i will get on here with pictures as soon as possible. it is rainy season, wildflower season, and green season in a place that is usually bone dry and harsh with the sun. i've been making a lot of fires but not taking pictures of them. i've been trying to build things too with less success, like stairs for a crooked threshold.

ah well but i set my mind to moving all my wood, from a prominent place right in front of everyone, where i had this big pile that attracted lizards and snakes, back to a place behind the house where it will be more out of sight. it will be closer for me to use it, and still a little out of the way for those who are afraid of snakes and don't want to see big piles of scrap wood all over the place.

so i set up this system of a very small pathway, over a rock wall in a kind of cutback way, so that it was like cutback pass, but it went past a couple of wildflowers and eventually made a little trail there. all this was basically to move scrap lumber out of the way. i got a good suntan and lot of exercise, but my total accomplishment was mostly landscaping.

when i make the fire i gather wood from all over the place. my goal is to get rid of all of what we call fuel, pine needles and sticks and stuff that will burn like crazy in dry season. now that it's wet season, it doesn't burn like crazy. but it burns, and that's what i want. i've decided that in a place with very high anxiety the best thing i can do is reduce the amount of fuel we are standing around looking at as we live our lives. we look off to the southwest, and that's where the monsoon rains are coming from, but we also look toward where the wind comes from generally, so if we see fuel off that way, that'll raise the anxiety level. same with the woodpile. best put it behind the house, where if it all burns, it'll burn up the hill, instead of toward the house.

we have this little compound now, with two trailers, a shed, a main house, another shed (my work shed, with a washer-dryer & pump), and what we call the bunk house, where the girls and the teenage boy, and the two cats, live. that bunkhouse has two rooms and a bathroom, and i'm thinking, if they get too crowded, they might be wanting to move into one of the trailers. but first things first. might have to get electrical for one of the trailers.

anyway i'm walking along this path and there are wildflowers now. i sometimes stop to pick the weeds which of course have been flourishing, what with the rain and all. i do some weeding, and it's very therapeutic.

that reminds me, our small town got its first case yesterday. nobody knows anything about it. but it's a mighty small town and it's only a matter of time, pretty soon we'll know who, where, when, how, how many, everything. there is no news outlet here. people use facebook a lot but the moderator wouldn't allow the post that said it. she figured it would start a huge fight. maybe she decided to ban the whole topic.

and people might die, and nobody knows about the possibility?

seems to me, it's best to just tell 'em.