Stonepile

With trepidation I ventured down unto the 'Pile today. Ice and snow blocked the driveway; I saw nothing to make me turn aside. As I walked through the new stone entrance and looked out across the Sakonnet, I thought what a great sight. What an amazing siting for a house. "Oh, what a lucky man, he was..." The drifts of snow around the porch and all of the doors confirmed that no one had visited within the past three days, when a Yankee Clipper, the last one for the season I expect, swept through, a mini-blizzard in the midst of March. The house was fine inside, except for the crap from a bird that must have ventured down into the chimney. As far as I can figure it, there is no other way for it to have entered the house. I collected some oddments and endments and, sincde the car was a few hundred yards up the drive, carried it up the drive. A great, huge flat stone that I had placed in the field when Bobby Carr rebuilt the wall sits forlorn. I hope to use it as a refuge in the summer or next fall. I scouted out the Menagerie and the rebuilt red gate that Jeff installed by Addie's camp, Joe Junior's camp, Joseph Forest Sherer's camp. I walked across the fields. No one is around, just some hawks, a turkey buzzard. I visited Uncle Bill. It is so silent in his house. He sits and reads, and does acrostic puzzles. It makes me sad. I said that I was walking in his steps, some thirty years behind. He said, "I envy you." And I acknowledged the truth in that, but that, just look at the news. The world is increasingly terrifying. Maybe it wasn't so bad to be thirty years senior. Happy Birthday! One year older, one year less to go. He showed me the high snow line around the house. I warned him about my wayward brother being near. He said, "I can't remember your brother." His own brother, I know, was named Dick.