life – Spotty West Goes East

June 22, 2025

You really know you are in the south when people inquire about the status of your eternal soul. I have answered a question and settled a long-brewing debate for the time being, but it’s not about that. The question has been how am I going to get the lumber for a cabin using the wood on my land.

The debate was between pulling logs off the land to get milled by a professional or milling the lumber myself with a chainsaw. The first will be faster and easier on my body and will likely result in a superior product but it will involve buying or renting expensive equipment and a greater impact on the forest. With a chainsaw and Alaskan Mill I can make lumber where the trees fall.

I might end up doing it the faster way, but for a project that is still more in the dream phase it makes more sense to ease into it with on-site, forest milling.

To do this I bought another chainsaw and ordered and assembled an Alaskan Mill. The Alaskan Mill is basically a metal frame to guide the chainsaw down a rail screwed to the log. It allows the chainsaw to make smooth, even cuts and turn logs into usable building lumber.

I’m more than a little intimidated with the chainsaw I bought. The Stihl 500 is heavier and twice as powerful as my Stihl 251. I take some consolation in the fact that the smaller chainsaw also intimidated me when I first got it. The general wisdom is that you’d be foolish to not be wary.

I had trouble sleeping the night after I bought the larger one. It helped to stop stewing, turn on the light and watch some Youtube videos about it.

You can expect to see pictures and hear more on the process after I practice on my first log later this week.

Another of my purchases was a farm jack. I have a notion that I might be able to lift logs with it and put them on stands for milling to save my back from bending over too far.

I don’t know exactly how I will engineer this but I think it’s possible. I had a good conversation with an old farmer in the hardware store and he had lots of good ideas beyond his most frequent suggestion that I really should just buy a tractor. Still he didn’t give up on suggestions about how to use the jack until he asked me if I went to church and if I’d been saved.

This is always awkward. It seems to happen in the south more than other places I’ve lived. I told him I’m atheist and don’t subscribe to those beliefs hoping this definitive statement would end it quickly. Of course this may have just sweetened the pot if he thought he might get extra points for such a hardened case.

He went on a bit about the big guy on his throne in heaven and I started to get that aching feeling that I really wished he’d stop his pitch. Instead of fighting it too much I waited for the next pause and tried out an abrupt change of subject. Lo and behold it worked. We were even able to continue our conversation a bit more. He talked about Snatch Blocks and Clevis Hooks and other things I know nothing about except that the first step to learning is often just hearing the names.

After shopping there were several hours of sunlight left and I decided I had time to go to the land and do a little more brush-pile clean-up. I’ve decided not to burn but move the five large piles into the woods to rot.

After telling the man at the hardware store that I’ve never seen a snake on my property I saw my first one that evening. Strange how things seem to work that way — or is it because snakes are often on my mind when I talk about the forest the way sharks are on my mind when I talk about the sea?

There were several hours of sunlight left when I made it to the first brush pile to start work. These are mostly pine branches that are matted with wet needles from the recent rains. As I reached for a limb I startled a large black snake coiled on top. It immediately uncurled and slipped into the pile. Of course, it startled me a bit too but I recognized it as non-poisonous.

There are no all black poisonous snakes in North America. The often black Cottonmouth, aka Water Moccasin, has a yellowish belly and from my experience seeing dozens as a kid in Texas, they tend to be tapered and fat in the middle unlike this sleek serpent. Anyway, my land isn’t the habitat for Cottonmouth who like a year-round water source nearby.

I got out my phone and leaned it against a tree to be ready in case of another appearance. I kept my eye out as I worked to see if the snake would slip out of the pile somewhere.

It was disruptive, pulling on the pile, stuffing branches into the rolling trash- tote I bought to accommodate long limbs. I figured the snake would wait until I was taking a load into the woods and then slip out through the weeds, but then again, it might just hunker down. After all, what does a snake know about human intentions around clearing brush?

When I got to the bottom layer of the pile I took the load I had into the woods and came back. I took a glove off and held the camera while I pulled a big log from the pile that I thought the snake might be under. Nothing.

The wet, matted branches lift like shelves and I toed one up with my foot and there it was. I believe it would’ve stayed there and watched me had I not been both unbalanced and surprised and dropped the cover back abruptly. Finding a snake you think might be there is the same as going into a haunted house. You know to expect something scary but it doesn’t keep you from freaking out when you open a door and see a mad clown holding a knife. Besides, black snakes have been known to bite when cornered.

Had I been more careful lifting this bottom layer with a rake pole or stick I might’ve gotten a better shot. When I lifted the mat again it was done with staying put. The race was on. It headed toward the next brush pile and I got four fuzzy shots.

I won’t go so far to say that our human endeavors are anti-nature. We are nature. But, had I approached that brush pile with my powers of observation leading the way instead of my desire to get to work I might have gotten a clear photo of the beautiful creature curled on top.

My best guess is that this is a Black Racer but it could be a Rat Snake. A closer sustained look would have helped.

I’m more inclined to see a deer while hoeing the trails than using the weed whacker or while swinging an axe instead of firing up the chainsaw. There are costs to efficiency and speed. Even the plants I want to keep pay the price. I find myself cutting down cedar saplings and ferns simply because my eyes can’t keep up with the speed with which I swing the trimmer.

After seeing the snake for the second time and getting my fuzzy photos, I went over to a pile of logs to sit and take notes. As I was quietly getting my thoughts together, a hawk swooped by and landed on a stump 15 feet away.

“Hello there,” I said astonished.

It was a greeting that might be appropriate sitting at a city cafe when a friend walks into view and stops at the nearby cross walk. For the hawk however it was like, shit, who are you? She immediately took off.

Nature requires a certain formality. My introduction to both the snake and the hawk were forward to say the least.

The same day I saw my first snake I got my first tick…of the trip. Yes, I’ve had plenty of these, maybe 15 over the course of being out here (if I don’t count the raspberry picking episode with my nephew where we each got about 10 all at once and saw them creeping everywhere across our clothes toward open flesh).

The number of ticks I get each trip is getting smaller and usually it is caused by a lapse in protocol. In this case I was working with my short-sleeve shirt untucked. (My bare arms where sprayed with Off which does seem to keep them away.)

Ticks still freak me out more than any other animal for the obvious reason that they are gross, blood-sucking vampires that bore their ugly heads into your flesh and because they can carry potentially devastating, disease-causing organisms. The Borrelia burgdorferi spirochete carried by the Black-Legged, aka Deer tick, causes Lyme Disease. They can go into a cystic form that researchers believe may allow them to lie dormant and unaffected by antibiotics until they reawaken later to cause havoc.

I found this tick on my belly as I undressed to shower. It was fastened but came off with a steady pull that left it holding a tiny bit of my flesh in its jaws.

I dropped it in the sink. It landed on its back bicycling its eight little legs in the air. I rushed out of the room with a towel around my waist to get my phone. Pictures are important to identify the species and potential, associated disease.

The phone wasn’t in my room. It wasn’t downstairs. I tenderly hoofed over the gravel to the truck in the garage and couldn’t find it there either. I asked my Aunt to use hers.

This all took less than three minutes and when I arrived back upstairs the tick was gone!

Freak out time! In slasher movie this is the part where a high, screechy note is played on the violin. The killer was just standing behind you. You turn quickly. It’s gone.

Shit!

Now there was a deadly parasite loose in the house. I scanned across the floor near the sink using the phone’s flashlight. I moved items and searched the top. I aimed the light down the drain and in the little overfill hole. Nothing!

I figured maybe is slid into the drain. Ticks don’t seem great about walking up inclined, smooth surfaces. I ran water for a few seconds and then ran it another 30 until it was hot and then ran it some more. Agh!

Surely it fell down the drain.

The next morning I went to brush my teeth, my memory of the sanguivore present but dulled by sleep. I casually scanned the surface again and then my eyes popped, jolted awake.

There it was flagging at the top of the liquid soap dispenser! That little fucker had somehow crawled out of the sink in the three minutes I was looking for my phone. This was equivalent to a sprinter running the length of a football field.

During the night the little mole-mimicker had found one of the highest points and resumed the position to grab hold of its prey.

I think this is an American Dog Tick. They like humans too.

Without disturbing it I got my phone in the next room and took a picture. Then I scrapped it in the sink. I tried mashing it with the bottom edge of a glass before remembering how unmashable they are.

I opened a sink drawer and found some long toenail scissors and cut it into little pieces. Then I washed it down the sink for real this time. I ran the water, unreasonably, abhorrently long, letting it get hot, piping hot — letting it stay hot. I was the final victor in the slasher movie where I’d been stalked. I imagined myself in the final scene. I would be yelling down the pipe, screaming, out of my mind — “Are you dead yet fucker? Are you dead?”

Ugh. I don’t like to say it but I hate ticks.

It’s taken a while but I’ve gotten over an incident with my nephew about 17 years ago when we visited the land with my mom, Sharon and Linda and saw wild raspberries growing all along the dirt road to the falling cabin. Anthony and I got out of the car to pick raspberries and about a minute into the activity looked down and were covered with ticks. Nary a tick was seen when I got these a few days ago. So delicious!

Southeastern Five-Lined skink next to the shed

String-trimming (a more delicate way to say weed-wacking) is so much easier than hoeing the trails.

This rotted tree stump had this layered-set of concentric bark rings at the bottom as if the tree rotted or was eaten from top to bottom carrying the more hearty, resistant bark with it as it went down. Who knows how it happened? Other theories?

June 1, 2025

This was about a month ago. The back yard turned into a jungle. The California poppies popped and Sasha had more sniffables to sniff.

I set off a chain reaction of tears at the end of school Friday. It was nearing two o’clock and I had already said goodbye to my last group the day before because, at the moment, I had to do a photo shoot with the principal and 12 former “English Learners” now reclassified “Fluent English”. Tuesday is the last day of school but I won’t be taking groups again. Classrooms will be too busy ending the year.

All I had to do was get this group of first graders out the door: Jocelyn, Marina, David, Alex and the only non-Spanish speaker in the group, Hanh, whose home language is Vietnamese.

I was letting all my students know I wouldn’t be returning to the school next year, that I’d been reassigned to three new schools in the district. It wasn’t my choice, but I wanted to say goodbye, give each of them a hug and wish them a happy summer.

Most of the groups I told at the beginning of our last meeting before we started playing bingo as an end-of-year celebration. A few students wanted to play chess so I sat them near me and monitored their game in between calling out numbers unless I was freed up by a student who wanted to be the caller.

For some reason, I didn’t tell my first grade group that I wouldn’t be returning until I had them lined up to leave the class. That was a mistake. More than any of the others, my youngest group could have used the games as a buffer.

As soon as I told them I saw Hanh think and register my words then turn her head down and away. Her long, dark hair covered her face as she began to cry. Her best friend Marina then started to cry followed by Jocelyn who was at the end of the line. It was like watching dominoes fall except the boys just turned down their mouths.

I tried to console them and tell them about the great teacher who was taking my place, but that didn’t help. At the same time I reminded myself that I’d seen this chain-reaction-crying among first-graders before and tried to convince myself that it didn’t hold a lot of stock, but at the end of the day it did.

I love these kids.

Alex who has great number sense but has to be encouraged to not roll around on the floor and sit in his chair and FOCUS. He has his own nurse at the school all day because of his type 1 diabetes that is monitored with something like a pager that he keeps in his pocket, holds in his sweaty hand or spins around on the table top until I take it from him.

Marina who always gives me a hug at the gate on the Wednesday mornings that I have duty. She arrives with her ten-year-old brother who gives me a hug too and is also in one of my pull-out groups. Both arrived in the United States a few months into the school year and they’ve gone from saying nothing to speaking short sentences.

Jocelyn who holds her arms out and flutters her hands down next to her sides when she is excited to say something. It’s a sort of energy release that I sometimes find myself mimicking unconsciously.

David whose seems to hold his breath when he speaks in a raspy, airy voice that sometimes squeaks when he begins his litany of, “Teacher, what that?” at least ten times every session.

And of course Hanh, whose parents gave me a $30 gift certificate to Target for Christmas — a practice that is common at more affluent schools but rarely happens at this title-one school that sits beside an eight-lane highway on the eastern outskirts of the bay area. Hanh who writes as neat as a fifth grader, knows all her numbers, letters and letter sounds. Hanh who is beginning to read and enjoys being sly and can push anyone’s buttons because she’s smart and is going to figure things out with or without my help.

At day’s end I walked to the front of the school in search of the principal again to discuss a kindergartner mistakenly reclassified using a DIBELS reading score instead of an i-Ready. It was 2:35 and Vera, the jolly but perpetually tired noontime supervisor, was sitting on a bench near the front gate.

“Mr. Robertson, what have you done? Why all these kids coming by here in tears?”

“Really,” I said? “They’re still crying? I just told them I wasn’t going to be here next year.”

“Yeah, they still cryin’! Jocelyn is sitting there in that car. You need to go over there and talk to her.”

I approached the passenger window and waved to her mom. She lowered the shaded back window and there Jocelyn was buckled in and crying with wet cheeks that still have some of that kindergartner baby fat. Her legs barely made it over the edge of the back seat. I repeated my reassurances. But what can you say?

Going back inside the gates here comes Marina with her mom, walking toward me and the exit. Marina’s face was red and the tears were streaming as she held her torso stiff to catch her breath. But what can you do?

The mom stopped as I knelt beside her. This pain of loss is inevitable. We all get hurt. You don’t know when it will hit you. For me it was several days before when I was driving home with my first load of boxes to relocate. It came out of the blue. Moving again. New people to get to know. People lost. Only the memories.

A month ago I spoke on the phone with Aunt Linda. I hadn’t talked to her in a while and I wanted to check in. On Tuesday I’ll be flying to Florida to meet her and a bunch of my cousins at the Gulf Coast beach where they’ve been renting a house for more than a decade. This will be the first time I’ve joined them there.

Stewart was in his chair next to Linda. I could hear him commenting on our conversation, Linda occasionally passed on what he was saying. Sometimes he gets on the phone with me and says hi. We had a nice conversation a few months ago during which time Linda took a shower and returned before we were through. This time we didn’t talk.

A few hours later I got a text from my Uncle Johnny. Stewart was dead. He’d gotten in bed and Linda was in the bathroom getting ready to climb in next to him. When she got there he wasn’t breathing. She called an ambulance but it was too late. He was already gone. Gone too quick.

What can you do? What can you say? He will be missed.

There will be an empty spot in a lot of hearts. I don’t think they ever get filled we just learn to live with the emptiness—with the wind that passes through.

The memories win out in the end.

https://www.stevensmortuaryinc.com/obituaries/Stewart-S-Oakes?obId=42256707#/obituaryInfo

December 31, 2023

I had a video of me singing Cat Steven’s “Oh Very Young” here as a bit of a teaser to get people interested in this latest blog. I figured some people might be more interested in bad singing than good writing. (Bad and good are likely overstatements on both accounts.) I actually think the singing was okay, but in the end, after a few problems getting the video to appear as the featured photo I chickened out.

Voice lessons are on my bucket list though. I say this while acknowledging that the bucket spills over like a child’s ten-thousand lego collection. It includes ideas that, like the toy, venture far beyond the original rectangular-shaped blocks. My bucket list is messy and unachievable if what science predicts is true and I only have one life to live.

To that end I recently gave away a guitarrón that I found tied to a pole and labeled “free” near the elementary school where I take Sasha to play. Learning a bass, string instrument is one of those legos scattered in the corner of the room collecting dog hair and dust far from the bucket.

This new year, I’m likely giving up several other things that are not on the bucket list but have been a part of my life for many years to a greater or lesser extent—motorcycle riding being the greater one.

About a month ago I was in two fender benders two days in a row both, coincidently, on my way to see a movie in the theater—something I don’t do on a regular basis making the accidents all the more odd.

In the first incident I was standing at the box office when I heard yells across the parking lot. My truck had rolled backwards and bashed into the bumper of a parked vehicle. In the second incident, I was on my motorcycle stopped in traffic. I looked backwards for a clearing and then quickly accelerated around the car in front, raking off my side view mirror and doing considerable damage to the side panel of that vehicle. Both accidents were 100% my fault.

Amazingly I was still able to make both movies without illegally leaving the scene.

The first movie, Radical, was one of those teacher-hero movies that we like to indulge in. (Not a feel good movie as much as an empowering one.) The second was Fallen Leaves a reluctant love story and bemusing comedy with interesting directorial choices that created a different time and place. I liked them both.

The two accidents might be a small price to pay to bring an end to my participation in this notoriously dangerous activity. I’ve been riding motos for about 40 years. It’s fun, convenient, and inexpensive but in my estimation I no longer focus well-enough to ensure my survival.

I’m replacing the mirror housing which I’d already glued together three times. I’ll spit-shine the bike and sell it in the spring when people are more interested in riding.

The other activity I will be giving up is down-hill skiing. There is no great emotional cost here. I’ve only done it about ten times in my life. I went a week ago and found myself close to terror after deciding to take three lifts to the top of the mountain and then finding there were no easy slopes down. (Planning and stupidity play a part in this as well.)

I don’t have a problem staying on my skis as much as slowing and, of course, with that equation there is a point where the two lines traversing the x and y axes cross each other and end like a cat’s ball of string. Fortunately, helmets are standard issue these days. To be fair, the conditions weren’t great with a lot of crusted over snow, but when I figure in the cost of a lift ticket, rentals, a hotel room, and gas to get there it is a hobby I can afford to give up.

The dangerous activities I intend to keep (living being among them if you pay too much attention to the news and Next Door Ring camera postings) include riding my electric bicycle and bouldering in the climbing gym. Concord has dramatically increased the safety of bicycling by painting new bike lanes. My heart has leapt for joy with each new lane that has appeared.

Yesterday I shipped my bicycle battery to a business in Colorado to get a complete rebuild. The battery is ten years old and losing its range. The cost is $700 versus buying a new one for $1700. The rebuild is supposed to be better than new as it will add on some extra range and amperage.

I was just shy of 20,000 miles on the old battery before I shipped it off for a rebuild this past Friday.

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Tomorrow I leave for Tennessee to finish off my vacation at my Aunt’s in Corryton and work on my land which is nearby. On the to-do list is finding out why my driveway permit has not been granted although I put the application in with the county over a year and a half ago. The driveway is the space off Poor Valley Road that I intend to gravel near the footbridge I built this past summer. Crossing this footbridge is a short uphill hike to the tabletop where I may someday build a cabin that will overlook the valley between the knobs and the Clinch Mountain range.

That intention relates to another thing on the to-do list which is to deconstruct the falling Sheridan cabin to use some of the timbers for building the new structure. There is hundred-year old metal roofing that I’d like to salvage along with strong, oak dimensionals of similar age.

I’ve given plenty of thought on how to do this deconstruction with little surety that it is achievable in the short time I will have this trip.

I’ve been watching YouTube videos which are helpful although most show deconstruction of structures that are more stable than my falling cabin. Common wisdom seems to suggest that taking it apart from the roof down is the best way to insure the maximum undamaged salvage. How to do this safely is the trick since the whole structure is leaning precariously. Walking on the roof secured by a rope attached to an overhead limb might be a good strategy if there is one available. I might also be able to brace the leaning structure adequately with wood on one side and tie it to trees using a winch on the other side.

I’ve also thought of just pulling the cabin down. One person suggested this might be accomplished with less damage to the wood if I first cut halfway through the supports at the bottom.

Whatever progress I make, or don’t, I’ll be sure to include it in my next post.

The image on the left makes the cabin seem almost usable. The image on the right is what you see when you go around the other side.

There is a lot of good century-old wood in it like these 2×6 joists.

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This coming year feels fraught with tension at home and abroad. I sure hope people stop fighting. I know that sounds like a simplistic wish for these complicated and deeply ingrained divisions, but it’s a starting place. People agreeing to not kill each other is always a good starting place.

Peace in the New Year.