Sunday, July 31st, 2011

The next morning Celeste brings the campers across the road some coffee and I show them the tub. Some time later they thank us again and leave. "They're well within their rights to stay there," Celeste had said the night before, after we'd brought the last of our bags in. "That's public land over there– they can camp anywhere they want."

As the white Toyota disappears we pull out the tools Jim left and start on the front wall, staining and prepping. We finish all the siding and about a third of the deck when the first drops fall. We retreat into the cabin and I take stock: when you combine the beer the Vanderhoofs left, the order from Liquor Mart and the cider we brought from Portland there's enough to stock a cooler case.

While Celeste cooks up some pasta I acquaint myself with the Victrola and seek out all the 78s that promise dividends: The Volunteer Firemen, the Original Dixieland Band, Arthur Fields, Harry Lauder. Sometimes the crank runs down during a side and the tune wheezes like a deflating windsock puppet. I wind the crank and the tune swells again, bobbing and marching crazily. I match its rhythm with my own internal wind-up and it's a relief almost to leave them behind and eat to the hiss of the creek and the aspens outside.

After a sigh of fatigue and a pleasant tingle in the feet, it is sweet to lie there with the forest closing us in, standing between us and all the uncertainty and grinding routine of the lands beyond.