I’ve been working on finishing the tiny cabin. I’ve heard the coyotes and the owls, seen deer, mink, armadillo, followed tracks of racoon, bobcat and, worryingly, wild boar. (My greatest real world fear is having a run in with a wild hog. A bear or cougar, you could make yourself big and loud and convince them that you aren’t worth the trouble. But that would only exacerbate the situation with a wild hog. There is, in fact, nothing you can do in case of a hog encounter but try not to die. Best case scenario you scramble up a tree and live the rest of your life up there as an incompetent monkey.)
But beside that, I’ve learned a bit about myself during this project.
First, that perhaps my calling in life is not writing after all, but being a woodland creature. Failing that, I think I could be a creditable witch of the woods, brewing my little concoctions and getting the news from my crow informants.
The only downside to this existence would be the lack of library access.
Witches must frequent their local libraries now and again, mustn’t they?
Not that I don’t have a nice little collection of books there already.
I’ve got bird books and plant books and wildlife books and tracking books so that I can tromp about and identify the species of the faeces and tracks I come across.
There is something wonderful and cowardly about being out there. Because of Covid, I can’t go anywhere, but at the micro cabin, I can forget about covid and everything else. I don’t have internet so I can’t read the news. It’s just me and the junkos most of the time. (Juncos are like sparrows, but… you know, juncos.)
I’ll spare you all the nature writing I’ve been doing lately. Turns out I go all Walden while I’m out there (though no pond for me.) But it’s nice to take a break and write poems about crows and coyotes, juniper trees and ladybugs.
I think this could very easily turn into a wilderness blog—just nature writing and photos of bits of poo that has me very excited because it’s a new animal for the log. But! I will try my very best not to let this be the only thing I write about, here.
So! I will say that I enjoyed a book recently. The Maid, by Nita Prose, is a murder mystery about friendship and neurodiversity and I ate up the entire story in one day. No regrets. Let’s see, I did that with another book recently—a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, called Bryony and the Roses. A short and entertaining read. I think I’m on a B&B retelling kick? Because I also read For the Wolf this week.
Despite having literally hundreds of books on my TBR list, sometimes when the library tells me it’s finally my turn to check out this book I reserved a spot for weeks ago, I’m no longer in the mood to read that book now that it’s mine. I want something else.
What is everyone else reading right now that they would recommend? I want…. Something. I’m not sure what. Need a wide variety of recommendations. Dark and wholesome? Is that a thing?