Just a thought while driving away…

Driving back from the store today, I noticed a half a dozen or so Turkey Vultures along the side of the road standing in a six foot circle around something, just looking at it. I stopped the Subaru in the middle of the road, turned on the hazard lights and got out the camera. The Vultures just stared into their circle and paid me no mind till I started shooting, only then did a few fly. I manage to get a few photos and drove away happy with myself, until I asked myself out loud:

“I wonder what they were standing around?”

Cold and Hardship

I knew when I first opened my eyes, something wasn’t right.  I feeling of “wrongness” washed over me.  For a moment I was not sure where I was. The alien green glow from my alarm clock answered my question to my location and time 6:55am but held no clues to the slivery-white light that flooded my bedroom past the one uncovered window on the south wall.  My wife was sleeping soundly so that ruled out alien invasion and most probably Godzilla.  So I decided after fumbling around for my glasses that I might as well get up.  The fact that I was getting up at the time that I usually go to bed, added to the sense of dislocation that I felt.  After I slouched down stairs to the living room. One look out the picture window explained the weird white light. 

 

Snow.

 

About 2 inches of it and with that memories of yesterday came flooding back.  Yesterday had started off good, other than the fact that I was off my sleep schedule. I work 12 hours overnight for 3 days in a row. That gives me 4 days off in a row.  If I were smart I would stay on the same schedule during those 4 days.  But what tends to happen is every week during my days off my sleep just gets more and more out of whack.  And that’s what happened yesterday.  I had went to sleep the night before and been woke up at around one to let the “PIMA” out.  As an aside the “PIMA” (Pain In My Ass.) is my wife’s Black Mouth Cur who’s official name is “Odie”. 

 

Odie or PIMA is in fact a great dog, but now that my wife is pregnant I have received the added task of walking the beast.  Well after walking the PIMA I decided to just stay up and get some sleep in the morning.  But as things so often do, my plans when astray.  This is how I found myself at Radio Shack at 7pm looking for smart-phone for my mother in law. We ended up getting new cell phones for everyone. So when I finally got home I went straight to bed. 

 

So after I got done gawking at the snow, I had a seat at my PC desk feeling more than a little burnt, discombobulated and hungry. That’s when I saw it. My new PDA-phone, just sitting there at the edge of my desk mocking me.  Looking at my desk which is a steaming pile of technology filled me with a wave of revolution that would only be equaled if you were to lift the toilet seat only to find Dread Cthulhu there looking back at you.  Don’t misunderstand me, I love using my gadgets, I just hate dealing with technology.  I hate the speed at which our society moves.  I hate the impositions that technology makes in our lives.  I really strive to master tech without letting it become my master.  And sitting at the desk looking at the cell phones, flash drives, and remotes I felt a little out numbered.  I had to get away. I fled into the kitchen but while I was digging in the fridge I heard a whispering sound, it was the microwave.! I had to get out!

 

I grabbed some gear and slipping on some untied tennis shoes I bound out the door. 

 

The sky was a steel gray heavy, solid covering an earth brighter than the sky.  The storm did not have the feel of a friendly Christmas snow.  No jingle bells and a falalala. This was an adult snow of January that had busted the line and came early. The kind of snow that promised cold and hardship.  The kind that says you might go hungry, you might not make it.  This snow might tell you that it’s seen your like before. Seen them struggle and die, seen their bodies stove up next to a creek washed deer carcass after the thaw.

 

This was the kind of snow I found myself standing in with a Swiss army knife, a soda can stove,  a can of spam and a one egg frying pan with a chicken on the handle.  Well I recognize a challenge when I see one.  I decided to have a meal and make do with only what I had on me and the content of my grub bag.  So off I went.  I could not go far because I had not left a note or told anyone where I was going.  So I decided the picnic grounds were my limit.  It was still in earshot of the house and well with in crawling distance if it came to that. (ask me about that some other time.)  I stopped to tie my shoes, picking my gear back up I noticed how thick and stiff my hands felt. It was cold and I was only wearing a tee shirt and my hunting pants. I needed to get out of the wind and get warm.  I was headed out to a blown down stump where I knew there was an exposed nice flat table like rock that I could set my stove up on.  What with the heat from the stove and the windbreak from the stump, I should be warmer than I was now.  I love the woods after a snow.  But I was getting really cold by the time I got there and did not have time to enjoy the view.  I saw no wildlife and only heard the passing of a few crows in the distance.  Sound on days like today only deal in the extremes, quite sounds are hushed,  loud ones jarring. Winter allows no middle ground. 

 

The rock was clear of snow so I pulled out my soda can stove and a bottle of heat.  I filled the stove, pouring a large dose, lighting it with a lighter from my bag.  This stove seems to work ok in cold weather but the wind pulled the flames to the side stealing my heat.  I had forgotten my wind screen but after a moment’s thought I built a donut of snow around the stove around 6 inches high it blocked the wind nicely.

 

I gathered up snow in my Heini-pot and set it on to boil.  I cupped my hands around the stove warming them.  Fire is a blessing.  Soon my hands were warm enough for me to notice how cold the parts of my body that were not facing the fire were.  I dumped my gear out on the rock and rolled up the sides of my grub bag  and wore it like a hat, shoving the straps down the back of my shirt seemed to help as well.  I was warmer but not quite warm.  Snow started falling as I poured the water into a mug and added a packet of coco.  I had to top off my stove while it was burning a mildly risky endeavor but one that was necessary.  I then put my ultra-manly one egg frying pan on the stove carefully balancing it so the giant cartoon chicken on the handle doesn’t over balance it.  I warmed it a while before I placed a nice thick slice of spam in it.  The slice of spam really was too thick I had to fill the stove again but the smell of frying ham in a snow storm, wonderful.

 

Using a stick I pushed the stove to the side and let it burn out.  I just sat on the now warmish rock where the stove had been and enjoyed my meal. 

 

The woods out here at the picnic grounds can feel like a sauna in the heat of summer,  but now under a gray sky coated with a crust of white snow that burdens the naked branches it looks like a cathedral. It looks like someplace Tolkien should describe.  I take off my “hat” gather up my gear and walk back to the house.  The birds looking for beach nuts at the edge of my driveway bolt, indignant that I approached them from the wood line instead of from the house like humans are suppose to do. 

 

Back at the house everyone is still asleep.  My kids dream of Christmas and my wife of our baby that she carries, and I guess life isn’t that bad after all. Now if you will please excuses me I’ve got this really cool new phone to play with.