Freezer

Cold, clear (high 20s)

Brr! When I drove in this morning, my car said camp was a whopping 22 degrees. Throughout the day I felt it, the inadvertent shiver, the full-body cold at the end of the day. But it was beautiful, too, so beautiful I couldn’t even stay inside for lunch. I spent my lunch hour gallivanting around the riverbank, testing the ice on the beach and even scampering down to the ferny glen to see if there were icicles. This was tough, because there are a few spots on the way to the ferny glen where little creeks trickle into the river, and these were totally iced over. I picked carefully across these, and then found the wall completely covered in beautiful icicles, which were just beginning to melt with the afternoon sun. It was like being in a stunning palace that’s falling down; I’d be admiring a cluster of icicles based on a maidenhair fern, and then one would crash down behind me. It was pretty fun.

I spent most of the day working on my arch. The branches I had intended to have cross didn’t work out, so I spent a lot of the day just plain frustrated. When I bent them, they were bendy in all the wrong places, and when I stood back, it looked ridiculously bad. So I lopped them off, and started over. I eventually ended up gathering cedar branches, which are bendy enough, and next time I work on it hopefully I’ll finish the top. This is the way these things go, though. I’m sure the branches being frozen didn’t help them bend, either.

My space heaters are on, and I’m in my sleeping bag with a fire going, and I’m hoping the water in my cabin won’t freeze. I guess Ranch is frozen, and I hope I’m not next.

Arch-tastic

Cold, overcast (low 30s)

Fun! Today was ridiculously fun. After Marc’s work was suddenly canceled, due to a chicken shortage, he spent the day at camp, and we worked on an arch for a little garden. I’ve had kids build this arch twice before, and it’s always been cute, but not, uh, very stable. So I’ve gotten all the materials together, and today Marc and I started to put it together. We skinned the alder trees, then sank the posts, and then put in cross-branches, and then attached two of the archy parts. And it was a fantastic day. The arch looks really cute so far, and I am most pleased.

I like these little projects. Sometimes I realize how much work needs to be done at camp, and it crushes my psyche a little. But then I work on a small project I really enjoy, and it gets almost done in a day, and it all seems worthwhile.

At home in Slanty

Cold, overcast (low 30s)

Slanty is finally back to its normal self, after a month of construction. It’s a relief. I don’t bump into sawhorses on the way to the bathroom, and when I clean out the shower, it won’t accumulate a pile of wood shavings the next day. I’m pretty excited.

This is my first day off the burn pile in a week, and I have to admit, I kind of want to do it right and finish it up. There’s still a pile of stuff there, and it’s eating at me, just a little. It’s all sorted and ready to go up in flames, but I can’t do anything about it. This is what it’s like to work out here. There are so many projects. It’s such a big place. You can only do what you can do in a day, and then you have to call it done, regardless of whether you feel like it’s done. Carlo has a healthy philosophy about the number of hours in a day and stuff, and I think it’s going to take me awhile to actually embrace that. I might nod when he talks about it, but I haven’t really internalized it yet.

All of that aside, it was nice to have a ho-hum day around camp. A day of little news.

Burn pile, part V

Clear and cold (low 30s)

Oh! I forgot to tell you yesterday that I saw elk! I was driving out the road after work, ‘round ‘bout dusk, when I saw something large and bizarre looming in the headlights. I put on the brakes, and watched as four elk (two adults and two kiddos) marched silently across the road. I have to say, of the animals I’ve seen in the wild, elk are among the coolest. They always seem to be moving silently out of the mist, in a herd you’d think you would hear a mile away. When I saw them last year, there were a dozen of them, and I hadn’t heard a thing. And their bodies are weird, too. They’re like centaurs; they’re definitely cervine, but something about the way they move, the way they carry the fronts of their bodies, is oddly human.

The burn pile is almost gone. I unearthed a few more boards today, but it’s really gone down quite amazingly. The pile was a good place to hang out today, in the freezing weather. When I drove past the Ranch this morning, my car’s thermometer registered a chilly 25 degrees. So when I finally kicked up the fire this morning, hoping mightily it would start despite the wood being covered in frost, I warmed myself and was glad for the monotony of the burn pile.

It’s chilly in Slanty, too. I’ve been shivering under a blanket on the couch, and I think that infernal space heater (the one that squeaks and has a really loud fan) is going to stay on all night. Eh. At least the toilet’s not frozen… yet.

Burn Pile, Part IV

Cold, unsettled—snowing and then clear (low 30s)

Oh ha ha, I am such a nerd. I just noticed that today’s burn pile roman numeral spells “ivy,” which is what the burn pile was ALL ABOUT today. See, the ivy wraps itself around the lumber and the branches, making a clump of stuff that you couldn’t possibly lift. I spent much of the day raking the ivy into little balls, and placing them on the fire, feeling like it wasn’t making a bit of difference in uncovering the wood. Adding to this, I had to start the fire in a blizzard, which only lasted about five minutes, but was still blizzardy.

Frustrations aside, it was a good day. The sky cleared after the wee blizzard, and Carlo brought the tractor down to move some ivy. A bunch of people dropped by to visit camp, and it was fun to hob-nob with them while watching the pile burn.

Last night, after the torrential evening rain, things cleared up, and the moon made a brilliant path across Slanty’s windows. Although the temperature dropped, and Slanty wasn’t the warmest cabin in the world, I fell asleep after looking out the window at Orion, curled up in my down comforter, and felt pretty content.

Burn Pile, Part III

Cool, rainy (40-ish)

Okay, so I know no one’s really into reading about the weather, but holy moly, did it rain this afternoon. I was out tending the burn pile, heaving bits of branch into the fire, when a few drops came down. I thought I’d tough it out, but then it started to dump, and I ran for the truck. For the next two hours I monitored the pile from the truck, which was boring but much more pleasant.

I was daydreaming, and maybe even nodding off a little, when I heard a tiny thump behind the truck. I spun around, but the back of the cab was fogged over. I looked at the side mirror, and it was entirely taken up by--what else--a deer’s face. It was comical, really; this deer was looking at the mirror and cocking its head, and its ears were more than half the size of its head again. It was pretty cute. It seemed to think the truck was kind of weird, and it walked all the way around it, but didn’t see me at all. I was within a foot of this deer, and it had no idea. It had made it almost all the way around the truck when its offspring joined the scene. The yearling took a few puzzled glances at the burn pile, and then tagged along with mom for awhile. They dawdled their way across the parking lot, stopping to chew on stuff. When they were about twenty feet away, they started licking each other’s faces. It was awfully cute. I’ve seen deer before, obviously, but I usually don’t see them relaxing, and it was really nice to see them just playing around in the driving rain.

Dude, that fire is probably out by now. This morning, when I went to start it, there were still embers from last week, but shoot, did it rain this evening. Yep. That's the weather.

Burn pile, part II

Overcast, warmer (mid-40s)

Today I spent a bunch of time with Carlo at the burn pile, tossing stuff in, watching it burn, and milling around chatting. It was a nice day, if a little muddy; I arrived home with so much mud on the fronts of my clothes, you could barely see fabric. It’s weird to think I’ve only got a month and a half left of this job. I love it to pieces. I know I can’t do it forever (I barely break even in terms of money, and I want to spend time with Marc and other friends), but I will definitely miss it when I move on.

It’s the weekend, and I’m knackered.