Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   spiral-grained find at the bottom of the cliff
Sunday, January 31 2016

location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York

I hadn't done any firewood gathering for the indoor wood rack in two days, and, though it hasn't been especially cold, I could see the level of wood on the rack falling rapidly. So early this afternoon, I set out down the Stick Trail with my firewood gathering equipment. My plan was to go to mostly-worked parts of the forest down lower along the Chamomile, but I didn't make it far before discovering a choice piece of skeletonized Chestnut Oak at the base of some low shale cliffs supporting the terrace where the northmost end of the Stick Trail runs between the house and the Chamomile. I'd gathered wood here a little over five years ago, back when I relied on a gas-powered chainsaw and a wheeled cart. Back then, I'd built a set of steps into the slope (which is otherwise too steep to climb) to allow me to carry large chunks of bucked tree trunks up to the Stick Trail. The piece I found today didn't seem to be leftover from that salvage. It was a twisted piece of wood, with wood pores executing a full rotation around the axis every eight or ten feet. It wasn't rotten or especially wet, though it wasn't too hard to cut either. Happily most of the steps I'd installed five years remained in one form or another for me to use. I chose to carry each piece in my arms one at a time up those steps to the Stick Trail before lashing them to my backpack. They were so heavy that I could only get two pieces onto that pack, though I rounded out the load with a few smaller chunks cut from a branch. Today's load came to 128.55 pounds, and I found it somewhat difficult to split due to the helical twist of the grain.
For the past few days, I've felt myself gradually developing a runny nose, and by this evening I had to blow it every five minutes or so to keep it clear. I also felt a little fatigued, to the point where it was nice to just lie on the couch near the fire. If this gets much worse, it will count as only my second illness since I became vegan six years ago.
Meanwhile, Gretchen had met Susan at the Garden Café in Woodstock, and, having talked to me about my nascent head cold, came home with a big thing of orange juice (from Stewarts) and a pint of miso vegetable soup (from the Garden). I added a few drops of Dave's Total Insanity Sauce and then eating it felt like the perfect Donald Trumpian attack on the Mexican Muslims lodged in my sinuses.


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