The Husky is sleeping on my mother Bear pelt, atop the strawbale bed, I am listening to a man from Senegal play the kora, an African harp with a floating melody that emanates from the strings lofting my consciousness above the sinking dirty snow and into springs solar swoon. A slant of eventide light graciously dapples the interior of my cabin from its west facing glass eyes, now removed of their translucent wrappings to bar the winter drafts, while nights stay above zero, as the breezes lose their harshest tongue. The pussy willows have all budded, and the coltsfoot follows in bloom on the south facing slopes. Maples show no holds in dispelling their sap, with Birch in the kicker, one could almost smell the sugar steam, streaming through the grey clouds of an idle afternoon, mingling with rain, and coming down with a sense of sweetness. Life is brighter now, until roughly eight in the eve to be fair, and with each breathe I sense the aromas of spruce, moss and dank soil effevescing volatile therapeutic incense into the air. My hands get sticky with balsam poplar, With the extra hours of light, I engage in post-sugarbush freedom rides, long dog walks with the Alaskan, garden planning, and mid day lion naps followed up with evening coffees, knowing the day is not lost to the myrk too soon. The newest member of our village, Ziggy Love was born, to mother Spirit and Papa Seven. This couple joined our tribe last summer after a happenstance meeting of synchronicity, after I saw Seven on kijiji looking for musicians. Their new home in Howard Brook is the oldest log cabin in the area, and perfectly fit for three.
I’ve eaten up all the meat, now that my passive outdoor ambient freezer is not working. Well, I don’t fully own that, the porcupine family living under my floor found my package of ground bear meat and eviscerated the entire pound, along with two pounds of perogies, they stopped short at the blueberries. Munna and I have eaten like kings and queens meanwhile when our savorings are not gleaned by some beast, I’ve sat down to great six course meals of moose roast, savory rice and spicy veg, sausages cooked in mint and maple, barley soup, salad and frozen fruit. On ‘board meeting’ nights, we collectively cook a themed meal which is eaten from a cutting board with our hands, or else sharp implements like skewers; the cheese fondue, charcuterie, shiska-bobs, falafel, raw fish sushi, and wood fired pizza have all been a great success. While equally creative and impressive country feasting is holding it’s own at the potlucks of thursday. A neighbor in the next field over from Simms Rd. made a cake, entirely out of mashed potatoes and meat, using purple carrots to make a colored ‘frosting’ which died the mashed taters an attractive shade. Too many deserts to name, melomels and maple beers, herbal gins, and spiced rums, and the spectrum of cultural foods one would have to travel for a couple days to obtain in their native terroir. We are doing well in the heathlands.
Tradition, the name bore bear the newest addition to my heim, an Agouti Alaskan husky from racing lineage, was born in northern New Brunswick near the Miramichi, Chaleur Bay region. He has spurned me on to adventure further afield, where we run paw to foot down logging roads, Appalachian trails, and glacial ravines. My food pantry now fills up with Inuk’shuk dog food, braided chew ropes, fish biscuits, and cartilagionous bones. I am proud to finally see this day, and seeing this young wolf hound grow up in my wooden abode. He is already a runner, and is doing his father ‘Coyote’ proud. Eventually he will be larger and heavier than me, and I won’t be able to keep up unless with skis underneath me and the beast pulling in front. An outing into the hemlock woods lead to patches of evergreen and snow-berry, reindeer and sphagnum moss, carpeting the cliff of Gibson falls. Churning out a gorge of epic volume, the cascade falls twice, and peters out into a lethargic babbling brooks where the hardwoods transition to fen. I filled a motorcycle satchel bag with wintergreen herb, and tramped along the edge of the tumulting water, with husky in tow. The tip off came from a neighbor with her shepherding dog who also accompanied. I would be hesitant to drive down what was deemed a ‘road’, though maybe my perspicacity for difficult auto terrain is a little more privileged here after enduring the state of roadway on the Indian subcontinent. Booking it back out of Kilmarnock and near the old railway trail south of Hartland, my lady friend showed off another hidden waterfall that is a powerhouse of raw energy which crashes down into a grotto, throwing up a mist and bathing the rock walls in perpetual moistened life. After a few turns in the cove, it piles through a culvert and into the the St. John/Woolastook, depeneding on who you talk to. Another foray to Chimney Rock, and it’s glacial remains profered an impressive sight, where the knuckles of the earth separate from a cedar tangle and meandering wet trails, to open a crack in the earth, cool, lichen covered, and deep. Inside this earth yoni is a phallic shaped tower of stone, it is a ‘chimney’ of sorts, if people still made these rising smokestacks out of the bones of mother nature.
Off the trail, I have been reaping my extra leisure time with a new course, offered gratis, by the University of Stanford. A deep dive into the concept of ‘Love’ as a force for Social Justice, from which I have gleaned some potent insights, and contemplative workpieces. While cancel culture forbids much of the free interaction of analog teaching in the hard and fast material world, I do enjoy not having to show up to an institution, and piece mealing off some satisfying study hours during a weekend for myself. It gives me something to chew on, and offers an alternative to intellectual banter amongst peers, here is something I can focus on entirely in the way that will leave lasting knowledge. Having never actually been inside the walls of a University, and only ever in College for one week of my life, I am copasetic with this style of academia.
The Yurt remains a barrenland inside, and hungers for someone to live in it, once it is finished being floored with maple, and furnished with some hygge accoutrements. It would be great for a traveler to come and stay there this summer, and if the borders open again, perhaps it could act as a magnet for those coming from away. I foresee it as a perfect wwoofer home, and potluck venue, or for holding workshops. The falls brook behind my land now gushes for the first time since I have migrated here, dividing itself once at whale rock, and then bifurcating several times more as it moves through wetland. The like named waterfall no longer trundles gently over a rock face but pours with a great roar, through the southern flanks of Skedaddle ridge range.
Eostre came with a few happy visits, painted rune eggs found their way on my altar by the village witch, I also happen to love gifts that I can eat. This spring and summer will be full of wildcrafting, apothecary production, permaculture projects, and motorcycle expeditions around the Maritimes. I want to cruise to Saguenay, and hit the Runestone in Nova Scotia, take the pass in the Cape Breton Highlands, and motor over to Newfound with a brother in the club, and finally see Gros Morne and Lanse Aux Meadows. Covid won’t be holding me back from any of this, where there are two wheels there is a way, though the black horse will need some work, and a masters hand before it is ready for the long hauls. With the right ingenuity, and some modifications to the saddle bags, I may be able to bring along the Alaskan dog for some of these trips, in the meantime I wait for the ground to dry for some five toe shoe running, and country backroaders with the Nighthawk, with 450cc of twin engine power, and the freedom found in a full tank…
With a full tank, comes the unspoken duty of riding it to empty, and seeking out all possible routes from the homestead to explore the territory. The same way a lion or a wolf will venture out from their cave or den, and voyage across the land, picking over its terrain and mapping the topography of his kingdom. With the saddlebags I gleaned from India, carefully stitched with the flag patches of far away sojourns, I buckled in my Alaskan husky Tradition into the right pouch and he had his first two wheeler experience. Now we had a biped, and a quadruped, coasting along New Brunswicks upper Acadian territory on an iron and steel animal more powerful than both of us together. The feeling is unmistakably novel and rich. The Icelanders say a horse can make a man King for a day, I would add to that a rumbling motorbike with the throttle down.
With the sapflow staunching at the spile, and the trees budding out, a transition of work comes afore me, the taps will soon be taken out, and the manipulation of my hands will turn their work to the apothecary garden, the wildwoods, and the traditional buildings on my land. I have set up a workaway profile to draw in potential prospects for a homestay at Othala. I could always rely on guesting through the workaway platform during 7 years of travel and found it enriching on many substantial levels to cohabit with people around this earth. For my readers, let it be known that the longhall is welcoming the traveler; be ye a farmer, writer, musician, yogi, healer, artist, teacher, ad infinitum, I look forward to seeing you out here.
:aferalspirit: 