Sunday, June 27, 2010

More work on my truck, this time getting the two gallon gas tank on top. I probably won’t need it this trip (it’s more important when I am going to northern British Columbia or the Yukon), but it can prove invaluable if I need it.

The wineberry blitz has started. I picked a handful this morning after I worked on trimming the road to the orchard. They were delicious and I should have many more in the next ten days. I do wish my ex-partner had taken up my offer to come and pick the wineberries. She left me with some frozen ones and I enjoyed them until late winter. I am turning off the new electric refrigerator when I leave so I won’t be able to freeze any. My ex was a terrific cook and she would often bake things for me; now I am on my own and I am contemplating baking a wineberry pie. The only problem is that if it tastes reasonably good I have no willpower so I will probably gobble it down in a day or two, thus ruining my feeble attempts at dieting.

The greenhouse is still delivering. I had a tomato and the last of the spinach yesterday, along with a few string beans. I am clearing out the boxes that are done, but I am definitely going to plant when I return in late August.

Here is the copperhead poem, dedicated to my ex-partner:


Copperheads are common enough
In an isolated southwestern Virginia hollow,
But like the nearby coyotes who often howl at night,
they aren’t usually seen
Unless you know where to look.
My stacks of firewood often hid a few,
And whenever I removed the plastic
Keeping the weeds down under the electric fence
I could usually find one. I had one reside
Under my doorway when I lived in a tiny cabin
And even now I just spotted one crawling
Into a hole near the cellar door.

Usually I just leave them alone and they do the same,
A fair exchange, but a few years ago
When I was doing a sweat lodge for my students,
I had to act. I had pulled the tarp away
From a pile of split poplar, and there they were,
Three small copperheads. The students moved away,
And since dark was coming quickly
And the participants would go off by themselves
To sit and meditate after the sweat was finished,
The snakes had to go.

Having captured the creatures
Before with an improvised loop, I knew I could catch them,
But I had no time to create a tool, so I grabbed a rake and slipped it
Under the first one, and there I was with a copperhead
Draped between the rake tines and twisting to escape.
I lowered it into the wheelbarrow
And told my partner that she had to run the snake
About forty yards up the path and dump it while I tried
To catch the other two. I knew she wanted nothing
To do with my plan, but she gamely grabbed the handles
And off she went. On her return I had another snake
Hanging from the rake, and in a few seconds she was off again
As I tried to snag the third one. I did and as she rolled
The last one off I wished I had stopped to kiss her
For her courage, but I kept working on the sweat
And missed a chance, that now, will never return.

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