nature – Spotty West Goes East

July 10, 2026

A few weeks back it rained from about two in the morning until three that afternoon. My Aunt Linda and I stayed in. We did not allow The Cat in the Hat inside. That agent of chaos is one of the most frightening fictional characters of my childhood. I was always afraid the fish’s bowl would break.

Aunt Linda is feeding a coterie of nicer cats on her front porch. There is a mother and father and kitten. There were two kittens but the other stopped showing up after a few weeks. I don’t like to think of its probable fate. Linda intended for me to help capture those cats and take them to be neutered or spade. She has a trap. We just never found the time.

The raccoons still show up for meals. On a day the male cat was eating he stepped aside and allowed an arriving bandit to take his place. She ate neatly (efficiently) with two hands and didn’t leave any leftovers.

On the day the rain finally stopped I hopped in the truck and went to see what the land looked like after such an inundation of water.

I filmed short videos of the wet-weather-creek that runs between two knobs on the north side. I followed it uphill until going further would have required major bushwhacking.

Here is a montage video. The last five clips are of another wet weather stream near the shed on the south side of the land.

The first creek doesn’t run when it’s dry but holds pools of water near the driveway. Thirty feet away, a year-round creek goes the opposite way coming off Clinch Mountain. It is spring fed and runs under the road bisecting the corner of my property. If I get so far as to caring about having water with my dream cabin I may end up pumping it from there. This would probably be less expensive than drilling a well.

I found two pipes coming out of the ground near the memorial stones but I’ve no idea if they are just markers or something actually related to water. It’s worthy of investigation. Next time.

—————————————-

Without working too hard this trip I made some major progress in deepening my knowledge around chainsaw milling. Trees fall all the time in these woods and I’d like to make use of them and start stockpiling lumber in case I do build a structure.

I’m imagining a stick-frame cabin as opposed to a log one. There is also a post and beam type of building, but for now I’m making 2x4s.

My current focus is a large pine that came down a year and a half ago near the shed. An even bigger oak fell around the same time, but the oak will last longer on the ground. Making it into lumber can wait. Besides, the softer wood of the pine is a better tree for me to learn chainsaw milling on.

I removed all the bark several weeks ago. It was like peeling a clementine. The bark fell away in chunks. It barely held to the wood and was sweet smelling and slimy underneath.

Near the tip end of the tree it revealed a colony of termites with their eggs and along the entire length were white grubs with accordion-like bodies and copper-colored heads. These are the larval stage of the sawyer beetle an important forest decomposer and one of 35,000 species in the longhorn beetle family.

Bark removal is recommended for chainsaw milling because bark rapidly dulls the blades. In this regard the sawyer beetles did me a favor. Those grubs introduced the water and space that made the bark fall away easily without the hard chore of using a drawknife. However, where they’d been at work the longest—in the top third of the log—the wood was no longer viable as structural lumber because of the finger-sized holes made by the beetles.

I made some slab passes through the most eaten up piece just to see how deep the holes went. The answer was deep—- to the center.

Information about these beetles said they go into the wood as larvae and come out as adults, but I imagine there are times when they do second or third dives. I found this one that seemed pretty grown and it was headed into the log, not out of it.

I’m not sure where this beetles long antennae are. Did they fall off? Unformed? Coiled under the body?

Headed may not be the best word to describe these beetles. For the longest time I studied it and couldn’t see the head. In fact I wondered if I’d cut it off when passing over it with the chainsaw. All I was seeing was a neck. Then I realized their heads point down at a right angle which from the top side make them look like the headless horse…beetle.

This video shows me teasing out the beetle that was revealed where I just passed over it with my saw.

At all stages, these insects have body qualities that I imagine help them dig in. It’s all theory to me, but as grubs, it looks like they can squish up their accordions to get some extra push and as adults their long legs with spiked tarsi appear like a rowing team pretty much oaring their way into the wood. (You can’t hardly peel them off your finger when they attach and I didn’t want those wood-eating mandibles anywhere near my flesh.)

The big win in material and educating myself in chainsaw milling came with the next log. I finally found a way to get a level, even surface from my first cut. This cut is the most difficult. If you look on YouTube you will find people making this cut fifty different ways—using ladders, rails or planks, over simplifying how they measure or under simplifying to the degree that it feels like you need a flow chart to understand. Finally I was able to synthesize enough information to get a decent result. The planks I cut will still need additional squaring to become 2x4s but at least I’ve got slabs with consistent thickness and length.

Here was my set up that worked for an initial cut. I screwed level boards into both ends, laid two, ten-foot, very straight, treated 2x4s across them as rails and then slipped in short, cross 2x4s where they fit to additionally support the rails. Without rail rigidity I wouldn’t be able to retain a consistent thickness in my slabs.

This picture shows what doesn’t work for a first cut – simply laying a board on top as guide. The mill follows the ups and downs of every knot. By setting rails that hover above the log (as seen in the first picture) a clean, even cut can be made that is not guided by hills and valleys on the log.

Here are the six, nine-foot slabs I milled
from one log.

This sped up video shows me cutting a slab with a voice over explaining a little about the process.

I love the mirroring the slabs show when laid side by side.

Another big win during this trip was learning to use the battery powered chainsaw sharpener. I had a hang up about digging in to this. I knew it would be time-consuming (and it was), but after sharpening one of the cross-cut chains I feel confident I’ll be able to sharpen those and, more importantly, the ripping chains which dull quickly due to the amount of time they spend in the wood. I will have three of these waiting for me when I return in the fall.

To continue with the wins, I found a good use for the four-ton farm jack I bought on a whim a few years ago. I knew it might come in handy for positioning logs for milling, but I hadn’t been able to figure how until the need arose. Until that happened, the cant hook is a tool that’s served me well.

I can roll very large logs with the cant hook and isolate the end I don’t want moved by wedging it. I can also raise a log off the ground by rolling it up a ramp onto another log or makeshift pedestal.

However, it doesn’t work if I want to get a log higher than my strength will allow or where building or cutting a longer ramp would be extra time-consuming.

A cant also can’t help with lifting the end of a log still attached to the stump. In these scenarios the farm jack comes in handy.

I successfully raised this log still attached to the stump to get it out of the dirt of another stump and protect it from rot. I will still need to figure out how to safely cut it free, but this is a temporary solution until then.

The last thing I’ll mention isn’t exactly a win, but I’ve stepped into the arena of learning more about rocks with the purchase of this rock hammer. I played with hitting it on some different rocks.

A boxy piece of sandstone broke out to make this sort of fox-shaped head. Similar blows on a darker colored rock would not separate it, but revealed it’s heartiness and tendency to create sparks

It’s been a week now since I’ve been back in California—back to life surrounded by all the responsibilities and possibilities that come with one’s home. It has taken some getting used to. In Tennessee I have something closer to a singular purpose: to work, explore and be on the land.

I have a friend who used to have a bumpersticker on a truck she owned. It was a simple statement in all caps: TREES ROCK. I’m already missing those trees and rocks.

After the rain stopped the day I took videos of water, I used the softened conditions to dig up stumps on the ground of the proposed cabin site. At one point I reached down and collected a handful of the soaked, white-clay that lies beneath the green moss. The clay topsoil there is unique to any other spot on my land.

I walked through the woods and worked it into a ball that I placed on one of the abutments of the bridge span I’d taken out.

On my last day I made a driveway pole gate.

I charred the post where I would set it in the ground to protect it from pests and decay.

I sorted tools, straightened up the shed and painted the ends of the logs I want to protect for milling when I return.

Before I closed the gate and left, I picked up that clay ball again. It was hard and dry now. It felt good in my hands, almost a perfect sphere—solid and fine-sandpaper-smooth, all the more satisfying because I made it myself and because it came from this land that I love.

June 20, 2026

When I become used to doing things the hard way any idea that will potentially make my life easier makes me feel, at least momentarily, very smart.

This happened when I was remeasuring the driveway opening for the third time. The driveway is the only area on my land in which human domination over the environment is apparent. I was measuring it to see if it might be possible to get a 20 foot, 5,000 pound shipping container delivered for storage. I noticed that if I took out one tree it would make the opening about three or four feet wider. It would also make backing out and swinging in that much easier for me.

For the last year I’ve been happy with the small opening. I really just wanted enough room to get Stewart’s truck in the driveway. I didn’t want to take down any unnecessary trees although this land is full of unnecessary trees—which is what makes it a beautiful jungle.

On the day of my epiphany, I waited until I needed a break from weed- whacking the proposed cabin spot and then I walked down to the drive with my chainsaw, shovel and pickax. The tree I wanted to remove was a small maple which I felt a little bad about since they are not as common as others like sweetgum trees that grow by the dozens per ten yards square.

The tree would be easy to take down. It had a strong lean over the road. Only the roots would be difficult. Chainsaws are not designed for cutting in dirt and taking out stumps with an axe is best done with a slow and steady war lasting a year or two.

The maple is on the left of the drive close to my cart.

While I was cleaning around the roots and thinking about how to deal with them my neighbor Rod drove up in his big air-conditioned truck. I enjoyed the cool air immediately when I leaned in the side window to talk.

“What cha doin’? I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Rod said.

This is often his opening line when I haven’t seen him in six months. He’s a big, easy going guy who had 40 years in the demolition business in Wisconsin. He retired with his wife here in Tennessee about five years ago.

I told Rod about the tree and how I was thinking about trying to cut it in a way that would use it’s own weight to lift up the roots while at the same time realizing I don’t have the skills or knowledge to do something fancy like that even if it’s possible. I said it would probably get me killed so I was just going to cut it regular-like.

“Want me to go get my Bobcat,” he asked? “I can probably get those roots to come right out.”

There was no hesitation on my part. The answer was an immediate, enthusiastic, “Yes!”

I asked him if he wanted me to cut the tree and leave enough standing for him to push against.

“No, just leave the whole thing. I gotta go home and change my shoes and pants and then I’ll bring the Bobcat down.”

—————————————-

About this time last summer Rod invited me to come over and learn how to drive his machine. He was thinking about selling it and for six thousand dollars I was considering buying it. I think he also just liked the idea of showing me what had been a big part of his life’s work.

When I arrived Rod had two fourteen foot logs that each weighed over a thousand pounds for me to move around. He was a good teacher. He didn’t seem particularly concerned that I would kill myself or damage the Bobcat. He yelled at me over the engine noise or used hand signs which I didn’t understand. I had to cut the engine often to hear him and learn the sign language. Sometimes he just smiled and raised his shoulders when I looked at him worriedly about what to do next. He was encouraging me to use trial and error and it slightly terrified me.

The Bobcat operates with two hand sticks and two foot pedals. Like the guy I hired to put in my driveway last summer, Rod makes his machine move with the grace of a dancer. You push the two sticks to go forward. Pull them to go backward. Pulling the left stick back and pushing the right stick will turn you left. The opposite turns you right. It’s called a skid steer because instead of turnable wheels they are locked in place and used as pivot points to skid around. This allows the machine to easily get into tight spaces.

Once I got the basics I moved on to the tasks of controlling the bucket and claw attachment. The left pedal is pushed by the toe or heel to move the bucket up or down. The right toe and heal control the tilt. A thumb toggle on the right stick controls the claw that clamps items in (or to) the bucket.

I lifted each log six feet off the ground, moved them thirty feet away, then set them down and moved them back again. It was amazing. All the movements are fairly intuitive. The tricky part is doing the tasks seamlessly: reaching, grabbing, spinning, dropping.

After my short lesson Rod said, “Take it over to your land. What do you want to do with it?”

“Oh no.” I told him. “I’m not ready to be alone with this thing.”

I’d carried out the tasks but it was all ponderous and jerky and I wasn’t sure I’d remember everything.

I could learn to use the Bobcat well and in fifteen minutes do what would otherwise take many days but I still like the idea of minimizing my footprint…or in this case tireprint.

Ultimately I decided getting a machine that big means serious business and I don’t want to get serious. I suppose I fancy becoming a gentleman forester or amateur biologist and if I can’t live up to those titles I will settle for piddler.

———————————————-

To get back to the other day when I took Rod up on his kindness, I heard the echo of the big steel bucket being loaded on the Bobcat on his property over a little hill across from my place.

Soon he was driving down the road with the steel bucket balanced on top of his forks. He drove into the grass across from my drive and set the bucket down then turned around and came over to attack the tree.

Rod had extenders on the forks to give himself extra reach and avoid backing into the driveway ditch. He raised the forks and started pushing with one prong on the trunk of the tree. The earth at the base of the tree lifted. He repeated at a new angle. The prong slipped several feet up the side of the tree skinning it of bark.

Rod backed up and pushed more on different spots of the tree. Each time the earth lifted a little higher. He poked the two tines of the fork into the earth under the roots and raised them to loosen them more. He turned the Bobcat around, went over to the grass, set the fork on the ground and slipped out of the extender sleeves.

Now he had the shorter forks and he came back and pushed some more. This time the roots started to snap with a muted, under earth force. One particularly big snap sent something, probably a rock, whizzing by my head with a bullet-like sound. I could feel it cut the air. I moved away to watch and film from a safer distance. This silent video shows the moment when things started to fly.

Rod pushed the tree over and avoiding putting it in the road—something it would have been difficult to do if I’d only used the chainsaw. He moved to the other side to dig under the last roots holding the tree and with one more upward lift it popped free of its life source.

The Bobcat is a very versatile piece of equipment with different attachable tools that are as easy to slip on and off as, well…a slip. Here is a silent video of Rod putting on his bucket. He also has a claw attachment, auger, forks, fork extenders and he can switch out the tires with tracks.

Here’s the widened drive. I was able to get a bucket of gravel that same day to put over the spot Rod smoothed out in the dirt. I’m holding off on getting the shipping container for now.

Reptile/Amphibian Report!

I took apart the bridge I made from oak logs and hundred year-old flooring from the falling cabin.

The bridge had become even more lopsided than it had been and without any oil or coating to protect it from decomposition turkey tail mushrooms, slugs, snails, earthworms and this Green salamander were making it their home.

The salamander was revealed on top of one of the oak logs when I lifted a plank. This was the first Green salamander I’ve seen on my land. I’ve seen the more common Red salamander a few times. Apparently the Green are considered a “Species of Conservation Concern” in Tennessee and endangered or imperiled in other states. Had I known I would have carefully delivered it to a more protected space, but as it happened it disappeared into the leaves beneath the bridge. I’ll certainly keep my eye out for more.

I did relocate this box turtle from the road. This is the fourth box turtle I’ve come across since 2020 when I began coming to this land twice a year.

A neighbor related that someone recently relocated a rattlesnake found nearby to an unpopulated area. So far I’ve only heard stories.

I did find another of these small grey snakes that I’ve only come across digging in the ground. According to this Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency guide it appears to be a Smooth earthsnake.

A Few Mushroom Pictures

I know close to nothing about mushrooms except the store bought varieties I like to eat. My AI identifications below could be way off but it’s a start. Your thoughts are welcome on this or anything about my blog. Write me at spottywestgoeseast@gmail.com.

AI has identified these as either Amanita vaginata, aka the Grisette or Leucoagaricus leucothites aka the White Dapperling. I like how the broken mushroom’s stem separated into four perfect curls like wood shavings. Confusing is why the internet makes the grisette lowercase because its a common name but still uses the determiner “the” not “a”. More confusing is why when I tried to link this conundrum to show you what the internet had to say, it changed it to uppercase and gave slightly different information. Is AI just hedging its bets? See the before and after below.

I hope you had a good Juneteenth yesterday whether you had a chance to celebrate it or not. I appreciate this time to acknowledge our shared American history and honor the struggles and sacrifices of those who came before.

June 10, 2026

Black Vultures taking turns getting meat out of a bag of possum in Blaine, TN. No part of my land is cleared like this. It’s dense forest with vines and varied ground cover.

Going out to see the land when I first get back to Tennessee is one of my favorite things. Since I’m usually here just two times a year—late fall or winter and summer—I can expect great changes. Winter means being able to see the shape of the land. The leaves are down. The trees more resemble vertical lines and I can see the top and sides of the big knob on the 25-acre property. On the 14-acre property it feels like there is nothing between the gravel road and the falling cabin.

In the summer, the theme is green. Nothing is much visible beyond twenty yards. This is especially true on the larger triangle-shaped piece of land. This property is messy with vines of Virginia creeper, poison ivy, and Multiflora rose. There are many varieties of trees, small and large.

The smaller, rhombus-shaped property lies several hundred yards away, across neighbor’s land. It is close to the base of the Clinch Mountain, a ridge that runs for 150 miles through northeast Tennessee. This piece is characterized by large oak and tulip poplar and has boulders and random piles of reddish sandstone rocks that I’d like to learn to cut or hammer into flat building blocks. It has raspberry, lots of fern and, unfortunately, a good share of poison ivy on the ground that has climbed the tall trees with ropes as big around as my forearm. Because it has fewer small trees and an elevated canopy, this area has a more open feel than the denser triangle.

This is the spot with the falling cabin, aka, the old Sheridan cabin, named after a family that lived there in the 1920s. It was also reputed to be a hideaway for Chicago gangsters involved in the illegal distribution of alcohol during prohibition.

The cabin was capital L-shaped but is now lowercase. The narrow side contained a rock hearth kitchen. It completely collapsed more than thirty years ago. There are salvageable parts—the best being the roof on the remaining side. However, without access to a crane, keeping that aloft for use on an improved structure is a tricky bit of shoring up that I probably won’t attempt even with the help of a friend retired from the construction trade.

Part of the excitement about these trips is my first outing to the land just to make sure it is still there and in a condition similar to the way I last left it.

There is always a small amount of anxiety. Have illegal loggers come in and cut some big trees down? Is a neighbor encroaching with a road or equipment? Will I find shotgun shells scattered under a tree? Has my own negligence led to some problem like a tree fallen across a power line or road? The gravel road grown over?

There were no surprises when I went out Sunday evening at around six. It seemed greener and more jungly than usual but I attributed this to the late hour’s muted light. I toured the main trails and all the areas I like to keep clear — the memorial stones, the proposed cabin site, the driveway and around the shed and falling cabin. It will all need at least a day’s worth of string trimming and weed pulling. The growth doesn’t stop. Pulling is the best option but there is only so much bending over this sixty-year-old body wants to do.

A few small trees had fallen across the main trail. One of the cedars on the flat area had fallen and split vertically at the trunk like a fibrous piece of asparagus you try to snap too close to the bottom. It was one of the larger small cedars with a four-inch diameter. I’ll see what I can do with the wood. Maybe it will become a new swing gate for the driveway.

Strangely, a huge ball of cut rose bramble was also blocking the trail up near the flat spot. I tried to imagine how it got there. I guessed it came from the piles I left last summer along the west side of the clearing about fifty feet away. But how did it get there? It’s not the type of thing a strong wind can blow. It’s not tumble weed. This was a three-foot -tall ball of thick, dried, thorny vines. I thought maybe a deer got caught in it and brought it over before escaping from it’s clutches. Maybe in the antlers?

Do I need to start clipping the balls of bramble like I do the plastic, six-pack, can-holders I cut to keep sea creatures from getting caught in the rings?

While I did my rounds I made some measurements to see where I might fit a twenty-foot shipping container that I’m thinking of buying. I’d use it to secure my chain saws and power wheelbarrow and stack freshly cut lumber out of the rain.

My measurements didn’t seem positive for a transporter to get the container into one of two spots I’m considering. It would have to be dropped off along the road on my neighbor’s land and then I’d have to hire someone with a machine to drag or push it to the spot I want.

There is a video about how to move one of these 5,000 pound shipping containers by hand.

The video was made by one of my favorite YouTubers, Wilson Forest Lands, who stumbles over words and enjoys pontificating on their meaning while he shows you how to safely cut down a two hundred foot Douglas fir.

I just don’t know if I have the will to do it. I’ve been wearing my body out with home projects for months on end, after school and on the weekends. I love the physical labor and learning how to do new things, but, at the moment, I feel like I need to feed my spirit differently and part of that is getting out this blog.

I’m not offended if you didn’t notice that it’s been a while since I posted anything. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block as much as publication block. I’ve written plenty I just haven’t wanted to put any of it out there.

I’ve been caught in this trap thinking the only important thing to write about is the horrors of this vindictive, criminal president and his fascist thugs. And then I think, what can I say that hasn’t already been said?

I’m no kind of political strategist but maybe the whirlwind of ugly news is part of this administration’s plan to keep people in reactionary mode.

Maybe slowing down and saving energy is the antidote to lasting this storm and living to fight it well.

Driving the ten miles back from my land Sunday evening it was after eight. There was still light in the sky. I drove slowly on two-lane, highway 11W and curvy, Emory Road. I didn’t turn the radio on. I had my windows down. No one came behind me the whole way back to Aunt Linda’s. I passed farms and green fields with five-foot-tall rolls of yellow hay and a calf suddenly taking off next to a fence line, infused with the joy of their short life. It felt so good to not be in a rush.

——————————————

Core characteristics of a fascist and fascist regimes include:

Extreme Nationalism: The belief that one’s nation or race is superior to all others and must be protected at all costs.
Authoritarian Control: Support for a single, dictatorial leader and a one-party state that demands absolute loyalty.
Suppression of Opposition: The use of censorship, violence, and secret police to eliminate political rivals and dissent.
Subordination of the Individual: The belief that individual rights should be given up for the perceived good of the nation or “race”.
Militarism & Violence: The glorification of military power, physical force, and often imperialist expansion.

January 4, 2026

I was helping one of my students with doing some multi-digit subtraction a few days before our winter break and he asked me “Why do they call it borrowing if you never give it back?”.

I was flummoxed. I didn’t have a good answer and I’m not sure if I do now. Subtraction is just about taking away. You don’t give back at all. In the subtraction algorithm one digit takes from the next digit over so it can give what it needs to the digit below it. It’s all just part of a process. It’s like your body taking nutrients from your stomach to power your brain.

I think in the education world the correct term to use might be “regrouping” which makes more sense in terms of meaning but maybe not as much in common language. We are a nation of borrowers, but how often do we regroup? That involves teamwork or at least the notion that we have multiple things going on and sometimes we need to sort them out.

The language is important to me as a writer but I didn’t care much about it as a kid which made this student’s inquiry kind of special.

Back when I was his age my number sense was better than my word sense so when teachers said, “borrow from the whatever and carry the one”, it didn’t matter that the language didn’t make sense. I understood it was just a shortcut to get to the answer even though there was more wrong with the language than just the teacher saying “borrow”.

Carry the one was a complete lie. In the subtraction algorithm you never carry a one (for whole numbers any way). You might carry a ten, or a hundred or a million, but one is not a number that gets carried.

From what I remember teachers didn’t pay much attention to number sense. You either had it or didn’t and the addition and subtraction algorithm (stacking numbers on top of each other) was hoisted on us pretty quickly before we had a good idea of how much bigger 1,012 is than 112.

But what did I know about what teachers were paying attention to? I wasn’t paying attention to them!

_________________

I made it back to Tennessee for some time on the land and family visiting. My old friend Steve joined me. I met Steve way back when his wife was his girlfriend and I worked with her at Hospitality House in the Tenderloin neighborhood of SF.

Steve and my Aunt Linda hit it off big time. Often, when I left them alone I’d come back in the room to see them laughing and smiling, telling stories or talking history.

My trip was short. Steve’s even shorter. I arrived on a red-eye last Saturday and he came that night. He left on New Year’s Eve and I left New Year day. Still we got a lot in which included some delicious meals made by Aunt Linda and winter camping on a night that got down to 22° F.

Surprisingly, the red-eye wasn’t too bad. I had everything I needed to make sleep possible—my 40+ year-old down jacket from college days, a window seat, a neck pillow, Benadryl and two doses of NyQuil in a 2-oz bottle. It’s one of the few times that having a congestion cold was convenient. If I ever take a red-eye again I might try to skip the cold but take the doxylamine. I made sure to clear my ears with a gentle, pinched-nosed push at intervals all the way up to cruising altitude and again on the way back down for both jumps of my trip.

I think another thing that helped was that when I got to Tennessee, I stayed up and didn’t try to “sleep off” the red-eye which would have likely just confused my body more.

I purchased the track barrow I’d been pondering. Linda picked me up from the airport and when we got back to her house I went straight to work unpacking the crate and putting it together.

Before I got too deep into it I walked down to the farm office nearby and picked up Stewart’s truck, then drove out to my land picking up some gas for the new machine on the way. I wanted to see if I had any lumber that might fit the bill for making ramps, but I pretty much knew I didn’t. It was really just an excuse to check in on the land.

It’s exciting to walk the main trail after I haven’t been there in a while. Not much had changed beyond everything. Absent summer foliage, I could see the shape of the land through the vertical line of timbers. Shades of brown was the theme instead of green. There was a small tree down across the trail near the south entrance. It was at head-height caught up in some limbs and would be easy to take out with a chainsaw.

At the north driveway entrance, the long limb barrier that I had placed on forked branches and hammered into the ground was down on one side. A fork had rotted out.

A thick pile of leaves covered the gravel drive and all the trails. The top leaves were dry but underneath recent rains made a wet matted layer. My footsteps had a lighter, higher pitch than the tumbling sound that can happen when walking through leaves that are dry and basket-deep.

The planks I’d cut from the oak last summer had all dried without warpage, but none were thick or long enough to be used for a ramp. My new machine weighs 660 pounds. The ramp kit I bought recommends two 10’4” 2x8s for the truck tailgate height of 32”. In the shed I had one twelve foot, 2×8 from the orange box store, but by itself it was useless and two six foot planks were two short.

By the time I walked the land and looked around the sun was getting low and I still needed to pick Steve up at the airport. I locked the shed and started out the 22 miles to the big box store. I at least wanted to have what I needed to load the machine the next day.

The next morning as Steve birded on Linda’s front porch I finished attaching the handles and sides to the track barrow. It comes partly disassembled to fit in a smaller crate.

Steve scored a Red-breasted woodpecker for his life list and I grabbed Linda’s binocs so I could add it to mine. When I finished putting together the barrow and ramp I lined everything up to load. Steve helped with the eyeballing. Of course, I’ll have to get used to doing this alone, but it was nice to have the extra set of eyes this first time. I’d had the not very practical thought of only loading the track barrow on ground where I could stake the ramp planks to keep them from moving but Steve had the idea of cross bracing the planks by screwing a piece of lumber between them.

First time loading the track barrow I ran out of gas half way up the ramp! I had only added a little because I wasn’t sure how much I would use on this trip.

By the time we got the track barrow out to the land there was only enough time to unload it and hide it beneath some tin roofing inside the falling cabin. Days tend to slip away fast in the winter. Hiding the machine was in all likelihood an unnecessary step on a private road that has numerous postings about its privacy including, until recently, one that mentions getting shot, but I was beginning to consider the machine my baby and asked Steve to help me take measurements of the bed so I could cut some plywood from the crate it came in to protect that beautiful powder coat from any scratches and dings.

I imagine the neighbor took down the posted threat of trespassers being shot out of consideration for our other neighbor’s relatives. The other neighbor, Dennis, was shot and killed by accident last April. I’m sure his relatives appreciate not having reminders about what will likely never be far from their minds.

Screws to hold the ramp together evolved to push pins which make for easy removal and loading in the truck.

When we got home I used the last light of day to cut the protective pieces for the track barrow while Linda and Steve talked in the kitchen. That night we celebrated and relaxed with drinks, food, and wonderful conversation.

The next day we set up camp at the proposed cabin site and then headed over to the falling cabin with the track barrow. We did three loads of rock and a load of seasoned, cut oak to take back to the campsite. I learned pretty quickly that a full load of heavy rock gives the machine a heft that can pretty much yank your arm off if you change direction too quickly. Back at the camp I also learned why people like chopping seasoned oak logs with an ax. It doesn’t take much to split. The pieces fly apart with a satisfying crack.

Load of big rocks. The machine is rated for moving 600 pounds but one YouTuber claims to regularly use it to move 2,000 pound loads.

When it got dark and we had the camp ready to make a fire we walked back to the truck and went into Blaine for a meal at the Mexican restaurant. We returned full-bellied, started a fire and played two games of chess reaching down to the ground between our camp chairs. When we turned in we didn’t feel the need to bank the fire as it was safe in the rock walls.

It took me three hours to go to sleep which is how long it took for my body heat to win out over the intransigent cold inside my sleeping bag. After that I slept pretty soundly according to Steve’s report of my snores although I felt like I was just below the surface of wakefulness. In the morning I stuffed my down jacket in my sleeping bag to warm it and watched and waited for the light to grow before I rose.

It was easy to build a fire back up from the coals. When Steve woke we went back into Blaine and ate a hearty Waffle House breakfast, came back, broke camp and then hiked up to the top of the knob and came back to camp on a longer path. Driving out with the track barrow and all the camping equipment we stopped at a pond to look at some small birds floating among Canada Goose. We steadied ourselves on a fence to get a good look with our binocs. Ring-necked ducks—another addition to both our life lists.

Denouement

It certainly wasn’t the highlight of my trip but yesterday, I found a had a stowaway accompany me back from Tennessee. Ticks don’t have necks, so I guess the best way to describe the one found on my back would be to say it was embedded up to its shoulders. (So much for the idea that ticks aren’t active in cold weather!)

It apparently was dead and didn’t wiggle its legs when I asked Jillian to touch it with a hot match hoping it would let go and back out. (No longer a recommended procedure.) While I’d like to believe that my body produces some substance that kills ticks who dive in head first, it probably has nothing to do with any superpowers of mine.

Complete removal was unsuccessful. The head is still in there.

An interesting psychological awareness has come from this. I’ve learned that I’m not freaked-the-fuck-out by a tick embedded in me. I only get that way when I find one crawling on me.

I have a prescription of Doxycycline which I got specifically for this contingency. I’ve taken two doses. Unfortunately it has a “Discard 6/2/24” date on it. An email with pictures has been sent to my doctor.

I think this was coming into Chicago which was 12°F

July 20, 2025

I’ve been back home more than two weeks and I’ve struggled to get out this blog post. Everything I experienced in Tennessee now feels like bunched up laundry in a bag and I’m trying to dig through it to find specific pieces. Is there a theme I can work with? What stories are worth telling? What is the overall feeling I came away with?

I think I need to start with this picture of my first piece of sawn lumber:

This measures 2.625” x 5.625” x 6 feet 8.75 inches.
Standard measurements weren’t my concern as much as cutting something square.

My whole trip felt like it was leading up to this yet it wasn’t until the last two days that I got it together to actually try out my new equipment.

The Alaskan Mill came in a flat box and I put it together a few days later. For the next two weeks the bulky metal frame sat on Aunt Linda’s living room floor while I got my thoughts and courage together.

To call this product a mill is a bit of a misnomer. As a noun, the word means a place where things are cut. It goes without saying that the place has to have the machinery to do the cutting. In this case the mill houses the chainsaw and guides it through timber.

I’d finally gotten comfortable using my smaller chainsaw. Now I’d purchased one twice as powerful and I was going to attach it to this apparatus that together would make it all weigh close to forty pounds.

No single Youtube video answered all my questions about using the mill. Most showed people milling sectioned logs, but I wanted to mill directly off the fallen trees. My thought was that cutting a log, then moving and lifting it onto a level platform would be a difficult waste of time.

This drawing illustrates some of my thought process for milling directly off a fallen tree. For now the pros outweigh the cons although along with the dangers of working on uneven, hazardous terrain I discovered another threat while cross cutting a small tree that had fallen across a path. After cutting off most of the tree, the remainder, relieved of the downward weight, quickly stood back up. Small though it was, it might have smacked me in the head. Thinking of that same situation with a very large tree, a person milling off the end might find themselves suddenly catapulted fifty yards across the forest. The arrows above are meant to show how a massive root ball could stand a tree back upright into its crater. Youtube has hundreds of videos detailing ways to kill yourself with a chainsaw and most don’t involve getting cut.

I ordered a cheap companion mill—a Timber Tuff guide—to square the sides of the downed trees with vertical cuts rather than using the Alaskan Mill which would require turning the log.

It was a lengthy learning process making my first piece of lumber. With experience it might have taken just ten minutes. It took me three hours.

This hundred foot White pine came down sometime after my last trip to Tennessee in January. It was right next to the pine that I cut into a bridge three years ago. I started milling at the other end.

I first cleaned up the end cutting off branches and clearing the area around it.

I used a draw knife to cut the bark. This may have been an unnecessary step but it reduced the sticky sap being slung everywhere during sawing .

My first cut was too deep but it prepared a level surface for making subsequent edge cuts and the next horizontal plank cut.

My single piece of lumber was milled off this.

Entirely too many things on my head, but the respirator is recommended because the chainsaw is running constantly when milling and there is a lot of exhaust and sawdust.

I was happy to find a use for my overzealous first cut. It was much thicker than I wanted because of a measuring error. I envision more benches like this along the walking trails.

Why That First Piece of Lumber Took So Long to Mill

*I practiced putting the chainsaw in the Alaskan Mill before leaving home, but this had to be relearned in the field.

*The countersink on my drill bit was not sinking and I didn’t have the right size allen wrench to tighten it. (My chosen guide system uses planks attached to the log. You can also use rail kits designed for these mills or an aluminum ladder.)

*I lost the allen wrench I ended up borrowing from a neighbor and kept stopping to look for it in the same places I’d already checked five times. It eventually turned up in the little watch pocket in my jeans. (When I’m working I try to remember where I put things by repeating it to myself. For example, Machete stuck in ground next to leaning tree. Machete stuck in ground next to leaning tree. Sometimes it works; sometimes my little haiku just turns into rhythmic sounds that fifteen minutes later are a distant memory. In this case I never said, Allen wrench in little watch pocket. Allen wrench in little watch pocket.)

*I only had one screw gun and was constantly changing between using a drill bit and a star bit.

*I was stuck using the scrench (screwdriver/wrench) that came with the mill so every time I had to adjust the mill or move the chainsaw from the Alaskan to the Timber Tuff I had to do the old scrench on, scrench off dance.

*I screwed down the guide plank to use again after the log was squared. (Once the log is flat on top that becomes the guide for more horizontal cuts.)

*More dancing—the measuring marks on the Alaskan are very hard to read causing me to do the ole glasses on, glasses off. (I may try to paint some enamel into the debossed marks on the metal to see it better.)

The next day things went faster when I started working on the fallen oak on the other piece of land. That morning I drove into Halls and bought a set of allen wrenches, another screw gun—an impact driver for versatility—and a ratchet and socket set. Having the correct tools is sometimes half the
battle—when it isn’t all of it.

There was no reason for me to move from the pine tree to the oak to do more milling. There was still plenty of pine tree left. I simply wanted to try the new chainsaw and mills on the harder wood and see, smell and feel that different grain.

First horizontal cut of oak. There wasn’t enough space to mill this limb and keep it elevated on the tree.

The first three boards are one-inch thick. The last one is thicker because there wasn’t room for the chainsaw motor head to mill another one-inch piece that close to the ground. I’ll find a way to elevate logs and make them level. It’s all trial and error for me now. The tool on the right is called a **cant** and you really **can’t** do without one if you are moving logs.

It began raining while I was milling the oak and I was able to shelter and move tools into the falling cabin, but the wet oak was harder to mill after that. I think the chain needed sharpening at this point too. Ripping chains dull quicker than regular cross cut chains because they are tearing through more lumber for a sustained time.

On my next trip back I’ll try out another time saver: I’ll get a ripping chain for my smaller saw and see if it has enough power for the vertical, Timber Tuff cuts. If it does I won’t have to change out the big saw from the Alaskan Mill.

Before I left I painted the cut ends with latex paint to help protect the wood from insects and checking.

I’m one step closer to believing in the viability of milling my own wood for the cabin project and doing it with my own labor. I need more practice with the Alaskan Mill, but I’ve gotten over the hurdle of using it for the first time and don’t feel overly intimidated.

Along with this big step forward in logistics I got some other work done. I cleared the oak tree limbs off the fallen cabin and put out a large stack of free firewood from the pieces that I chainsawed.

I did the biannual clearing of trails.

I moved five large brush piles off the cabin site into the woods. In the process I’m providing homes for wild animals that might like to move into the heaps of sticks and leaves.

The most immediately satisfying thing I did was replace almost a whole half of the corrugated tin roof of the shed with clear, polycarbonate panels that let light in. The shed has been a dark, somewhat scary dungeon filled with very large fishing spiders, wasps, evidence of mice and, I imagine, the occasional resting place for snakes to curl up. My previous attempt to light it with battery operated camping lanterns was a failure. Most often I just used my phone to spotlight around the room. These panels have brought natural light in. Now I can see every corner of the place without fear that reaching for a hammer might mean grabbing hold of something that will make me scream.

There was evidence of more snakes. This skin was found not far from my previous snake sighting on the cabin site and this small snake at the falling cabin.

I want to amend my previous idea that the black snake I saw earlier was a black racer. I now believe it was a rat snake. I found one newly killed on the road. Its black was similarly lustrous and it seemed about the same size. The belly was completely white — a part I couldn’t see on the live snake.

I was very happy that my old college friend Julie and her husband Dave came for a visit and that I got to show them the land. We picked raspberries and walked through the woods. Julie used her bird call app on her phone to identify several birds including a Pileated woodpecker. Birds are hard to see during summer in these woods because of the amount of leaf cover. Pileated woodpeckers are so cool and I’m happy to know at least one might be hanging around. Here we are sitting on my new bench:

…………………………….

I’d like to end this post with an anti-sentimental song that I found to be absolutely gorgeous and moving. As I was driving back and fourth to the land I found a fantastic radio station, WDVX, out of Clinton, TN.

One morning I was listening and I heard this song, Last of the Better Days Ahead, by Charlie Parr. Maybe because I was a week away from turning sixty and was thinking a lot about Stewart who had died and how you never know how many days you have left…maybe also because I had really stupidly backed into my cousin’s car and done over ten thousand dollars worth of damage and was focused on the money that I’d have to shell out for my increased insurance premiums along with the extra hassle I’d created for people…

this song broke through all that and made me ponder what is most important…

If you clink on the link below, then the black arrow on the Bandcamp website you can hear this beautiful song.

https://charlieparrmusic.bandcamp.com/track/last-of-the-better-days-ahead

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?

January 19, 2025

I have a new routine to write when I’m fresh in the morning and look at news when I’m tired at night. I get free library subscriptions to The NYTimes, The Washington Post and am currently paying one dollar for a year-long trial subscription to the SF Chronicle which has automatic renewal at a much higher rate. I bet they hope I forget about that but I won’t. That’s what calendars are for. I probably should support my fellow writers and just pay, but there’s a reason they are free—or close to it—and who am I to try to figure it out?

Together with these three newspapers there is more news than I can look at. I’d be better informed if I substituted one of these papers for a more radical doomsday-type publication and added in a more conservative Tennessee newspaper but my gut is probably going to churn no matter what news I take in.

The Post and The NYT usually have similar headlines. The writing is good in both. The NYT usually sends me three or four breaking news emails every day in addition to The Morning and I have to ask myself how much news can break?

The SF Chronicle seems to have lots of strange gaps in their reporting that often makes me ask “okay, what happened?” but it’s local(ish) news for me even in Concord and I should probably pay attention to that.

I’ve also decided that with all the crazy people in Trump’s junk drawer (Jillian told me people are calling it that instead of a cabinet), it’s probably best not to get worked up every time Broken Stapler #1 says they are going to invade Greenland or Dried Up White-Out says we need to stop requiring vaccines for children in public school. I just can’t be a yo-yo all the time on their rubber band.

This is my 2025 pick for book of the year (although it came out in 2022). The story is so compelling. It’s heartbreaking at times but there are lots of wait-for-it moments when the soul sings.

My favorite MLK jr. book that I’ve been reading to students for years. Warning: You will likely cry with joy at the end. Fantastic illustrations.

—————

I’m feeling better about the prospect of getting a cabin made. It’s been close to five years since I’ve been exploring this land and it feels, for the first time, like I’m finally getting a good map of it in my head.

For one thing, I found a good place where I can stage logs and then take them out to the road for cutting with a portable mill. I’ve passed by this spot a thousand times walking the trail the 170 yards from the proposed cabin site to the shed where I store tools. It’s flat, close to the road and largely free of any big trees. I think I never considered it before because it’s directly across from my nearest neighbor’s house and in the summer it’s overgrown with vines that offer a visual barrier that I like.

The neighbor’s chickens were scratchin’ around next to the road and stepped into the woods when I approached them.

Now, as I’ve gotten to know my neighbors the idea of having complete privacy from the road doesn’t feel as important.There are plenty of spots on this 25 acre lot where I can get that.

Most distant and remote is a little valley on the other side of the central hill and between the next hill which becomes the neighbor’s property after it tops out. This little valley—more of a holler—is almost completely absent of woods. If there were flying fairies, quidditch tournaments or witchy broomstick games this is where they would be played. It would be nice to have a cabin here, but there is no flat spot. Where the hill ends, the next one starts. The valley is a V not a U. A cabin could be built on the hillside with supports like you see in the Bay Area’s Oakland hills but my joy in this place is about the absence of human intrusion not dreaming of what it could be.

A pretty winter weed that I’m too lazy to try to identify right now. It’s probably something obvious.

A while back I named the machete as the most valuable tool in my kit. That remains true even after making trails through the ever-encroaching wilderness. When I go back in six months there will be vines and saplings trying to take over again.

With this in mind I’m offering up another tool that tops the list and was most useful on this last trip. I threw a pair of $15, fleece-line gloves in my luggage at the last minute. I figured they might come in handy if it gets very cold, but that wasn’t why they ended up being so valuable.

It was the extra thickness that offered protection pulling up Multi-floral Rose. I got plenty of practice on that patch of land that I’ve decided is the perfect staging spot for bringing out all the logs to be milled. This species of rose is very aggressive and next to Poison Ivy the most prevalent vine on the land. It grows in clumps that extend out in an exploding firework shape. It grabs hold of your clothes like blackberry bramble and a thicket of it is not something you want to take on in the summer unless Aguirre, the Wrath of God and other Werner Herzog movies inspire you to go into nature and do the most difficult thing you can think of.

Winter is definitely the time to clear Multi-floral Rose. The leaves are gone and you can see where every shoot is heading. Though it still has live green vines, most are brown and dead and if you are lucky, as I was, the soil is soft with recent rains. Some of the clumps I could pull out on my first effort, gathering most of the vines in my hands and leaning back. Any that gave trouble, I’d dig around the edge with my shovel and lean back on the handle to break roots and get some uplift on the ball. This preparation was usually enough. The next time I leaned away with a handful of thorny vines imbedded in my gloves the remaining roots would start popping like a kettle of corn and soon I’d be holding the whole explosion of plant in the air, triumphantly carrying it to a neighboring pile.

The log-staging area I mostly cleared of Multi-floral Rose

The gloves also made it easy to pull up all the Loblolly and Winged Elm saplings on the PCS. It was rare that I had to use the machete on a sapling in this area. The ground is covered with pine needles and moss of varying shades of green and grey. Beneath this is about an inch or two of topsoil followed by white shale and clay that becomes increasingly hard to dig into about six inches down. During wet weather it is a miniature flood plain with much of the water washing off the knob behind it. The moss and top soil make it spongy.

Shale and clay earth just beneath the PCS surface

I used the harvested moss to line the rock stairs I put in last summer. I’ll see if it lasts but I don’t know why it wouldn’t. The stuff is pretty hardy and there was some in the stair area before I brought all this extra in.

The poor quality of soil on the PCS is probably why there are only a few species of trees there — Loblolly, Cedar and Winged Elm. Oaks which start out with a single, deep tap root definitely don’t like it. I imagine the shale is too difficult to penetrate. Those other species have roots that spread wide and shallow—at least in the beginning. I’ve no idea what the root system looks like for some of the older, surrounding pines that top out well over a hundred feet. I imagine when a tree grows that big it must start to have powerful roots that can make their way into deeper territory.

Ideally, I would have a well here on the PCS pumping water directly into the house, but I don’t know how much water makes it through the clay. Neighbors, Chuck and Rhonda, across the road, are roughly at the same elevation and hidden behind a small knob. They told me they hit water at 150 feet but drilled to 200 and take water from that level.

They came by on the day I was cutting up some fallen trees near the road. They arrived in their new, gleaming diesel pick-up and put it rumbling into park. Michigan natives, they had a retirement home built here five years ago and are still adjusting to it. Chuck misses the snow but they have a daughter who lives nearby in Knoxville with her fiancé. Ever-friendly, Chuck invited me up to their place to say hi. I told him I may take them up on that. I’ve been a few times before. Rhonda said, “I’ll give you a piece of pie!”

The next day I called them when I started to get hungry and asked if it was okay if I took my sandwich up and ate it while I visited.

“We have food,” Chuck exclaimed in his cheerful voice that made it sound like the introduction to a Broadway song.

“Oh, thanks, but I made this sandwich and I better eat it,” I said.

“Well, you like coffee,” Chuck asked?

“Sure”

“Well, we can give you some of that.”

We talked more about their water while I was there. Chuck gave me a glass to taste and it was exactly what I would want in drinking water—pretty much tasteless.

Their aging dogs Fatty Mattie, a standard poodle mix and Waggy Maggie, a black lab are slightly mis-nicknamed since Maggie is a bit plumper than Mattie and Mattie is a bit more waggy than Maggie. At any case it was nice to get my hands on some dogs, missing Sasha so much in the short time I was in Tennessee. The feel of a short shorn standard poodle’s curls is a textural delight.

The old bridge is holding up, but growing a carpet of Turkey Tail Mushrooms which I scraped off the underside of oak logs. I don’t want to help the Mycelium network to advance the bridges ultimate failure.

A Google search indicates this is a Japanese Holly, an invasive species. I admit that I’m not as concerned as a should be about invasives. This is a pretty plant and the only one I’ve found on my land. It is part of a big, lush bush at the base of the hill at the back of the PCS. I used the dark green as a backdrop to film the falling snow that didn’t stick. I’m quite fond of it and will keep it until convinced otherwise.

Numerous trees helped break the fall of this 120 foot, 30-inch diameter Tulip Poplar. Evidence includes skid marks down the side of another big poplar and a Loblolly Pine that snapped 12 feet from the ground. A free fall directly onto the Sheridan cabin would have probably meant its demise. Maybe the structure would have failed without the brace I put on the opposite side and a pole on the inside. My work to do that may have been a mistake if I wanted to have an easier way to disassemble it.

The tree now laying on the ground is so beautiful and straight. It would be a waste not to use it for lumber. I’ll have to think about how to deal with it next summer. This one is not near the log staging area. It’s on the other piece of land. However, the closest neighbor has said I can use his tractor to pull cut pieces out. He also has a non-automated mill he will let me use. By non-automated I mean it is the kind I would have to push the saw through.

The top branches of the fallen poplar are big enough to be sizable trees by themselves.

An eight foot crater was left where the tree fell exposing lots of rocks for harvesting.

There were numerous wet-season creeks that I saw on the land for the first time on this trip.

This place holder was on the back of every seat on the American Airlines flight I took home. Was this the idea of a radical literacy advocate bemoaning the state of our video-saturated world or did they just want to make sure you didn’t put coffee cups and snack wrappers in the magazine pockets?

January 12, 2025

As is always the case, the few things I had on my list to do on my latest Tennessee trip grew into a thousand things in my head.

What I did do was rake a thick layer of leaves off the new gravel driveway. I figure it’s best to minimize the rate at which a layer of topsoil will eventually overtake it given the number of trees and the fact that I won’t be there every week to uncover the grey rocks.

There is a pile of shoved up dirt at the end of the driveway the bulldozer made to grade it. This has become my de facto compost pile. I added all the raked leaves to it. Between wagon loads I threw shovels of dirt on top to weigh them down. I also carved out a channel on the downhill side to make an area for water to escape the driveway. I’ve no idea if this is useful as there are plenty of opportunities for water just to seep into the ground or flow out in all the lower areas, but this type of engineering comes from my earliest childhood instincts to play in the dirt. I don’t think we humans loose that. Same with water. I imagine I’ll enjoy gazing at the ripples of a stream and dragging a toe through a placid pond as long as I live. It’s why I like going to the land. Just to play.

While I was messing around at the driveway I moved a small cedar sapling about three feet away to get it out of the range of car tires. I dug up another from the proposed cabin site (hereafter abbreviated PCS) and planted it in line with several others. There are now four or five cedars lining the drive. I’ve no idea if they will turn into big trees and if those big trees will be full and gorgeous. All I know is I like the smell of cut cedar and I like the beautiful red wood which has nothing to do with why I’m planting them there. Ta boot, I’ve noticed is seems to be a crapshoot whether a cedar is beautiful or scraggly and most of the cedars on my property tend toward the latter.

The driveway and seventy five yards away at the PCS are where most of the cedars grow. In other places, notably on the west side of the property and around the falling cabin on the other property are numerous large cedars in advanced states of decay laying on the ground like dinosaur bones—evidence of a time when they played a more prominent part in this world. I’m not sure if a blight took them out or changing climate or changing composition of soil. Maybe they just all grew and aged out at the same time. Their placement is random so I don’t think they were planted. Most of the cedars I see in this area of country line fields and roads and I suppose were planted (or kept) there as hearty trees, live fenceposts and windbreaks. This lining-along-the-edges is what I’m doing without having researched it or even given it much thought. It’s a wordless tradition passed on by a common landscape template.

The tiny cedar I moved out of the driveway.

This may be the largest cedar on the property. There is no old growth cedar.

I didn’t end up doing a burn. More reading about why winter burns require a state permit convinced me to wait until summer when there is more moisture in the surrounding trees and less chance of them catching fire. I also had the feeling that the heavy, cold air would keep most of the smoke in the valley and that while all my neighbors probably burn wood they prefer it going out their chimney than coming in the front door.

I spent a substantial amount of time further clearing the PCS back to the base of the knob—the high hill that will be in my backyard. I was anxious to get out to the land each day but because of jet lag I didn’t make it there before noon except for the last two days. I didn’t feel bad about it. I’m physically exhausted after four or five hours of hard labor and the sun sets early in the winter. By then my back is aching and I’ve become very sluggish—particularly in the case of chainsawing for a few hours. The chainsaw is heavy and so are the chaps. In fact, it’s debatable whether the chaps that protect my legs add safety or not. I stopped wearing them after the first day. They tire me out quicker and I’m more likely to do something stupid when I’m tired.

Most of the clearing was of Loblolly Pine and Winged Elm saplings just a few inches across with a few larger Loblollies thirty feet tall and not more than five inches across. I won’t cut any of the cedars until I’m sure what the footprint of the cabin will be. I transplanted a few larger ones to line the trail going to the memorial stones. Two I dug up with a ball of earth slicing through any long roots with my shovel in the process. Two others I pulled up with most of the roots intact. (The soil was a wet bog making it easy.) I’m curious if either transplanting method works although I didn’t do a good job labeling which tree was dug up and which was pulled out and by the time I get back this summer my memory will fail. If any are alive I’ll be happy and it will pay to learn which method is successful for the next time.

Winter is definitely the time for clearing but still with all the tangle of vines and saplings it didn’t take long to make a real obstacle course at which point it was important to turn the chainsaw off and clean up. All the small stumps I made were trip hazards enough. The more tired I became the more I stumbled. I can cut the stumps to about an inch above the ground but any closer than that and I risk getting the chainsaw in the dirt which quickly dulls the chain and makes sawing more difficult and hazardous. Stopping to resharpen the chain is about a fifteen minute project. I can do it in the field but it’s best to do it back at home. Eventually I may not have to watch a YouTube refresher course every time I go to Tennessee.

It’s important to keep the chainsaw steady when sharpening the blades. Instead of buying a vice I can keep the chainsaw from moving up or down by pinning it under a couch at Aunt Linda’s using a hammer through its handle.

This handy 3-in-1 chainsaw file keeps two round files proportionally at the correct distance from a flat file and allows me to sharpen each chainlink of blade with one hand and use the other hand to keep the bar from moving left or right.

There is a fairly large and straight Loblolly that only has a slight lean that I’ll remove for space for the cabin and which I may mill for lumber although I’ve not researched its qualities for building. I also don’t know how much lean a tree can have before it effects the grain and causes warpage in the milled lumber. Mostly I’m considering all the large, straight Tulip Poplars for framing and Oaks for flooring and siding. (Maybe I can use Oak for roof shingles but I don’t know if that’s a thing.)

I’ll remove other big pines that aren’t taking up PCS space but lean in a direction and have a reach that might be catastrophic to the structure. The winds were high while I was there and on a day when I was working on the PCS my neighbor said she listened to a tree of mine come down across from her house for what she said was several minutes. The next day on a hike to the top of the knob I found it on the way back down.

( The way the trees swayed in the wind reminded me of wave action and the way plant life can move underwater.)

This is the pine my neighbor heard falling. This webbing of wood is helping to keep it from going all the way down.

I used the panorama option on my phone camera to get in the whole length of the hanging Loblolly Pine. There is a lot of potential energy at work in there keeping it taut.

This was a fifteen foot tall rotted stump that I came across coming down from the knob. It was really fun to push it over. It landed with a satisfying, heavy thump and slid about thirty feet down the hill.

All the clearing I did on the PCS added three more burn piles. This time I stacked all the larger logs to keep out of the burn. I’ll eventually use them for my own fire place or more likely cut them up and put them on the road for free firewood.

The PCS as seen using the pano feature on my phone

One day I saw the neighbors boys, Nate and Charlie, working in the valley across from me. The older boy, a freshman in high school who I’d only met once before, was driving an ATV with the younger, Charlie, a sixth grader, on a wagon hitched behind.

They were dissappearing around a stand of trees and coming back with full loads of firewood.

I’m debating how many trees, if any, I want to remove for a clear view of the valley and Clinch Mountains. A cabin on this spot won’t be visible from the road below but someone could stand in the upper part of the field or behind the tree line and see my structure. The question is how much do I value a feeling of privacy versus having an unobstructed window on this usually serene, pastoral mountain view?

While the boys were collecting firewood, I went over to some fallen trees up the natural embankment near the road and sectioned off two foot logs. I’d been wanting to clean this area up. When I saw the boys go around the stand of trees on their property again I waited for them to cut their engine and then yelled, “Hey Charlie.”

My voice echoed through the valley. It took a moment then I heard echoing back “Yeah?”

“When you guys finish there, come back over here on your way back.”

Again there was a lag until I heard, “Okay!”

It felt good to hear that distance—the voice confirming what the eyes can’t see, to know of space that a city or even a small town can make me forget.

When they came back I asked Nate if he’d like the logs of the fallen tree. Nate is quiet and what I would describe as cautious.

“It’s pine,” I offered before he could answer. “I don’t know if you want it. Another neighbor told me he doesn’t burn it because all the creosote in it can cause a chimney fire.”

Nate looked at the logs and thought for a few moments more. His demeanor reminded me that I might do well to nurture a less impulsive side of myself.

“We’ll take it,” he said. Then the two boys began loading up the logs as I walked up the side of the bank and began throwing more down.

The car windshield on my second to the last day in Tennesseee. It snowed one day but was too warm to stick. The temperature was dropping into the mid-twenties at night but warming to the high thirties in the day.

Aunt Linda sent me this picture two days ago when freezing temperatures stayed. I was sorry to miss it.

October 12, 2024

Two Italian-American companies are putting in new sidewalks on my street. Sposeto is doing the sidewalks. Ghilotti is doing the accompanying roads. Taken together the names make me feel like I’ve walked into an Italian creamery. The job they are doing is sweet. The sidewalks have beautiful lines and are clean like a newly frosted cake. The project is moving along quickly. The whole neighborhood is smiles as we see our tax dollars at work.

Concord is a town in what is increasingly less of an outskirt of the central Bay Area. But it is on the edge of country and I often relish the knowledge that I can drive west of here and quickly be in an area that feels like amber waves of grain. If you walk around my neighborhood you occasionally come across a fenced in yard that upon further inspection is really more like a field. At the back of one nearby is an old metal windmill rising up between patches of prickly pear cactus.

My street is half of a large oval. It starts and stops on the same street it curves off of. It’s what’s left of an old horse race track that existed in the late eighteen and early 1900s. The green park around the corner where I take Sasha for walks was the centerfield where the winning horses were given their ribbons and where fans sat around picnic baskets to watch the race.

The margins of the street were all gravel until this new sidewalk started to appear. All told, a peek into a backyard field strewn with piles of junk and blackberry bramble could give a deceptively country feel. But walking in most directions you will find that soon enough the squabbling of scrub jays and mockingbirds is replaced by a yawling white noise as you reach one of the main thoroughfares that flow cars like red blood cells through an artery.

A good portion of the 125,000 residents that live here are commuting in the direction of Oakland and San Francisco. The ones that don’t get there by BART train are doing it in their cars.

Recently I’ve started walking Sasha in different directions to try to accustom her to the sights and smells that surround us in case she ever gets loose. She is skittish around loud noises so it’s hard to walk her along one of the busy roads but I hope that she will build up some tolerance. I’d hate for her to run hairy scary into traffic for being too freaked out.

On our walks I have her sit at cross streets and wait with me to look both ways before we cross. I’m not sure if she’d do that on her own but I want her to know that where a road crosses you have to be extra careful.

On a recent walk Sasha and I stopped by a Little Free Library nearby and found a copy of Mo Willems’ We Are in A Book. I almost never find used copies of his books much less free ones. This title along with Should I Share My Ice Cream is probably the most popular of his twenty something titles.

We Are in A Book is funny and profound. It gets you thinking about mortality and what it means to exist. For several of my last years teaching in Oakland another first grade teacher, Ms. Sandoval, and I would act out one of these two books at the school’s annual Family Literacy Night. It was always a hit and we’d have a fifteen minute show within each of the three thirty minute rotations. Several times we got donations of Mo Willems books to hand out. It was so fun! After doing this for a few years we had it down and could get the show up and running with only one or two rehearsals. Ah, the excitement of live theatre!

——————-

I want to tell you about another fantastic book I recently finished. It was recommended by my old friend Elijah. It’s about the Mississippi city he grew up in and where I went to school from 8th grade through my first year and a half of college. It’s called Hattiesburg, an American City in Black and White.

There is certainly something extra special about reading the story of a place where you walked and grew, but this book is also extraordinary because of the way that the author, UNC history professor, William Sturkey, shows the power and framework of Jim Crow.

Sturkey is particularly effective because he manages to resist any discernible ax grinding despite having black ancestry. He lets history itself be the flat stone that makes indisputable facts sharp and painfully apparent.

The book helped me understand better how a boy like myself raised in a liberal, artsy, educated household could not be immune from racist beliefs. It helped me understand how Hollywood may have got it right spiritually and mentally (if not physically) when they sometimes showed southern black communities with white picket fences and children dressed in clean, starched and pressed clothes. And it helped me understand the depth of a brutal social construct that I always felt as a coiled threat beneath the gentle surface of southern hospitality.

Without trying to explain what I mean by all those statements, I want you to know that Hattiesburg is both horrible and hope-filled as it looks at the resilience and determination of black people in a Jim Crow southern town. These are the people that went to Washington to try to get their right to vote enforced. It explains some of the humored looks I got from a few elders when I stepped into the black neighborhood that started across the railroad tracks behind my house, a naive but sincere 18-year-old trying to register voters to support the Mondale/Ferraro ticket in 1983. I had no idea who I was talking to.

It was also fascinating to make a connection with a previous book that I’ve recommended: “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood” which bemoaned the loss of old growth Long Leaf Pine forests throughout the south. It turns out that Hattiesburg was founded and built as the hub of a vast network of lumber mills cutting down those forests. The mills ran continuously for fifty years bringing prosperity to hundreds of thousands of people from the 1880s up through the Great Depression until the last of those great, majestic pines were cut down just like the fictional Truffula trees in Dr. Seuss’ story The Lorax.

Hattiesburg, the book, also ended any misconceptions I had of white Mississippians who tried to wear the banner of proud, self-determined, state-rightist who remained independent of outside influences they thought would sully their whiteness.

The town was established post slavery and grew quickly because of the help and investment of northern industrialists and the mass of low-wage workers. After cutting down all the trees it survived the Great Depression, holding on by its fingernails with federal relief and recovery funds. Then leading up to WW2 Hattiesburg was renewed as an economic hub with the federal renovation and expansion of Camp Shelby which housed and trained up to 40,000 soldiers at a time.

Throughout this era blacks took the lowest wage jobs available to them and during the depression only received federal and NGO relief when it somehow made it past the hands of local authorities who made sure whites got more than their share.

Eye-opening indeed was the extent to which white southerners held a burning cross in one hand fighting off what they saw as federal encroachment while using the other hand to collect federal funds. Socialist-minded Franklin Roosevelt got well over 90% of the Mississippi vote in all four of his presidential elections…and almost all of those voters were white because of exlusory voter registration practices.

In Hattiesburg the racist registrar of voters regularly used the question, “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap,” to exclude blacks who needed something harder than the state constitutional law questions or reading tests required to gain their voting rights.

The unexpected story is the community pride and the black town that grew up next to the white town with its own set of businesses and its own set of leaders. The unexpected story is the way people not only survived but thrived. Even for those who moved away they remained connected to Hattiesburg. Chicago may have been the most popular destination. The latest issues of The Chicago Defender newspaper were regularly passed around until they were worn out and news stories about Hattiesburg regularly made it into those Northern black-owned and operated papers.

Anyway, there is so much more to say about this book but it is better read.

—————

Before I go, I want to show a few things that I left out of my last blog post concerning work on my Tennessee land way back at the beginning of July. (I’ve really missed getting a post out sooner.)

These are the steps I put in to help make the walk easier up the small hill on the main trail that leads to the proposed cabin site. This work is what had me battling the horse fly. (Yes it was usually just one at a time but that was enough.)