I had a bonfire up at the spot at the tail end of winter. I invited some local friends and all the direct neighbors, and held court outside of the shipping container with a table of refreshments as visitors trickled in by ones and twos throughout the day. The pile, a massive cone of spoils from the logging, was ready to go up after being tarped over to dry for over a year. A cardboard box full of dryer lint, scrapwood, and old motor oil was chucked up top, and last year's gasoline was dribbled down in a long, thin trail to a safe distance. One match was all it took.
I got back up there for the first work trip this spring and got a lot of shit done. I hauled a bunch of material and cleaned up the container, and the cursing of the past self for leaving such a mess in there was far outweighed by the blessings upon the past self for pre-staging most of what was needed for the outhouse.
I'm building a real Cadillac shitter up there, because investments in infrastructure are critical to the long term plans for the place. I'm going to be spending a lot of time up there, and, eventually, the rest of my life, so the nicer it is to be there while I make it nicer to be there, well, never take for granted snowball effects on a long enough timeline.
Once the shitter is built, work starts on the cabin. Inshallah, there will be a four seasons habitation on the place by this winter.
On the third day of the trip, shitter as done as it was going to be with the tools and material available and sealed up to sit until I get to it again, several thousand pounds of spoils cleared and sorted, brushpiles reduced by constant piling of the hearth, and a dozen root balls grubbed out of the camp area, I decided to just sit and enjoy the place.
The hearth was baked-deep hot from three days of constant fire, the massive granite cobbles containing it and channeling the prevailing winds warm to the touch even on the opposite side of the flames. I raked the camp, stowed the tools, ferried cans for dinner from the container, laid out the bedding ready to crawl into, and rolled a fat fucking blunt. As I did it I knew it was going to absolutely destroy me.
I put on some sweats and my woobie hoodie and got absolutely destroyed.
The peak afternoon sun was hot, and occasional bands of thick black clouds trucked by overhead on their way to rain on someone else, each bringing a patch of cool air and opposite winds. I sat, and did nothing, and listened.
Frogs in the swamp, happy for the water pit I dug to provide non-potable for concrete and quick handwashing. Five kinds of birds making their way around the place, two kinds of woodpecker and crows and a big fat bluejay and something else I haven't identified yet. Rustling of something in one of the brushpiles just out of site from the camp.
The sound of the breeze in the regenerative growth coming up faster than I had hoped.
I was completely and utterly satisfied, and there was a moment where I overflowed with sudden joy for having done it - for doing it. For finally having a place to go. I luxuriated in it, and when the dark came and I was falling asleep in the open, I cracked open the door of the tent and saw the bed laying there for me. In that instant I finaly understood firsthand the love affair people have with bed. I was in love with that bed and it wrapped me up in the best stretch of sleep I have had in years.
Out in the Southeast corner is the highest knob on the mountain. There's a threeway intersection of logging roads there, and the largest clearing on the property save the large central 5 acres. That's where the shooting range is going, a place to practice my Kung Fu. It gets full sun, and it puts the most terrain features between the shooting and the neighbors. I stocked up on about 500 lbs of steel target gongs and the hardware to hang them once and never think about them again. I'll have 50 yards and in on the range, with longer and trickier shots set up throughout the property as line of sight allows or can be made.
The dirt wizard made a visit on my last day of the trip to talk about what I want next - sling and move the troop tent and its platform, expand the densepack pad it's sitting on to make room for the cabin, clear the road to the range sufficient to creep the truck up there if I want, sweep up the spoils and deadfalls around the range into a safety berm, and lay down a nice big level pad in front of the targets.
It has been a lot of brutal work in service of plans for plans for plans. I find myself operating on man-scale sometimes, heaving logs and trashing the edge on the machete grubbing up tenacious rootballs of juvenile pines, but sometimes when I get into it I stumble on prep work I did a year, two years ago, always paving the way for the future self as best I can manage, and despite being tired and sore and covered in sap and my own blood, it makes me glad to be doing it.
When I sit around the hearth, the spot where the first campfire was lit, I can see and feel the process moving along. I can watch the terrain and the forest and the animals and most importantly the water and I can work with them, fighting only the battles I am sure will result in lasting victory.
I keep the sum of the fruits of my labor. Every victory is personal. Every achievement, every checkbox on the list, is solely in service to myself and who inherits my will.
I'll be fabricating the trusses for the shitter offsite, and trucking them in some time in the next week or so, depending on weather. It sure will be nice to be able to poop inside.