it started like a prison riot.

epic manliness in the face of adversity?
check.
limited in visibility, cold, windswept, and under-prepared,
i still managed to ignite a serious berserker barbarian battle-blaze
on uncle steven's 28 mountain-top acres, ya'll.
without the previously presumed presence of kerosene, newpaper, kindling,
or any other helpful combustion accelerants,
i used some active participation,
and worthy woodsly Folk Lively improvisation,
and got the going, tough and then some, under way to rescue the evening;
using only some drier-than-dust treebark,
a match,
and a roll of old toilet paper from the disused camper on the property as a chimney,
i came to get down, and left the place burnt up to a crisp.
smoldering smugness ensued on my part.
hell yes, mutha-lickers,
never mind the boy scouts,
we were members of the dead warrior poet's society last night.
i guess i'm kind of a real deal expert firestarter,
a real prodigy, even.....except somehow with barely better hair.
(right, smalley?)
truthfully,
i actually used two matches,
but one was mainly to light my way,
and the second one to light my fire completely brought the blaze to bear.
time was spanned exceptionaly well.
jess, uncle steven, jim, olive, and myself made with the campy campground activities.
we shootin-star-gazed,
cuban embargo stump fumed,
(jim rocked a sweet-smellin' mellow yellow-stemmed pipe)
and toasted up our heinies for hours and hours.
even after a whole weak week of zippin' off on armbands and baby names,
a little minute on the mountain reset the hottness back on track.

is that two out of three wise men stacked on top of each other?
a brundlefly teleporter experiment using two handsome arabs?
a witch being burned at the stake?
nope.
it's just another picture of me lookin' F*d up.
this is pretty much what happens at night up here,
give or take a hundred pages of nerdy book browsing before bedtime.
it's how we get busy in a laid-back locale.
and it's real life.
unfolding along a predetermined, yet completely unscripted course,
one minute after another.

there's a longer night, every night,

by about two minutes.

we're rubbin' elbows with autumn,

and it's apple pickin' time in the north.

i've got more pies to bake,

i've got more cider and more problems to mull over,

and i've got a whole new season of woodsly goodness

to appreciate, participate, and instigate.

it's all really happening.

the weather is beautiful,

the harvest is bountiful,

this is the time i've been given,

and i'm having a helluva time of it.

i wish you were here;

never quiet, never soft.....