 |
Tuesday, January 11, 2005 |
|
The day is quiet. I spent the late hours last night shoving furniture around my bedroom and at 1 a.m. I passed effortlessly into a deep and grateful sleep. My mind likes the room's new arrangement, enjoys the novelty of it. I have done this since I was very small--I can remember dragging the twin beds around my bedroom when I was six, I don't know how--and it seems I must effect a change in my environment before my inner workings can shift gears. Everyone fed and a good big fire going in the Goddess downstairs, I take up my own day. I've worked out a little poem about sleeplessness. Background music, which I usually avoid as intrusive, Is Universal Love by Tibetan flute guy Nawang Khechog. At a very low volume, it doesn't intrude at all, or not that I'm aware of, and helps me tune out the other household noises--washing machine, my brother's sighs and whispered counting. I've been reading a little book called Nothing Left Over: A Plain and Simple Life by Toinette Lippe, and I like it quite a lot so far. Yesterday we had a bright clear morning but the overcast was back by noon. As fast as the temperature fell all yesterday afternoon, I was unsurprised to find six inches of new powder outside this morning, and a whiteout of huge fat flakes falling fast and hard. All browse is buried deep in the pasture, and so the llamas depend entirely now on my armfuls of grass hay and bowlsful of rolled oats. They stand every morning in the nearest corner of their field staring up at my bedroom window for signs of movement. At least I think that's what they're looking for. They're always the first thing I see out there when I'm dressing, and the eye contact is immediate and intense. I'm glad we're having such a hard cold winter (now that the fog has cleared from my mood and brain). It's been some years since this happened, and it's prerequisite to the formation/secretion of balsam resin on the leafbuds of the poplars--it's sort of an antifreeze--and during the winters of 2000-2004 the coating was almost not there, the winters were so warm. The buds, black with this rich tar in a good cold winter like this, will be ready for a judicious, considerate harvest around the first or second week in February--anytime between then and mid-March, as long as the weather stays cold. The twigs bearing the leafbuds are best handled frozen to avoid getting sticky stuff all over you. You cut them up and put them in a large pot with simmering animal fat--lard or clarified butter--and make up the best pain and burn ointment in the world, balsam-perfumed, yellow-gold in color, rich in salicylates and antioxidants. Rubbed on a burn, it stops all pain immediately, and promotes cell regeneration so effectively and vigorously you'll rarely experience any scarring.
Unfortunately the only balsam poplars I know of stand in the grove that passes through my old farm. I'll have to trespass at either end of it to gather the buds, but I'm sure the cows won't tell. |
