Unabashed

I didn’t even know I was incognito until I passed the sign that said “Cognito Dead Ahead.” I suppose you’ve noticed that I’ve kind of taken a break from the internet. I’ve gone into the woods and found out that I still like it there. I like the smell of earth, the taste of water, the sounds of crickets and birds, the trundling of a spring-fed, freezing-cold stream, and cool air flowing down a tree-covered mountain side in the dog days of summer. And what am I doing out there in the hinterland, all alone and sweating? I’m soul searching, a lot of the time. Good news on that front, too: I found it. It was deep down in a shadowy place, but it was there, and I managed to coerce it back up into a more well-lit area for the time being. I’ve made some minor adjustments in my life, as always working towards nirvana, and though I keep getting closer, and each time I crest a hill or mountain to see how much closer I’ve come, I see that there’s still a whole valley, desert and frozen tundra to cross. Dragons to slay, foes to vanquish, etc. But I guess I’m always that one step closer, right?

If you’re wondering what adjustments I’ve made, well: I’ve cancelled my premium livejournal membership, even though I get almost as many comments there as here, I just got tired of it. I cancelled my Rivals.com membership, too, because I can get plenty of football news from the local writers. I signed up for a Geocaching.com account to replace those two, and consider it $30 a year well spent. As for writing…well. There hasn’t been much writing, honestly. The stories are still there, but they don’t really want to come out, and I’m tired of trying to force them. I suppose in one respect I consider it an accomplishment having been published at all, even if it was in a genre rag and on a couple of web sites. I’ve written a book or three, dammit, and though they may never be published, they’re there for me to show, and it’s an accomplishment just to have written one, I’m told. What’s the future for Matt Mitchell’s fiction? Who knows. The stories are still there, probably festering, but if they don’t want to come out that’s fine. I’ll let them sit for a while. I’ve done the hiatus thing before, and if I’m really really serious about it I know there’s really no chance of me ever being a professional writer.

As for the blog you’re reading, I have no intention of shutting it down. I feel like I still have something to say, and at least a few folks are sticking around to hear it, so…I may write a bit more sporadically than I have in the past, but I’ll still be here, talking as usual about marvels and wonders, the environment, space and the occasional outdoorsy piece. As for reading other blogs…well, I’ve kind of let that lapse, too. Sorry. I’m coming back now. I’m trimming the fat and sticking to the blogs I like most. Steve, Ken, and Matt…you made the cut along with a few others, and I’ll try to catch back up with what I’ve missed.

Don’t get me wrong, now, I’m really not glum. I recently discovered that it’s possible that I’ve been glum for a while, but my wife assures me I’ve made a full recovery and new Matt is fun again. And there are still things to be excited about: my project, of course, still is plodding along. It’s still in development, but some of the proofs I’ve seen and some of the original artwork we’ve acquired is top notch, really beautiful stuff. You’ll see it all soon enough: September 8th, be prepared to sign up for a new social networking site that’s going to change the way social networking is done. Trust me, it’s different. It’s new. And it’s my little baby, my little brainchild. I still wonder if it’ll take off, naturally, which I suppose is a source of some stress these days. Let’s just say it’s not free to build a professional, original site from the ground up. Nor cheap. But even if it doesn’t, we’ll still eat and live and survive.

This heart to heart has been brought to you by New Matt ™, hoping to make all your tomorrows brighter.

:-)

written by Matt Mitchell

Yeah, I know it isn’t Autumn yet, but Saturday was noticably cooler than it has been, and the sun has crossed the ecliptic and is casting shadows now with just a little more slant than they have been, and the air just suddenly grabbed that crisp Autumn feel, if only for a day. It was still 89 degrees, but that’s cool compared to the 102 of a few days before. One thing’s for certain, the days are shrinking, slowly, and the nights are growing longer, and though there’s still lots of hot days left this summer, their numbers grow fewer every day. We’re just slightly more than a month away from the Autumnal Equinox, and I think I’m ready for this year’s long hot summer to finally be through.

Photo by law keven.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Autumn, cool, first day, long hot summer, new day

Note: I deleted these pics because they were clogging up the site image. Links to the pics are still in the post.

For Thanksgiving, and in honor of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I would like to present zombie turkey parade:

Photo by Quack the Wooley Duck.

Photo by Relentlessly Optimistic.

And, finally, Turkey Zombie Warrior:

Photo by DougBlot.

Hope you have a happy zombie turkey day :-)

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: turkey, Zombie

I wrote this back in 1997 and I like to read it this time of year to remind me of where I came from.

Turn Up the Thermostat
By: Matt Mitchell

Autumn invigorates me. The crisp morning chill, splash of color, and promise of festivals never ceases to bring life back to my summer-weary bones. I can almost mark the day it begins for me–that first morning shiver at sunrise when my breath comes out of my mouth like a car’s exhaust; I hate to see it by winter’s end but early on it gives me a delicious thrill. Early morning fog clings to the hills. Squirrels clamor for the season’s last nut. The geese above me fly grouped together like a giant arrow pointing toward the Caribbean. I hug myself and breathe in the air of the Month of the Harvest and it seems like every molecule in my body is energized and excited with the approach of the Hunter’s Moon.

Inside my cocoon of wood and warmth I live comfortably and turn up the thermostat a bit. I savor the thick whisper of warmth that envelopes me and I remember those days long gone when it wasn’t so easy to control my level of comfort. Standing in front of the thermostat I can look outside the window and, in the wake of the southbound geese, I’m left with the emptiness of yearning for yesterday, so much like the ache of seeing a loved one leave when you don’t want them to. There was a time when autumn meant something more than turning up the thermostat.

In our modern age, fire is used mostly for ambiance. When I was a young boy, fire was the giver of heat, and I knew the value of a hard day’s work meant another week of warmth when the cold came. To stay warm through the winter meant work, blisters, blood and pain. I spent many an autumn busting logs of shagbark hickory and oak into suitable pieces of firewood. I grew up on the Coosa River and my father wanted things done the old way, so the old way was the way we did them. I guess I figure now that his way was best. It taught me to respect life and what it meant to survive.

Back then, when time came for bed I would step out into the cold and bring an armful of wood in to pack the fireplace full. Then I would dress in my pajamas and crawl beneath the covers of my bed. The door was always left open to let the heat in, and I could see the red flicker and hear the crackle of the fire beyond. The sheets would be bone-chilling, and I’d curl up tightly, teeth chattering, and wait for the bed to warm up. In those days three blankets were a requirement, and my mother took great care in quilting them herself.

With cockcrow, I would lie there with the covers up to my chin, dreading the cold of the hardwood floor–and of the toilet seat. Eventually, though, the need overcame the dread, and I would leap from the bed and run to the bathroom, and then run into the den to dress beside the still-warm coals from the night before. Darkness would still have hold of the world as I set off to tend the chores of the morning.

Before breakfast there were many critters to feed, a cow to milk, and a mean old Billy goat that would chase me just to see me run. From the barn I could see the orange glow of the kitchen window, and a plume of smoke rising from the chimney to mingle with the wafting layer of thick fog that suffered to cling to the Earth. All this in the gray dawn–stars still in the sky but fading fast as the one sun came to melt the night’s frost and burn the remains of the suffering fog away. On the river the mornings were always foggy, which added to the charm, but by ten o’clock I knew it would be sunny with no trace of mist to be seen.

At the table mom would serve home-scratch biscuits and gravy that was country before it was called country gravy. After breakfast it was off to the forest, my father and I, neither of us talking, just riding in that old pickup to the eighty-five acre wood my family owned.

Chopping wood, adding blankets to the bed, and enjoying the thrill of the new season made life exciting and new every day, despite the hardness of the times. Come October there would be hayrides on horse-drawn wagons. I know where my father’s wagon is still. It hangs in the old barn, a victim of time, dwindling interest and long commutes; and in the wake of its passing is left some things more shameful to us all–pollution, laziness, and boredom.

With my central heating, I no longer have to worry myself with the cold mornings; it’s always warm throughout the house. Nowadays, there really isn’t much to be done at all. The only real meaning fall carries now is that the dog days are finally over. Back then, when that silver layer of frost blanketed the countryside, when the moon shone through winter clouds and lit the farm a ghostly white and all the firewood was cut, split, stacked, and in the process of being burned, then I would know that my part was done and we were ready for the short southern winter, made comfortable through our labor. Today… I just turn up the thermostat.

As I sit before my computer and type these words on the first day of autumn, I look out the window and see that the leaves are just now beginning to change. I see a few red, some orange, even more yellow, but still they remain mostly green. They have embarked on a journey of renovation of life only too soon to end as, day by day, the cold measures fuller cup by cup. But for now I get to marvel at this transformation from inside my warm home, and the outside air is just beginning to cool, and more and more it seems I’m segregated from that place from whence I came: from life itself.

Now, people spend more and more time seeking out excitement; redefining life on the edge and how to make it dynamic. Times have traditionalized us into being people, and as people we have completely lost the essence that once made us animals. As an animal, we’ve lost the vigor that made us see the challenge in life, and to be able to be challenged by it. Socializing and civilizing the world as we know it has done little more than ensure the boredom of generations to come. As a people, we have succeeded to the point of drudgery. In striving to make the world a better place, we took the life out of living. If only we could get past being human for a moment and just be animals, we may realize once again what life was meant to be: not living for greenbacks or new cars or promotions, but for chasing buffalo and climbing trees and watching the way water passes by a rock in a stream. I think in my youth I felt that vigor, but now? Now when it gets cold I shuffle over and turn up the thermostat.

There’s a blue indigo bunting that eats at my feeders every day. Even as the leaves change, his feathers keep pace by shifting from neon blue to a mottled brown, and then to brown all together. Soon, the forest will be full of antlered whitetails in full rut. Life throughout the wild, from flowers to trees and from birds to bears is going through a new genesis with the change of every season, the same as we once did.

And what do we do now? Our seasonal genesis takes us no farther than the thermostat.

In this day of mediocrity and drudgery, it would be well worth our while to rediscover our roots, to rekindle the old ways, and to retrieve that piece of us that went away not so very long ago; that piece that made us animals.

Matt Mitchell

September 21, 1997

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: blue, bunting, essay, fall, indigo, thermostat, warmth

It is time, good people of the industrialized world. Time to roll back the clocks again, yes, but more importantly it is time to ask, no–beg–the powers that be to stop screwing with the time. Daylight Saving Time might have been really important once upon a time, but no longer. Quoting a fellow blogger in his post entitled Semi-Annual Stupidity:

Here in California’s blistering-hot backward wasteland “Imperial” Valley, what the autumnal time piece tango means is that just when the weather begins to moderate a little, the powers-that-be in Sacramento and Washington mandate that we roll-back the clocks.

Which means that it’s nearly pitch-black by 5:00 PM.

And in about six months, just when it begins to get hot again, those same powers-that-be have us “spring forward” the clocks by an hour.

Which means that its often well over a 100 degrees until nearly 9:00 PM.

I wish that California’s legislature was as smart as the people of Arizona.

In Arizona, they’re too smart to waste time fooling around with clocks.

He may be a few thousand miles away from me, but I share his sentiments exactly. Working the fields is no longer the occupation of the majority of Americans, and those who do hire the help rather than wait for the kids to get home from school to start harvesting. 5:00 is too early for sunset; 8:00 in the summer is too late. Just find a happy medium and leave it be! Next spring let’s spring ahead 30 minutes and leave it at that for good. DST has become a relic, useless in modern society, and it’s time to take our clocks back. Start the revolution!

From Wikipedia:
?? Areas that observe daylight saving time
?? Areas that once observed daylight saving time
?? Areas that have never observed daylight saving time

written by Matt Mitchell

Cool guy in Chicago who blogs about his love of his lawn and his mower.

Please pray for me as I am feeling a little empty nest syndrome since I tucked my lawn mower in to hibernation for the long winter to come.

You know it makes me want to go out and give the old JD a nice hug. Of course, my yard (as I discussed with Allyn earlier: I have a yard, not a lawn. Six acres can hardly be called a lawn) is still going to need another cut at least, so I need to square off about six hours this weekend to take care of it. And then it’ll be adieu till next year!

Allyn giving his mower the luv.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: blogging, lawn care, lawnmower, lawnmowers

I’m feeling very coffee today. The press of fall is coming nearer and nearer (even though it’s still 85 degrees and humid). I never was a coffee drinker, and I’m still not very religious about it, until I did my stint in the Navy, where coffee was almost regulatory, no matter how foul it might taste. But then, you can get used to almost anything when your wakeup call is 4am. The song went: “The coffee in the Navy / they say is mighty fine / it looks like muddy water / and it tastes like turpentine.”

I drank my share of it for a couple of years, bleary eyed and struggling to hold on to consciousness just long enough to make sure I didn’t fall overboard. But then I was sent to Cartagena, Columbia for a six-week duty assignment, and coffee was officially discovered. They served it at the hotel we were staying in every morning whether you asked for it or not in pretty China cups with saucers. It was the first time I ever had really good coffee, and before I left I bought about ten pounds of it to bring home. My family promptly devoured it, although I did get to keep one pound for myself. My uncle began mixing his pound with his regular coffee to make the Columbian last longer.

After that, the coffee situation went back to normal, but from then on I was bitter about the swill they pumped into us once we were back aboard ship. My future travels didn’t do much to help: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Italy… such magnificent coffee! I still can’t wrap my head around it, and I shop for coffee here and there in the States but nothing ever seems to compare. Maybe through The Tao of Coffee I can rekindle some of those great coffee moments, when coffee seems as integral to the day as opening your eyes, and the flavor seems to cause every cell in your body to energize and sparkle.

Some beautiful coffee images from Jamaica.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Coffee