Broke and hungry, ragged and dirty too

We recently enjoyed a long, dirt-covered week that bore a vague resemblance to “progress.”  A means-making job had come through, and the ensuing windfall was just enough to allow us the luxury of an excavator rental. We dug below-the-frostline footer holes for the embuildment of a proper and actual shack in which to live, and cleared and leveled the surrounding dirt for the same purpose. We terraced our garden space, yielding more than twice the existing land. We flattened a spot for an orchard, which immediately became populated with the makings of a raised strawberry bed, as well as apple and plum trees, or, if they’re too close together (which they very well might be), plapple trees. We dug a wide, deep hole into which to insert a barrel, atop which we’ll soon build an enclosure and a nice seat, into which will we someday deposit our own bodies’ waste. This shall put us, if not all the way to the status of Ordinary Human Being, at least a shuffle-step closer than the animals we more closely resemble now. We ditched out the unmaintained road we’ve been using as a 1/2 mile driveway, to bring it less of a slip-and-slide veneer.

Flattening and ditching the road left all kinds of new roots exposed, and after one evening (whose details are too sordid to be repeated here), we walked home in the dark to find these new roots yellow and aglow with some sort of bioluminescent beings disturbed. I’m now attributing it to honey mushrooms, but still, if you ever have a need to rip the ass-end out of a small strip of land, try looking at it on a night darkened by rainclouds, and see what happens. We don’t practice fairy tales around here (despite our ceaseless search for a pot of gold), but it almost gave us room for pause.

Also, hopefully I needn’t remind you, but please, don’t rip the ass-end out of a strip of land unless you have real need for it.