The Season Changes...

And so the days go by.  For those of us who seek quiet and who revel in nature and who are lucky enough to live in the woods there is something deeply meaningful in the coming of each new day.  I’m looking out the back window with Lunz’s interpretation of Murmuring Mermaids playing in my ear.  I never tire of that song.  There are many others like it and when I write I prefer having this type of soft music in the background.  I speak of the transcendent quality of nature with an emphasis on the unknown and unknowable.  Here in the woods there is the comfort and warmth of trees and the everyday experiences of animals visiting.  Even during the warmest days I feel a great peace here.  At night I’ll walk the little road leading away from the cabin listening to night sounds, be they screech owls or elf owls, or coyotes in the distance or pauraques nearby or crickets in the brush surrounding me.  The word harmony comes to mind.

I can go for weeks never riding in a vehicle or wanting to travel into a city.  In fact, I’ll go seven or ten days without venturing more than a couple of miles from the cabin.  Here there is a lifetime of exploration for those with enough imagination to realize that nature is infinite even in its most localized milieu.  Nothing ever stays the same and yet it never changes.  Of course, only humans seek to destroy nature.  Sadly, modern mankind does not see nature as special other than a resource to be exploited.  Knock it down, drill into it; bulldoze it into oblivion.  And then poison it and think of it as nothing more than a privy into which to dump and foul.

On the weekends people arrive and make noise and talk loudly and for some reason their ambitions always revolve around manicuring the woods into something resembling the city from which they came.  One woman insists on mowing every square inch of her property so that it resembles a golf course.  Another fellow turns on his obnoxious, un-muffled tractor and goes around destroying the quiet as if he were at a major intersection or maybe a construction job site.

Does anyone believe in whispering anymore?  Even the “environmentalists” who infrequently come to visit make too much noise.  Nature seems like an idea to them instead of a reality.  More’s the pity.  They are hardwired to think city and thus the manicures and noise.  Now that deer season is approaching they’ll drive through the hamlet to the south pulling their ATVs and Jeeps and pickup trucks onto which they’ve mounted deer blinds, perhaps never realizing they are not hunters but simply shooters.  On the other hand, a man or woman with a selfbow is another creature altogether.  After all, if they’re not true hunters then they’ll not be able to acquire food.

The fall is upon us if not autumn weather.  But it has been raining the last few days.  This is the monsoon season, after all.

If it weren’t for the Internet I would not know who is president—not that I care given the present administration.  And I would not know of the giant storms in Florida or Puerto Rico or the earthquake in Mexico City or the mass killings in Las Vegas.  You see, the woods do not know about those things; it has its own contemplations to ponder.  Every day we set out food for the deer and quail.  We make sure the watering stations are okay and that the pond is not leaking.  We tend to our garden.  I often work in my little shop.  I’ve been asked to make a number of selfbows and I’m pleased to hear that people are becoming more interested in traditional archery.  I’ll also make several sets of carrizo arrows.  “It takes practice,” I tell these newbies.  They seem excited.

This week I’ll post photos of a couple of large post anvils.  Then I’ll post a photo of a dog's-head hammer I recently completed.  And then I’ll post something on a mini-railroad spike axe I forged.  Then I think that will be it on steel for a while.  I’d like to talk a bit more on bows.  And it’s amazing how dry it has been and so few wild edibles appeared these past few months.  All except for one desert plant that gave us berries in abundance.