here, there, and nowhere much

February 2nd, I bought time for my cellphone and prompltly called the fire department. Flames were not yet shooting out of the top of the chimney as they had once before in my life on another farm during my first Saturn Return. Instead, there was roiling smoke snaking out a crack near the roofline and furthur down along the line of the chmney. Honey closed the drafts and we both went outside. A house that old a brittle can go in seconds if fire hits. I didn't take time to save anything. I wouldn't. It'd be "bye, bye, whatsits, it's been good to know you". Instead, I went out to make sure Lily, PanDi, and the dogs were where they needed to be.


Community came in big red trucks and assessed the situation and got their water hoses ready in case. They didn't have to use them. The house was full of smoke, but the flame had died out on its own. It took a tractor to pull out the fire truck that got stuck in the mud of the front yard where melting snow had softened the hard pack.

That night, the 3 shirts, a sweater, and a coat which had been natural attire in the ill-heated house through the previous two plus months was not enough to keep me warm. Honey sat up most of the night but I crawled under the blankets and slept. It was to be my last night in the house.

The next night, we were invited to bed down in a neighbor's house. That turned out to be a bad move and we moved on. Here and there and nowhere much was our home for the next month as we watched snow pile up and temperatures rise to the not-quite-freezing outside temperatures that never warmed the inside of the burned-smelling farmhouse.

I put myself on the dormant setting. All the things I do, I didn't. We were in survival mode and that's what we did. They say it takes 3 weeks to craft a new habit, but I'm a slow learner. and doing nothing doesn't wear well on me. I did manage to move slowly past ego, from "going stir" to finding humor in this freakish holiday.

I managed to get some knitting done and I've read a half dozen or so books from the young adult section of the Lewisburg library. I've listened to old stories and accounts of illness and death from my m-i-l and watched a ballgame with a neighbor turned hostile neighbor, and spent some time staying warm in a borrowed space. I took up a new diet of raw fruit and veggies with which I cured a cold that wanted to claim me. I picked out colors for walls, come weather warm enough to paint, and I've planned my herb garden and found homes for animals who once lived with me on a budding homestead that got frostbit for blooming too early.

When anyone asks how I'm doing, I give the age old answer, "I can't complain," meaning "won't" rather than "can't".  I could. But really, I'm just sitting like a Quaker waiting for the spirit of spring to move across the land. Then I'll hit the reset button and come out of this bear cave and see what's happening in the new land.