and hot water, and prayers to the gods of balance and heights.

When I’ve read through the email and checked to make sure I know where things are, I call Loring and have him walk me through his thoughts. He ends our conversation with, “Don’t fall off the roof.”

I raise my eyebrows, as if he can see that, and say with the heartfelt conviction of a promise, “I won’t fall off the roof.” I knock on the wood door next to me. Can’t hurt, right?

I go up into the attic crawl space and notice the icicles that are dripping into the insulation. Among the flotsam in the attic I find a jigsaw puzzle so I bring it down. I collect some hoses from the crew bathroom and the tool shed. I check to make sure I know where to connect them to the hot water heater if it comes to that. 

 

To fortify myself I eat some granola and gulp down a bit of coffee. In the event that I fall and break my neck, I straighten up the kitchen. No reason for any rescuer to think I’m a slob. Then I call Karen to let her know that I’m going up on the roof. I check the clock trying to think of what’s a reasonable amount of time for roof shoveling. “I don’t know how long this will take me,” I say, finally.

“Greg, Dustin, and Morgan shoveled off the Industrial Park building roof and it took them quite a while.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I’m off,” I say. “I’m taking the SOS tracker that you left me, just in case.”

She laughs, but I can tell she thinks that’s a good precaution. “If it seems too hard or too unsafe don’t do it. Have you talked with Peter?”

Peter is the guy who brought me out to the trailhead the day I came in to the Darwin.

“No. I forgot to get his email from you. He mentioned something about going to Greenland with his girlfriend, but I can’t remember when.” He’d also mentioned that he and his girlfriend might like to come visit me and do some kite skiing.

“We could bring you some fresh greens or something,” he’d said.

I think about fresh salad. That’d be a good reason for a visit.   

“Well, he could always come out and take a look at things if we need him to,” Karen says, taking the pressure off me.

No need to call in the cavalry yet. What kind of caretaker would I be if I can’t take care?

I put on my snowpants, boots, and coat. I put a ball cap on to keep my hair out of my face and stick on my sunglasses. I walk around the Lodge looking up. The north side roof where the problem is coming from is steep. I climb the ladder positioned there to make sweeping the satellite dish off easier and evaluate the slickness of the shingles and the potential for hand holds. It doesn’t look good.

But there is more than one way to climb a roof.

The south side of the house at the front porch has a flat roof and is accessible to my height via the step ladder I’d used to get into the attic. I lay two shovels and a pickax on the roof and then follow them up. I’m careful. Safety is my middle name.

I find the valley and start digging. The snow is three feet deep in places. I shovel and shovel and shovel. Hours later, exhausted, I wonder if I’ve even dug out the right place. I hope so. It’s an awful lot of work. I wedge my feet into the walls of my tunnel and scrape down to the bothersome ice. “I would have made a hell of a Boy Scout,” I say in between struggled tosses of sticky, clumped weighted snow.

“Don’t get cocky,” I reply. That’s when accidents happen.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Not sure what else to do and needing a break I make my cautious descent. Just as I get inside the phone rings. It’s Karen. She says she’d just looked at the clock and realized how many hours had gone by. “I was just getting worried,” she said.

“I just got down,” I tell her. “I was about to call you. I may have to get up again, but I’ll check in with you this afternoon when I’m all done.”

I eat a snack and then go work from the pile of snow on the ground that I’ve spent the last few hours enlarging. Now, even I can reach the roof from there. When I’ve gotten all I can, wishing my arms were longer, I go up again and widen my tunnel, knock off the west side snow height so that the sun will melt more and more. The sun is already in the western sky. That’s all I’ve got in me for today. If the cavalry came now, I’d make them coffee.

I sit on a secure bit of snow and look over what I’ve done. I’ve uncovered the block of ice that’s been melting into the roof instead of draining off and pretty much cleared the valley. I think my tunnel will create just the drain needed to keep the inside Lodge wood from being damaged and the roof from needing to be replaced.

 

I throw the shovel off the roof out of my way and then jump into the mountain of snow.

I call Karen and tell her I’m done for the day. We decide to save the hoses and hot water for another day if the sun doesn’t do the work on its own.  

I get cleaned up, eat some soup, and start up a batch of apple cider rum punch to drink as my reward. Boy Scouts drink rum punch, I’m sure.

I do nothing but sit about, read, and eat for the rest of the day.

   

A Wolf in Coyote's Clothing?

Caretaker’s Log, Saturday, April 12, 2014

I make pancakes for breakfast with the gluten-free mix I’d found in the pantry. Honey and frozen fruit make a nice topping. Sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and my fancy breakfast makes the weekend suddenly feel special, out of the ordinary. Not just another day with the same little chores. Although the same chores get done. Although I don’t mind the same little chores.

 

When I go check the lights in the generator shed the ground is crisp and hard, easy to walk on. So I go for a longer walk. I pass the place where I’d laid the little dead owl to rest and notice it’s gone from its funerary bark. The bark looks like a dark angel against the snow.

 

The Industrial Park looks fine. No fuel leaking, this is good.

There’s a snowbank at the thawing river that looks like modern art.

I walk west. I’ve never walked this way before. I have to get my walks in early these days before the warming weather melts the snow and ice and makes my way, if not impassable, simply harder. 

 

As I walk home I see a wolf running up the north ridge. It seems to sense me, pausing every so often to look my way. I do the same. Two curious and wary creatures. Maybe it’s a coyote.

I near the fence line and hear other wolves, other coyotes. A pack of them, yipping, whooping, and hollering from the west – probably not much farther out than where I’ve just come from. I sit on the post and listen to them. The north one calls back to the others. It’s a community of sound, of acceptance.  

I go inside and read the rest of the day away.

Caretaker’s Log, Sunday, April 13, 2014

As if my reluctant acceptance of spring flipped some weathersome switch—I wake up to find it’s snowing. Just when I’d gotten used to the melting mess. Now this. I grumble as I brush my teeth and throw my hair into a makeshift braid.

I water the plants.

Watching the snowfall in windblown clumps I’m reminded of Snowflake Bentley who looked at snowflakes under the view of a microscope and photographed them.

I shake off my morning grouch and now, that I’m transitioned to the idea, this snow makes me happy.

Two hours later—this snow makes me extremely happy.

I go chop wood for an hour.

I wear myself out with the wood chopping. I bring a full sled load up to the porch and start throwing it on the wood pile.

The cat stays much of her time up in the roof. She comes scraping, scratching, sliding down when she hears me out on the porch, wanting me to rub behind her ears.

This is the longest I’ve ever gone without face to face human contact.

I talk with my brother on the phone. He tells me if I get eaten by wolves or bears to be sure to have my camera handy to record it.

I read another book.

I eat goat cheese brie, crackers, hummus, carrots, and canned peaches for dinner.

The moon is nearly full.

Caretaker’s Log, Monday, April 14, 2014

The thought I have when I wake up is, I wonder if I’m getting enough protein? This exhaustion seems hardly warranted by the amount of work I’d done the day before. I shrug it off. I’m getting enough protein.

I work part of a jigsaw puzzle while listening to an audiobook I’d downloaded from the library.

I go check on my vegetables in the root cellar and discover the yams are starting to go bad. So I bring them inside to scrub down and make into soup later. I wonder if I’ll be down to just rice and beans by the end of my stint here.

Well, there’s always canned pineapple.

Karen emails to suggest that if I get the chance to trek up the road it’d be a good idea to go lock the gate now that the snowmachine season is pretty much over. So I tie my boots, put on my coat, shoulder my backpack, grab a ski pole and head up the hill. The temperature is in the twenties and the sun is shining full blast. It’s much too hot to have my hat or gloves on. I carry them in one hand just in case. I’m not really sure how far up the “road” the gate is, so I just trek on and on and think eventually I’ll have to get somewhere. An hour later, I do. All I have to do is attach the chain and secure the lock. I see dog or wolf or coyote prints in the snow. I go up past the gate a bit then turn around and go back to the Lodge. It’s a nice excursion. 

I make enough soup to feed an entire pack of (vegetarian) wolves.

At 8:50 when I go outside to cool off from the over hot inside stove and to check out the night sky the wolves are already howling.

I stay up past my bedtime to watch the full lunar eclipse.