I finished stacking two cords of firewood against the house a couple of days ago. I finished the job with a thorough raking of the driveway where I had the woodcutter dump it. I gleaned two wheel barrows full of detritis that is flamable. I can use it as kindling. The woodcutter has a huge stake truck that he bought for less than five thousand dollars. It only had a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. From where I sit it looks like he got a good deal. He dumped two cords of seasoned wood in my driveway and two cords of green wood on the lawn on the north side of The Castle. I’ll leave the green cords where they are until I get as many used wooden pallets from someplace in order to build two Holz Hausen stacks. I need to do more reading to determine if I have to make one large or two smaller stacks for two cords.
I have a loose plan regarding this winter. I think I will stay in Maine except for the occasional foray south. I will go away for the odd week or two but no longer than that. I have too much at stake at the prison. Getting the AVP program going was a little more difficult than expected. Once it is up and running smoothly I may be going further afield with the trips for longer periods. I have made up a fairly nice poster for display to help recruit the incarcerated men for workshops. Next week I will go into the prison to complete that action.
Being unable to make up my mind about where I would spend the winter was paralyzing the rest of my plans. The confusion was causing me a lot of stress. The stress wasn’t obvious initially but soon I realized that indecision was at the root of it all. I remember learning during my days as a director of a Navy counseling center how people spend much of their lives “deciding to decide”. That’s where I was stuck. The situation was typical. I was faced with two choices of whether I should go back to New Mexico for a few months or just stay in Maine and stay focussed on a few things. Either decision would provide a few months of enjoyable work/recreation. But what was happening was so long as I didn’t choose one of them I was delaying preparation for both. When I realized what was going on it became a simple matter of going with the most practical. I’m a lot more relaxed and now I can prepare for a snowy winter with a few quick flights to Vero Beach and even Spain.
Take a look at this photograph.
It’s a snapshot of a kitchen in an adobe house in Rowe, N.M. I was staying there for a few months before I moved up to Las Vegas, N.M. I was sitting at the kitchen table and it was late in the day. It was a September afternoon. I took the photo with my smart phone. I was attracted by the muted colors and the earthy tones. The floor is flagstones on earth. I had been using the kitchen for a few weeks and some of my things are visible. The more I looked at the photo the more fun it became. The beer bottle on the counter top is “Smiling Irish Bastard”, a beer made in Bangor, Maine. Next to it is my blender bottle I bought at a Dicks Sporting Goods store in the southeast part of the U.S. The sign on the top of the wood stove says, “Suport Wildlife, Throw a Party!”.
The whole photograph has a rhythm to it. I can feel the weight of the stove combined with the heavy curtains and the light. The light enters at the top left and streams toward the bottom right. Everything has a place and a sound to it.
I took the photo to the Video Loft in Boothbay Harbor and Leisha helped me choose a size for a large print. We decided on 8″ X 14″. She printed it on matte finish paper. I took the print next door to Bob Eisele; http://www.boothbayharborframers.com/
He is framing it for me. It will be one of my favorite prints in The Castle when it is done and hung.
I’m reminded of the art form called Steampunk. I hope you like it.
I need to shut this down now. I hope your day has been as nice as mine. I did very little today. Well I did do a poster using a new art technique I’ve discovered. Nothing new. Maybe next time I will divulge how I do it. I’ll put the illustration here:
I used black sharpie, charcoal, and fine point black ink pen.
See you all later,
G. M. Goodwin
2 December 2017
Playing Fair and Being Kind 