How do you take your coffee? Do you love it like I do? The chocolaty smell of the grinder, the rich, dark, cascade of it as you pour it from the French Press? They say people who like it black (I am one of them) like bitter tastes and are more likely to be sociopaths. Hmm. I do like it with butter frothed in a blender or with heavy cream, but I grew up drinking and loving it black. So I warn you about me–I must be crazy. I sip it this morning, black, as I write this, the day drippy and dark and soggy, like my coffee. The coffee the best start to a sociopath’s day.
I haul in several loads of fire wood; I’ve let the stack get low. Outside a bird squawks, something big like a sand hill crane. They should have migrated by now, so it must have been a crow or a hawk or something that hangs longer but squawks loud. My hummingbirds are long gone having left Labor Day. And of course, they hum and whir. Grouse run over my road, hanging in close proximity to my river, and I suppose it could have been one of them. But it gets quieter this time of year. Bird-wise. I haven’t seen bear scat in close since we thinned the trees of the jack pine which were at the end of their lives. It’s more open so now we have grouse, rabbits, some deer, coyotes, wolves, and the usual cast of characters: of squirrels and birds. But it used to be the bears (we have more than 12,000 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) denned up in hollows down by the river and I imagine they are looking for a place more secluded. They should be thinking about hibernating. We are still in the woods, but they aren’t as dense. I’m not altogether upset about not seeing bears as we did when we first arrived here.
I’m headed tomorrow to see my little fellow in Green Bay. He’s bigger now than in the above picture, so I’ll have some good pictures of him soon. I hope I am going to make it back into camp since there is snow in the forecast and as I sit here, I see some pretty thick rain out there. So today I pack up. Road trips (about five hours) are always good because they provide pondering time. (The structure of my new novel–and the revision for my wood fire cookbook/memoir. I always keep a notepad around in case I need to stop and make notes. I’ll do some research while my daughter teaches music, but I’ll get to see her students’ concert on Friday.
Food: I’ll have my sparkling and filtered water — four glasses.
A.M.
-Pot of organic coffee, half cut Swiss water process
-1 p.m.
-3 pastured scrambled eggs
6:30 p.m.
– 14 oz. New York strip steak
Observations: Yesterday I had a headache all day, first major one in a month. I also had a side-ache and some bloating which hasn’t cleared. Also first time in a month. I am not certain what precipitated this and will see if it continues. Will cut back on bacon and some fat for a bit. I have had a few spices here and there, a bit of cheese/milk. I guess it would be optimistic to think I’d feel perfect every day after so many years struggling with stomach aches and headaches. So will plug on and report in.
Dreams: I dreamed about an old business partner of mine (we published a leisure style local magazine). She moved back to Maryland and we’ve lost touch. She has a child with autism and I think about her often. Perhaps I’ll have to contact her and see if she is doing ok. In the dream, she was having some kind of crisis. We were friends when she had to face her son’s disability, when it could no longer be denied (I had a son with Downs and a nephew with autism) so I recognized things going wrong. I don’t know if I was helpful or not, though of course I tried to be. But at least she saw there was life after diagnoses like these. The increase in these kinds of disabilities that are not genetic are worrisome. I just remember in the dream she was frowning and upset like when she was first facing this. Given the prophetic nature of dreams, I may try to contact her.
No research today, probably some over the next few days.
How are you feeling today/? Do you have an interesting dreamscape? Are you experimenting with your diet?
L.E.K. 