Basecamp Dispatch: Singing in the Rain

My weekly check-in from the woods, the homestead, or somewhere else with spotty cell service

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Five inches of rain changed everything around here this week. It was enough to get the river moving again, the water line creeping up the banks and finally covering the grassy islands that had started to stretch out along the middle of the trickling Tar.

The garden also appreciated a good drink. It looks a lot less defeated now. And for a few days, we got a break from the kind of heat that makes every Southerner question their life choices.

One Moment

I’m walking Penny in the misty afternoon rain. Tiny droplets feel like refreshment on my bare face, so I pull back the hood of my rain jacket and tilt my chin toward the sky. It’s been hot and humid for so long I’d forgotten what it feels like to breathe.

The weather makes the air quiet. No birds singing. No crickets. Just the occasional hum of a car passing by up on Main. But I catch the song of a cicada, like it’s flying from the top of the magnolia tree in the neighbor’s yard.

Cicadas don’t sing when they fly.

I turn my head, looking for the source of the cicada song, and I see it. One of the Mississippi kites flies from the top of the magnolia, the plump green cicada vibrating in its talons. I watch it sail through the gray sky, singing as it goes until the kite rests on the telephone wire overhead, the cicada still singing.

After the first bite, the song starts to slow. It fades to a whisper after the second. Just before the third, everything returns to quiet.

On the Table

I made bear fat zucchini brownies this week.

Ellie helped. She supervised the shredding of the zucchini, one of the last I was able to rescue before the squash bugs made their final assault on the garden. Then she dumped it into the dry ingredients. I measured out the bear fat and added an egg from the backyard chickens. Ellie stirred it all together. I popped it into the oven.

They aren’t the kind of knock-your-socks-off baked goods that feel like a religious experience when you take the first bite. They’re just solid brownies.

But when your hands have a part in nearly every ingredient, a humble brownie somehow tastes like more than a brownie.

Out in the Wild

If you happen to be roaming around free on the internet this week, here’s where you can find me.

How to Chicken-Leg for Blue Crabs (MeatEater)
I’ve been trying to find a home for this story for three years, and I’m thrilled it finally found one. It’s an ode to the way my cousins and I learned to catch crabs in the salt marshes of the Chesapeake Bay.

Looking Ahead

I’m working on two knife stories for Blade Magazine. One compares Santoku knives in the kitchen. The other asks hunting guides and custom knifemakers what actually matters in a hunting knife and what hunters often get wrong.

Hope you’re finding a little relief from the heat wherever you are. I’ll see you back here next Tuesday. Until then, get your backside outside.