The next stone.
Mostly I like to spend my time building things. That feels productive. To labor and then to see the thing you’ve spent your time on, to understand how it has improved your place? That’s a good thing. This is a different kind of labor. Dragging a stone up that hill, not quite so far as the first one, but still, a span, isn’t building. It will be an improvement to wherever it rests, this is a stone that yearns to be seen. Revealing something is different from building something, but not by much.
We walked down the brook, stubbing our toes. It’s all different now, and we’re trying to figure out where to dam and to swim. We’re not sure yet, but there’s a few good narrow spots flanked by boulders by the biggest rock of them all. There’s massive glatial deposit in the middle of the forest, half again as tall as I am, surrounded by trees and covered in moss.
It’s a stone’s throw from the brook, and a short walk from the flat part we can build on in the future. It’s a good place, and there’s already a deer trail from there to home.