After four and a half hours of driving, you finally arrive in Huntington by late afternoon. The unmarked gate looks unassuming and bears no brand; no idea to know whose gate this is. Luckily, your wife is in the car to remind you where to stop. After getting out of the car and approaching the gate, you can see a grassy road twisting away and into the woods. Tall grasses, dotted with trees of all ages, line each side. Opening the gate, driving through it, and securing the gate after your passage are ritualistic but dull. Turning on the water, however, was the first step to bringing life to the hill just past the woods. Returning to your vehicle and making your way down the closely-cut grass road, it was sometimes hard not to be reminded about the famous drive into the gates of Jurassic Park. Some of the grass is as high as the windows and all of the tress in front and to the right of you are too dense to see past. Some dips and turns through the trees offer a clearing into 50 acres of grassy fields that gradually ascend to a moderate hill. Again, dotted with all kinds of trees. To the immediate left of the road (after entering the clearing) was a small pond that beheld the occasional ripple of an insect harboring a death wish. Depending on the mood of the cows (not cattle, since they were rather few), your drive to the property gate is rather swift. The pattern of open gate/drive through/close gate is repeated with an equal intensity as the first.
Taking in the scenery is an easy and natural thing to do. That is, of course, unless you are on Mars. Despite the lackluster ascent, a view from this vantage is impressive. It usually takes around an hour to soak it in and get your mind acclimated to your new surroundings. However, due to the time of day (and season), you immediately begin debating with yourself the importance of a fire. As always, you lose the debate and win the debate by listing the "cool" aspects of fire. To yourself. A quick unload and opening of the ice chest presents a Corona, which is a handy tool for finding firewood. Fortunately, there are still some logs on the porch. Since you'll be drunk by the fire shortly after sun-down, it's necessary to scope the fire ring and look for fire-fuel. Taking your Corona in your left hand, you retrieve your hand-axe from your backpack with your right. Ready to get into rugged and drunken mountain man-like adventures, you suddenly remember that you should turn on the electricity. A quick flip of the breakers solves the problem but presents another in the process: your Corona is empty. Pausing at the ice chest, you return to the fire pit with Corona in left hand, hand axe in right. Smiling to yourself, you are quickly reminded this white house on the hill is surrounded by cedar trees. A swig of Corona and you walk over to the denser collection of cedars. First, slicing off some of the cedar bark is needed to prepare a easy-to-burn fire bed. Some shallow slices remove just enough bark to show some of the beige inside. The cedars are, as always, the best part about starting fires here. Cedar is natures best outdoor firewood. It's leaves are full of flammable oils, whether the leaves are alive or dead. Second, their limbs are much drier than deciduous trees so it doesn't take long for them to dry. Lastly, cedar smells awesome when burned in a fire. After some small bark pieces are cut and bark shaving shaved, a small bed is made at the center of the fire pit. The bark pieces are placed, beige side up, on the ground. As you place the shavings on top of the bark, it dawns on you that you have forgotten the lint. You jog over to your backpack and grab your ziploc of dryer lint. Kneeling back at the fire pit, you quickly bunch up your cedar shavings to one side of the fire bed. After getting some pinches of lint, you flatten them out over the bark pieces. As always, the sticky bark grabs the lint and hangs on for dear life...and...Cedar shavings go on top of the lint. Next you place some twigs on top of the lint, just dropping them in place. With some care, you start to begin to from a small square around the lint; almost like the walls of a log-cabin. Criss-crossed twigs are placed over that square to give some good fuel for the baby fire. You make another, larger square around the first about 12 inches out. These logs are forearm-sized or bigger and are the next stage of the fire. After lighting the lint with a lighter, you grab some of your twig-like branches and place them in another criss-cross pattern on top of the logs. A smattering of assorted branches follows that, forming a small pyramid. Case closed. After looking down, you see that your Corona is empty once more. To you, this is sadness beyond measure. The sun starts dipping behind the trees as you climb the porch steps, open the ice chest and grab another beer. There is a lot of stuff to get done. First, you throw some more wood on and place your chair by the fire. You move the ice chest from the porch to the ground and plant your butt in the warming chair. Everything else will get bumped to tomorrow. |
Archives
May 2016
|