Neighbors

I got a call from my neighbor D early this morning. "Y'know that plywood you've got in my barn?"

Oboy. He talked to me about that six weeks, maybe two months ago and I forgot all about it. I promised to be there this morning to get it out of there. Had a few little things to do around the cabin, but then I put on my hat and gloves. This got the boys' attention.

"Wanna go for a ride?" Pandemonium.

So we drive through the wash to D&L's place. I back up to the barn, start loading wood, and they come out and help about halfway through.

D&L are building a big, beautiful straw-bale and earthbag house. Really, it's gorgeous. And all winter they've been inside, doing the ceilings. Tongue and groove one by sixes, stained to go with the post-and-beam structure that shows through everywhere. Beautiful. This very morning they officially finished the ceiling, and they were anxious that I should see it.

Then they had some glassware they'd found cleaning out their workshop, and thought I might want it. And L had some day-old biscuits they weren't going to eat, and did I want that?

Just nice folks. I like them a lot. We started swapping dog annoyance stories, and then L and I started on the horse stories, and D got impatient to get back to work so the boys and I said our goodbyes.

Since I had the trailer and need some wood, I'd brought the chainsaw. Once I dropped off the lumber and got it safe, we went out for a woodcutting expedition. Not a lot, but I know where there are some dead roadside junipers that would fill the trailer pretty easy with fairly straight logs. Still need to cut it up for stovewood: We're really supposed to get some bad weather, and I want to fill the wood rack before it comes on. And I'm hoping to bake some bread this afternoon, so I'm gonna log off and do that stuff.

But still: Hermit or not, there's nothing like neighbors to get a day off to a good start.