Pioneering
After recently camping in gale force winds, I am quite certain that if I’d been given the chance to pioneer the westward expansion or jump off a cliff, I’d have chosen the latter.
On a blustery day (wind whipping across the campsite), keeping the fire pit alive BLOWS. We sit close enough to turn our knees into molten lava. All other body parts are still cold. If you wear a hat, it is either blown off, or serves no purpose in keeping your hair out of your mouth. Imagine Medusa with a hat on. Now that’s effective. Not.
Smoke follows you, no matter where you sit in relation to the fire, and clings to you on a cellular level. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G reeks of smoke - hair, skin, outer clothing, inner clothing, undergarments, eye glasses, ponytail elastic, and your watch, too. There’s no escape from the smoke, wind, cold, or molten lava knees.
Chemistry 101: OXYGEN (WIND) CAUSES FIRE TO DEVOUR ANYTHING IN ITS PATH. For research buffs, look up The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 where more than 3 miles of the city was destroyed. Winds 30+ mph gave our fire little chance of providing warmth, or lasting very long. We were constantly poking the coals and adding more wood. We burned through our wood pile so fast that we had to search for and drag downed tree limbs to our campsite and CHOP them. We keep a small axe in our camper. Had I known I’d have to chop enough wood to build a little house on the prairie, I would have packed a bigger axe.
I did plenty of chopping, and I’m not very good at it. I swing with gusto, but I can’t seem to hit the same spot twice. That makes for a lot of axe swinging, which has the potential to generate body heat, but it’s minimal in GALE FORCE WINDS. You know what? If you swing a small axe just right and hit a sweet spot on the log, it slices like butter. This can smash any number of fingers into the log, leaving one or more bloody gashes. Thank God I packed bandaids.
Relentless wind dries the hell out of your lips. No amount of Chapstick can prevent this. You need whale blubber. It can heal cracked lips as well as turn your campfire into a raging inferno.
We had no whale blubber.
The kids kept asking, “Can we go in the camper yet?” Why didn’t we adjourn to our 40’ camper that was parked 20 feet from the fire pit, complete with heat, TVs, games, food and drink? Because we’ve been inside for most of the past year due to the pandemic, and we were determined to tune our brains into green space.
At some point, my husband announced that he ‘needed a break’ and he disappeared into the camper. Wait a sec. He needed a break? What did the pioneers do when dad was irritated by the cold, wind, and smoke? Was he allowed to adjourn to the covered wagon? Is that why every photo I’ve ever seen from that time period shows a mother who looks royally pissed off?
I was left to oversee three boys and tend the fire. The older two started talking about bra cup sizes, and the younger one walked away grumbling, “That’s gross. Who cares about that?”
I knew it was time for wine.
Had I remembered that wine could warm me up, I would have had it for breakfast and lunch, too. Who needs whale blubber when there’s wine? Most people don’t want to kill a whale anyway. How much work would that be, and all that WIND on the open sea? And the CHAPPED LIPS?
God must have known I’d die as a pioneer, so he saved me for a later time. Praise Him.
Whale blubber? No.
Wine.
