February 4th, 2025
About two forty-five in the morning... the dog is barking aggressively in the basement which she never does at night... as Oxbear walks down to investigate I hear a dog barking down the street too... Yali had come out around nine o'clock that night to tell us about a man in a dark hoodie standing in our yard from his window but then admitted that it was just a story because he loves a creepy story... but as Oxbear lets the dog out to clear the yard and she races into the back to bark at something unseen... I wonder if Yali had seen something... or maybe it was just a herd of deer... we never find out...
Awake some hours later... Patience is already in the shower before she prepares eggs and toast for breakfast... is she really only nine?
Class is interrupted that morning by Puck emerging for a morning work-out while we're discussing boll weevils and cotton crops... he begins to complain about cartography as a study (in general)... someone is experiencing caffeine withdrawal...
While Yali and Patience are learning how to make candles at Yellow Bird into the afternoon...
Puck troubleshoots the treadmill while the exiled bad cat watches curiously from a shelf above the workbench... then takes the tractor tire out back to sledgehammer for awhile...
Oxbear takes call after call after call from his closet desk as usual...
The stainless steel butter dish Puck ordered arrives from Amazon... “Now they won't break every time you buy one...” he informs me... sometimes I think he should be a project manager...
And the dog sits in the window watching her entertainment for the day – a wood chipper down the street...
Just before two o'clock Puck leaves for a six-hour shift in Produce after he chats with me about some of his recent purchases online including army green cargo pants...
Yali and Patience leave Yellow Bird with their Madagascar vanilla and cedar hand-poured candles... Yali – smelling of woodsmoke – stares dreamily out the car window chin in hand recounting how wonderful his day had been... which also included friendship, outdoor play, and cake...
Afternoon turning silver expecting rain in the night...
Online gaming with cousins and plates of ham sandwiches and cucumber slices in the evening for the two “tots”...
Receive an email regarding Patience's fantastically expensive Irish dance wig finally arrived at the shop in Kirkwood... “I am sorry for the delay. Everything in Europe just got really backed up when they were having hurricane force winds, and it shut down all shipping...”
Then drive back to the studio for Patience – parts of the trek still resembling more the lunar surface than asphalt – passing still-present snow mounds even after the mid-70s yesterday... as Patience graphically explains to me what it felt like to recover from various past surgeries...
Two hours on the lot... always plenty of work waiting until class ends... including the ultra-short (and very first Native American) autobiography of 18th century Mohegan Presbyterian preacher – Samson Occom...