Right down the hill from us, on our way to town, there’s a gravel driveway with a poorly hand-lettered sign next to it. The sign says, "Firewood U-Haul". Part of the terms of our lease is that we have to leave the woodshed as full as it was when we moved in, and this means we need to buy a cord or two of wood. So a few weeks ago I drove down this driveway to see what they had for sale. I parked in front of the manufactured home in front of a large corral being cleared and fenced. There was a man working on the tractor out in the corral. I walked up to the door and knocked. There was no answer so after a minute or two I knocked again.

I noticed that the man on the tractor had seen me, but I waited on the doorstep for him to acknowledge me. Finally, he turned off the tractor and hollered, "They’re not home."

"I’m interested in the firewood for sale," I hollered back, as I moseyed over to the corral fence.

"That’s me," he replied. There was a long pause. I was tempted to fill it up quickly, but I remembered that out here, the normal pause time in a conversation is a lot longer than in the city. I let the pause hang for a minute, and then asked, "How much are you asking for it?"

"How much you need?" he asked, and I realized that I had moved to the question of money too soon; I should have chatted about what sort of wood it was for a few sentences first.

"I need more than I’ll be able to fit into my little pickup truck, so just a pickup load for now." We’re still hollering back and forth. He hasn’t stepped out of the tractor and I haven’t stepped inside the corral fence. He ponders my needs and looks over the pickup truck for a long moment.

"Twenty dollars."

"That sounds fine to me," I nod.

"Back it up over here," and he nods towards a pile of big rounds, as he starts the tractor up again. You will notice that the whole transaction has required him to say 15 words. It took not quite 5 minutes. I back my truck up to the pile of huge old Douglas Fir rounds, and realize that there’s no way I’m going to be able to lift them into the pickup by myself. He’s apparently already thought of this, because he drives the tractor over and uses the claw to load each round into the bed of the truck. He’s quite skilled with the machine, picking up each round in such a precise way that he can set it down exactly where he wants it, and then releasing it so gently that I almost don’t percieve the weight of all that wood in the truck until I notice that the rear tires are less and less visible under the fenders. After the next round, I motion to him that that’s enough.

He turns off the tractor and walks over to the pickup, looking at the muddy driveway where I’m parked. "You shouldn’t get stuck," he comments. He is only an inch or two taller than me, and probably weighs 40 pounds less than me. He has dark hair, weathered dirty skin. He’s wearing a black leather biker vest over a faded black t-shirt with the arms ripped off. On the shirt is a logo for a band I don’t recognize. He’s wearing well-used work boots. He’s probably in his 50’s, but I could be off a decade in either direction. I hand him the $20 bill and thank him. He says he’ll have some more split stuff later in the week, and I thank him again.

A week or so later, I stop to get another load. He wants to charge me $25 for the already split load. A fair deal, but I only have 20’s on me. I don’t want to offer him less than he’s asked for, I know he doesn’t have change, and I don’t want to give him a $15 tip. I tell him that I’m going to need two more pickup loads, and I’ll just give him $80 right now for all three loads and come pick up the rest on Sunday.

We went over today and didn’t see him outside. He’s always been outside before, but I have the impression that he doesn’t live in the manufactured home out front. I think he lives out behind the corrals. We park in the driveway, just before the really soupy mud, and walk towards his place. As I approach it, I see that it’s a camp trailer, supplemented with a complicated arrangement of tarps and plywood. I stand several yards back from the arrangement, and holler, "Hello!" a few times. I’m a Montana girl; I know that some people have wide-ranging personal space, and that sometimes standing on someone’s doorstep to knock on their door is already infringing upon their space. That, and I’m not sure where exactly the door is. There is a door in the side of the plywood arrangement, but it’s not clear if it’s just functioning as a wall or if it’s in use. Then I hear him take a few steps through the camper, walk through the plywood arrangement, and open the door. For a second, I get a brief glimpse inside the door. It’s dark in there, and I assume there’s no power in the place. The floor is dirt, and I get the impression of some stacked crates acting as furniture. I can see through one of the windows of the camper, and it seems like there are clothes, or maybe sheets against the window. I assume that the plywood arrangement is the living area, and the camper is the bedroom.

"Looking for some wood?" he asks. He’s wearing jeans that probably used to be blue, but are ingrained with wood dust and chainsaw grease, turning them a green-grey sheen. He’s wearing a faded black sleeveless t-shirt again, but I don’t remember if it’s the same one from before.

"Follow me," he says. As we walk past the truck, he indicates that we should follow in the truck. Preston drives behind him while he walks a quarter mile or so down a dirt road that encircles the property. His friendly Akita dog follows along. The dog’s name is Kita.

He shows us a pile of split wood, and indicates another pile of scrap rounds that we’re also free to take if we want it. He needs us to take this load so that he can get in there and split more for our last load. He’ll have the rest of it split later that afternoon. We load up the split stuff and take it home.

Later this afternoon, we go back and he’s not outside again. We walk back to the shanty set-up and I holler from the end of the driveway. I have to shout "hello" a few times before I hear a woman’s voice yelling back.

"Who is it?" she yells, without opening the door.

"We’re looking for some wood," I holler back.

"Bob, it’s for you," she yells. I know that the space in there is not that big, and I can hear her loud and clear from outside, so I wonder why she has to yell so loudly. We hear Bob from inside the trailer yell, "I didn’t get it cut."

There’s a long pause, and I’m not sure how to ask him when we should come back without sounding pushy, but in very few words, since we’re still yelling from the end of the driveway. Before I can think of anything to say, hear Bob’s voice again from inside the trailer. "Tomorrow," he yells.

We wait for another moment in case there is more coming, but there doesn’t seem to be. Preston yells back, "Have a good night," and we head back home.

Tags: wood, stove, country living, people

I sleep. A lot. Perhaps an extraordinary amount. I need to average about 10 hours a night in order to function really well. And this fall, I’ve been sleeping even more. 12 and 13 hours at a stretch commonly. I don’t feel depressed, just tired. It’s the shortening days, and I concede that one of my responses to stress is to sleep more, but it’s also just that I’ve been going on less sleep than I really need  (like only 7 or 8 hours a night) for months, and my body has decided that it’s time to balance out the average. I’m really frustrated by this need; I feel like I miss out on a lot because I sleep something like twice as much as most people do. Fortunately, I dream well.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Self-Portrait Challenge, check them out.

Tags: self portrait, picture, sleep, dream, imperfection

• Combination of redleaf and romaine salad from the Farmer’s Market
• Tomato from the garden
• Handful of chopped purple cabbage from the Farmer’s Market
• Handful of shredded watercress
• Handful of shredded herb from the Farmer’s Market (I forgot what it’s called, but it’s like arugula without the bite)
• Red and Yellow bell pepper from the Farmer’s Market
• Handful of fresh chopped cilantro
• Can of organic garbanzo beans
• Four chopped organic artichoke hearts
• Can of organic Hearts of Palm, sliced
• Two avocados from the fruit stand down the road, in chunks
• Big handful of sharp cheddar cheese
• Handful of chopped honey-roasted peanuts

Tags: salad, recipe, meal, organic, farmer’s market

You will perhaps note that today is Thursday. It’s not that I’ve lost track of which day it is, it’s just that I haven’t got around to doing my Tuesday tasks until today. And that is my imperfection for this week: I am a horrible procrastinator. This is a picture of me with my pile of things that I am supposed to be doing, but am putting off until the very last minute, or even a few minutes past the very last minute. But perhaps you can also tell by the look on my face that I’m not super worried about it. I’m pretty happy functioning as a deadline (or even a couple minutes past the deadline) sort of person.

If you’re new to the blog, check out the folks over at the Self Portrait Challenge for information about this month’s challenge and for links to lots of other great self portraits.

Tags: procrastination, self portrait, time

How the hell did we ever make it through public school? That place is fucked up. I just got done with my first observation of a school assembly for Mad Science, the company I’m working for now. I’ve done an observation of an after school program before, but the kids were already dismissed from school, so the format was way different.

This was a 30-minute presentation on sound waves, and I sat at the top of the bleachers to just watch how an assembly is done, since it’s a different format than the after-school program. First, the children were filed in. Seating was strictly monitored. "Sit right here. No scoot over. Scoot closer. Don’t sit past this line. Move up a row. Scoot closer." There were additional bleacher seats available, but for some reason, the teachers had decided that the classes would be seated on only three pull-out sections, which meant that the kids had to be literally crammed up against each other. "Scoot closer. There’s room for one more in that row."

Then, I thought it was time to start the presentation, and the principal got up to introduce the program. Sherrill, the Mad Scientist doing the presentation, was already on stage and ready to go. The principal takes the mic, and says, "Before we get started, we’re going to start the way we start every assembly." And as one, the students stand and face the flag on the wall to our left, and place their hands over their hearts. I had a moment of panic, not realizing that I would need to be prepared for some good old patriotic brainwashing. It’s been so long since I’ve even heard the Pledge, that for a minute I forgot how it started. Is it, "I pledge allegience to the flag…" or is it "For God so loved the world that he gave…"? Oh right, I was getting my brainwashing contexts mixed up.

I settled on standing quietly, but without my hand over my heart, and without pretending to mouth the words. I’m glad that I was faced with this situation as an observer in the back row the first time, rather than as a presenter standing alone on stage. Having had a chance to think about it, I think I will take the same approach on stage, trying to be respectful, while not actually participating. If asked about it, I’ll cite religious beliefs, cuz in my religion we don’t brainwash our children to mindless patriotism and instill insipid fairy tale stories about liberty and justice for all. Except I’ll probably leave off the further explanation and just call it religious reasons. My sister got suspended from high school for taking that stance, so we’ll see how offensive some folks find it to be. Hopefully, I won’t often be in schools that do the Pledge at every opportunity.

From there, we moved in to the show, which was cool, and things exploded and caught on fire and other neat things. Then I sat and watched as they dismissed the students. I’m so used to working with kids through the WAS curriculum, which assumes that kids are actually pretty smart and capable of taking care of themselves. We routinely just designate different corners of the room or field or wherever we are, and say, "Everyone in Sam’s group meet her over by that tall tree. Everyone in my group, meet me in the middle of the field." Kids are perfectly capable of managing that level of personal responsibility. However, these public school kids have been taught that they are not capable of being responsible. So instead, they had to dismiss each class row by row, giving them detailed directions for where to go, even though that location was less than 10 feet from the bleachers, where they were to line up again, and wait for the rest of their class. And then the teacher would watch each row until the were lined up correctly ("No, on the black line. Take a step forward. Put your toes on the black line") before releasing the next row. Only when everyone was standing with their toes on the black line would the teacher take the class out of the gym and the next teacher could start calling her class. It sort of blew my mind. It’s been a long time since I was treated like that, and it brought back a lot of memories about why and how much I hated school.

I helped the presenter break down, signed out in the office, and helped her carry her gear to her car. I walked back into the office to grab my things, and headed to my car. It was time for school to be out, so the buses were lined up next to the sidewalk right in front of the school. So there was a row of buses, then a lane of the parking lot, and then the spot where my car was parked. The buses were parked and not running, waiting for the kids to load up. I stepped between one of the buses, and tok a step forward and peer around the bus to see if there was anyone driving down the lane of the parking lot before I stepped out from behind the bus. The bus driver whose bus I was in front of honked her horn. HOOONNNNKKK! I looked at her with a question on my face, and she hollered, "You’re not supposed to do that!" I assumed she meant the part about walking between the buses, and not the part about checking for traffic. I pointed at my car, park 10 feet away. "How should I get over there?" I asked fairly politely, for someone who has just had a bus horn blown in their ear.

"You have to go around, just like everyone else."

And it all came together for me why I hated school so much, and why I’m not sure I can handle working in the public school system. I am not like everyone else. And neither is anyone else. And we have created a system whereby, if one person is not smart enough to check for cars before stepping into traffic, we teach everyone that they are not smart enough to cross roads by themselves. And it’s not just that we make everyone follow the same lame-ass rules, we actually have created a system with which to convince people that they all need those rules.

"I just wouldn’t want you to get hurt," the bus driver smiles and says. "That’s very dangerous for you."

Well, no shit. But I think what I am supposed to learn from her looking out for me like that, is that I am not to be trusted with my own body or my own choices. Shoo-yyy, good thing someone was looking out for me, cuz I sure woulda done something stupid if someone else hadna told me howda do it right…

I can’t imagine why any parent who knows what’s going on in public school would want to send their child there. It’s a horrible horrible place.

Tags: school, homeschool, system, pledge of allegiance, brainwashing

"It’s just that they’re so wide," my dad says.

"But they aren’t abnormally wide," I explain. "I’ve seen the little shoe-sizer gadget, and her feet are a normal width."

"Well, they look wide. They look like big old boats," he says. I’m asking him about his distaste for my mom’s feet. I know that it’s largely because of him that she has this hangup about her feet. My dad is not known for his tact when it comes to women’s body images. He is notorious for pointing out zits, weight gain, bad haircuts (defined as anything shorter than mid-back), and unflattering clothes for the women in his life.

My parents are long ago divorced, so what he thinks of her feet isn’t really very important, except that I think my feet are shaped like hers, and I have a hard time finding shoes that are shaped correctly, so I’m trying to narrow down what it is about her feet that makes them different from other people’s (haha, get it. "narrow down"). The descriptor "big old boats" doesn’t help me much.

Later, I am telling Preston about the conversation. "Well, your feet are shaped a little different than most people’s," he says.

"They are? How? Show me."

"Well, it’s not so much when you hold them up in the air like that. It’s more when you are standing on them. They are really square in the front, where most people’s feet curve down towards the little toe."

Tags: feet, self-portrait challenge, imperfections

My laptop computer cord has stopped making a good connection, which means that I have to take it in to the shop and let them fix it. It’s bad timing, because I’ll drop the computer off on Tuesday, and then I’m working up in Duvall, so won’t be around any alternate internet access from Thursday evening through Wednesday morning. I’ll have time to post tomorrow’s Self Portrait Challenge, but the following week’s challenge might be delayed, and chances are I won’t be posting updates during that time, unless I use The Girls’ laptop over the weekend.

I haven’t gone without access to the laptop for a full week since I got it almost two years ago. I think the only exception is the week of the Wolf Tracking trip this summer. I didn’t realize how much I use it until I started thinking about how I’m going to manage without it this week. It’s largely my connection to the outside world, living here in the sticks. And I use it to record dreams, and to work on my book, and to manage recipes and shopping lists, and to manage my multidude of pictures. And, and, and…

But I’ll be fine without it for a week. I’m sure of it. I’ll just drink coffee instead or something.

Another great weekend at the beach.

Towards evening, the clam diggers came out, and it was kind of a surreal sight. I walked around for quite a while, trying to practice my street photography techniques.

My new official job title is Mad Scientist. That’s right, I’ve been hired by a company called Mad Science to give science presentations to elementary age kids. It should work out just about right to earn the $400 per month that I committed to. Possibly slightly less, but as long as I can sub for a WAS event once or twice a month, I should come out even. I’m excited to have a job working with kids, which should look good on a resume, and it will be cool to be a bit more science oriented. I’m also interested in being back in the public schools for a little while. Is it as bad as I remember? Can I see myself teaching in them full-time? It’s the sort of work I want to do, but I’m not sure I could handle the horrible, soul-stealing, mind-numbing environment. But if I want to make a difference in the lives of future generations, that’s where most of them are, I suppose. It’s all well and good to work with all the groovy unchoolers, but they already know that they don’t have to grow up to be cogs in the machine. It’s the public school kids that really need to hear that message. I don’t know if I could stand the environment, but I think I’ll have fun doing these llittle presentations, and I can scope out the situation to see if I want to get more involved.

I have to have a fun science nickname, as a Mad Scientist. You know, like Electron Emily, or Quarky Kim. What goes with DeAnna?

Tags: mad scientist, work, public school

Last time I used the Thermarest, I slept a little too close to the fire, so today I am patching the two holes burnt in it. I pulled out the patch kit that came with the mattress. Step one is to clean the area and wait for it to dry, so while I was waiting for it to dry, I perused the very useful warnings on the back of the instructions, such as

• Keep your mat away from any open flames, sparks and embers.

Hmm, well, you know, that’s why they give you a patch kit, right? But here’s the one that I thought was especially useful. (punctuation left intact so you can appreciate the full effect)

• Avoid using your mat on sharp or abrasive surfaces. such as on rocks. scree. branches. pine cones. coral or pins and needles.

So yes good to know that I should avoid sleeping on the coral reef. And also, that field full of pins and needles that I’ve been dying to explore, well I guess that one’s out. Or did they mean that if you are camping with your family and everyone is on pins and needles waiting for Uncle Marshall to have so much to drink that he starts making fun of Aunt Betsy’s speech impediment, which will make her cry, which will make her husband Bill try to take away Marshall’s beer, and everyone in the family is laying bets on which one of them will throw the first punch, you should avoid sleeping on the Thermarest? Or perhaps you shouldn’t sleep at all. In any case, it’s clear that if you were planning to sleep on pins and needles, you should do so without the Thermarest.