A Living Magazine - Tap Root: Day 17 - Stones and Steak

On this morning I discovered that my hiking line was the weakest link in my latest rain barrel configuration. The weight of water pooling on the tarp was too much. It collapsed the scaffolding and broke the line...

Cleaning up the mess.

I

I resolved to create a new system that would last. It all seemed like such a simple thing: erect a tarp to channel rain into a barrel. Yet, as discussed in the last post, using the tarp is problematic. I knew now what the answer was. The tarp needed to be rigid, with no dips or pockets in it. That meant making a funnel-like configuration, with five or six isosceles triangles (rather than right triangles--which cause pockets to form) taped together. It would have to wait though.

Before walking into town I took some shots of just how many stones I had on the lot...

Eventually these stones will be used in the construction of structures around the property. 

I bought a steak while in town, along with more mushrooms. I'd noticed that if I bought individually wrapped cheese slices they would not need to be refrigerated (at least for as long as I would keep them). I also had a pepper (can't remember what kind) left over from visiting Jeff's uncle who gave it to me a few days earlier. From all of this came one of my tastiest meals yet...

I marinated the steak in teriyaki sauce for a good half hour, while I made the stuffed mushrooms. I may have mentioned some of this process before...

The idea is to hollow out the mushroom caps, add a dollop of butter to each,

then push in a piece of bread (which will soak up the butter as it melts),

cover with cheese and (in this case) stick a piece of pepper into them.

I cooked the mushrooms along with the steak--as long as it took. Mushrooms are so wet that they manage to survive the process quite well. I also tried some other ideas...

A piece of steak, cubed, with pepper and garlic hot sauce.

The sun sank behind the mountains and left the sky stained with a magnificent rose colored streak...

This was a good day. It had been a straight line of good days. My mind was not entirely at peace (as usual), but it certainly was not because of the setting in which I found myself. The environment provided such a wonderful chance to be happy and satisfied with life. Were I able to auction off a piece of my soul to actually experience just how happy I should be, I would readily do it.

I seemingly had everything I'd been trying to find for the last ten years. Why on earth couldn't I just feel it? I guess I was still concerned about how the phone situation had tied my hands and also that i should be spending most of every day building a structure that would give me shelter through the winter. That I was currently unable to do anything about either of these circumstances was a psychological splinter that was stuck in my mind and reminded me of its presence every time everything else began to feel comfortable.

Still, there was much about which to be hopeful. And my gift horse was not opening his mouth for me to look into it. That was a good thing. The Spark (which seemed to constantly be holding back in anticipation of more significant events) seemed to whisper that if I were just to relax, things were in the process of working themselves out.