West Branch Pond

Things have already settled in here into a quiet, busy rhythm. I'm up early in the morning, around six-fifteen or so, and by seven I am in the kitchen. We prepare the dining room, make juice, make coffee, put away dishes, and serve breakfast.

After breakfast is served and everything is cleaned, I get to work cleaning cabins--preparing them for arriving guests or cleaning the cabins whose users have departed. That done, I have some free time.

I have been enjoying the pond a great deal--canoeing, swimming and kayaking. I go across the lake and explore the small mangrove-like tendrils of the body of water, stopping along the way to watch the moose and the ducks. I stare up at the rolling mountains around me, at the clouds hanging above them.

In the afternoon--lunch, and the routine is the same as breakfast.

Yesterday, after lunch, I headed with Eric into the woods to chop and collect firewood. He has been making a trail through the woods in order to reach an area particularly rich in wood. And so over the roar of the chainsaw and a strange tank-like vehicle that Eric uses, I got down to the business of lumberjacking.

I've been using a splitting mallet, which is basically like a big, heavy, dull axe used to split logs that have already been chopped into manageable pieces. For an hour or so, I choppped away, straining my back muscles and bruising my palms. I can honestly see why people find chopping to be so relaxing, as I quickly found my rhythm and relaxed, noting little around me besides the sounds of my axe and the wood before me. In a short time, I found myself with a huge pile of firewood, ready to be dried. Honestly, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with chopping so much wood is wonderful.

In the evening, we cook and serve dinner, clean up, and then hang around a while before heading off to bed. The guests that are presently here have been treating themselves to a bonfire every night, and so the company is good and plentiful.

I have the feeling that in the month before me, little will change of this schedule, and so I don't plan to say much more about it. It is good work, and it feels timeless and wholesome. Everything in the daily routine seems to have been planned generations ago (much of it probably was), and all is somehow taken into account. Scraps on the plate go to the chickens or the dogs, extra cream goes into the baking, bones are used for stews and soups, menus are changed to allow for new ingredients. We draw the water from a spring and use it directly. It really is something to see, the way that life works here.

And so, little else is going on here. Below I will post pictures of the outside of my home, as well as a picture of a fine example of a beautiful fungus that grows around here. It sounds nasty, but it truly is beautiful.

I hope that all are well.