it has begun. the hut at campsite B. I need to stop calling it a hut. Huts are round. This, a rectangle. After all the other plans that went awry, Plan A. Build from scratch. ok.
it will be 14 X 24 ft. the door at the corner of South East, the porch/steps there going around the corner to a porch/deck on the East. First Sun. You can't tell from the pic. This is taken from the North hill....up toward Campsite C. When i walk to B, i come from C along a path between Jenny's home site and the second Buck Forest, curve down and face this....the close bottom of the pic. That black tub is still full of tomatoe starts. Then there is a slide down , maybe 3 ft to the flat of B which is flat scrapped of everything down to the bedrock of granite. The "relative flat", then extends a ways to it's rim, which then again drops down to the driveway road. Across from the driveway road is forest, again on a rim of a steep drop down to the canal/creek.
Because this is granite, the foundation cannot be dug in but will be on pillars...the cement block with rebar and concrete All according to regulation. Sooner or later, the assessor will arrive and it will need to be up to standards.
But it's begun.
they made a drawing to scale. with graph paper. drew in my futon, the end where the "bathroom"...which now means my compostable toilet, (but they want the space big enough to incorporate a shower "as/if needed") (daughter thinks ahead) (she says i can put shelves now) (i plan to take showers at Alyssia's house (when it ever gets here) The stove, refrigerator, the black utility sink from home depot or somewhere, i forget, but black. and a utility sink so i can wash my hair with a spray nozzle and wash dishes and for dyeing cloth....i'm adamant about this..... and i guess that's it. There can be as many windows as i want. I have begun to imagine things. No walls. just open space. and windows.
right at the side of the driveway road, where the old cowboy's truck was parked with all the quickcrete bags and lumber where people were coming and going all day for two days straight, where IT had been last year, last year, the ONLY snake they saw, but now, there, in the same place, in clear sight, the rattlesnake, not small, not big, midling, it was there. When they got there, mid morning, the first day, all through the day till they left in the evening, then again the second morning, there again and when daughter inched at it with a shovel it coiled. On and off all that second day, Puppy, the Hill cat, Puppy Merced Hill, was there....sitting, staring at it. Moving in, moving out. Jenny tried to call her away several times. Puppy is her own being and does not listen. Tay displayed no interest.
At the end of the day, as they readied the truck to move it, i called out to Jenny about the snake...was it still there?, and she went to look and yes it was, but then quiet and she said there was something wrong. It was. still there. but it was dead. There were ants at its eyes. Dead. When that morning, it had coiled. As far as i know and i think i know, Tay was no where near it. Puppy was. There were no birds of prey. Puppy only. Dead. and me, who doesn't cry, had a rush of tears. They left and i walked down to campsite A and watered the Wall Garden, feeling a deep sadness, a grief. No need for any explanation to self or otherwise, but a deep deep sense of loss of life. Alyssia was still here and we talked. We ended up sending it off over the rim of the steep slope down toward the creek. the original urge for burial too human, to contrived.
it seems impossible that a cat can kill a rattlesnake. a small cat. But Puppy is feral. She chooses some domestication. Some.
We will never know.
