EARTH ~

JUNE CARTER CASH

In 1961, returning to the studio after an absence of five years, June Carter Cash recorded this spooky noir gem. Saturday into early Sunday morning material.

She started singing at the age of ten in 1939 with the legendary Carter Family, which included her mother Maybelle Carter.

Versatile with guitar, banjo, harmonica and signature autoharp, June was also an actress, songwriter and dancer; others would remember a comedian. She stands out in the film The Apostle; being the second and lasting wife of Johnny Cash; and a distant cousin to President Jimmy Carter.

Virginia was her birth home.

June Carter Cash didn't last forever as her verve and spirit seemed to predict. She passed away only a few months before The Man in Black in 2003.

alanmesser.com

A GOOD DAY ~

Daw Aung San Sun Kyi

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been confined 15 of the last 21 years, was freed after seven and a half years of house arrest. Read More:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/daw_aung_san_suu_kyi/index.html?inline=nyt-per

TRAIL ~

Exactly a year ago this week we got up to a large sugar maple that had fallen during a snowstorm and I bucked and split the good wood, and together Sweetheart piled it up with me. Allowed it to season a year.

It's in a region we call "the swamp" which is really a wet spot behind Faraway Cottage. Those who have visited here know this cottage and exactly where it is. For all others, it's just a cottage I built ten years ago with my young son and behind it gets wet, sometimes very wet, and then there are dry periods where we can cross any part of it and never think much of water. It's mossy then. When we cut the tree it was half and half so we had to watch were we stepped.

A year later we are carrying the seasoned firewood home and putting it right into the woodstoves.

We used to sled firewood out of the woods with a toboggan and a malamute dog by the name of Jack. Jack was a good ol' boy. Buried now and I can show you the stone.

Sometimes we'll wheelbarrow out firewood if we can get to it. Other times we have used canvas sacks. For some reason this month we're content just using our arms and coming home with wood.

It's been unusually warm between 11AM-2PM and this has been a good time to carry wood. Lots of it. The two of us talking while we hike up and talking as we hike back. Breaking down a better trail out around the cottage and beside the small farm pond and down along the flower beds and gardens and into the woodshed.

No fuel cost. Great sunshine. The chickadees following us in and back out and back in because they know we're the very same ones who feed them.

photo © bob arnold