CIRCLE OF LIFE

 From the R.M. Dolin novel, "An Unsustainable Life - The Book of Darwin"
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Chapter 15: Circle of Life

Darwin leans back in his blue-veined Adirondack chair pointing at Murphy who’s almost caught the squirrel racing for the piñon tree on the back side of the hacienda near where the long stack of split firewood ends. “Ya should have been there,” he says.

“You should have waited.” Vincent counters.

“It had to be last week, their rules not mine.”

“I’d have come earlier.”

“You said this is the only week that worked”

“I would have moved things around if I knew.”

“What can I say, I took you at your word. Anyway, it’s good I gave it a go without you. Next year I’ll know better about what the hell I’m doing.”

“You really got twelve tags? What the hell does the state think you’ll do with them?”

“In the Land of Mañana, little bro, things are run on a Chicago kind of corruption. They figure I’ll sell them to rich Texans and east coasters with the requisite flow back to Santa Fe. As hard as it is to fathom, each tag is worth around ten grand.”

“You actually found eight people stupid enough to pay that?”

“Gave em away. Well, bartered to be more precise.”

“That sounds like you. Did you at least get anything good?”

“I don’t cut firewood anymore. The rest is labor on retainer.”

Vincent flops back in his blue-veined chair “So you got three elk, that’s got to be like a thousand pounds of meat?”

“Just over eight-hundred boned and bagged. I bought a freezer I keep at Victor’s on account of not having the solar power to run something like that. Most of the meat I’m giving away. Victor’s organizing a banquet at the community center next month, he’s even gonna have a cooking competition to establish once and for all who makes the valley’s best elk entrée.”

“You gonna go?”

“Folks here are hard over about that kind of stuff.” Darwin pauses to ponder his slow migration into the valley community and the unfortunate responsibility involved in being named honorary cook-off judge along with Victor. “You should have seen it; words can’t come close. There we were, me and Mateo, opening day, crack of dawn. I’m putting a sneak on this huge six-by bull. It’s muzzle loader season, so I gotta be close and only get one crack at this monster. The brush is thick and dry, the winds are calm, so I move slow and keep quiet. I smell him before I see him, but then I do and I wait. At first the bull’s facing me so no real chance for a shot. He senses me but is not sure where I am. When turns and gives me a broad side and that’s when I take my shot. There’s so much black powder smoke I can’t see anything but once I can, I see I dropped him where he stood.

“It takes us an hour to get him field dressed. You think deer are work; wait until you get an elk. I’m doing a European mount for his rack. I don’t want to, but Victor says it’s required, otherwise locals will think I’m an east coast woose.”

“And the other two?”

“Cows, one later that day right at dusk and the other the next morning. Since I’m giving the meat away and cows taste better, I went with them. They’re much easier to hunt. It took Victor, Mateo, and me two days to process all that meat; we cut steaks, made breakfast sausage, dinner sausage, hamburger, spicy sticks, jerky, even salami. I learned so much I feel like I should move back to Chicago and open a butcher shop. You wouldn’t believe the equipment I had to buy; a grinder, stuffer, mixer, dehydrator, trays, a heavy-duty vacuum sealer and all kinds of mix kits. I’m sending a cooler of elk home with you, so I hope your plane has room.”

“The Mooney’s way under-weight, even for this altitude, so, no worries.”

Ilene steps out of the kitchen with a tray of courtyard cocktails and happy hour hors d’oeuvres she’s fixed from the few random things in Darwin’s kitchen. “What did I miss?”

“Darwin’s just boring me with made up stories about some safari he was on. Claims to have killed a monster bull elk with his bare hands.”

Darwin smiles at Ilene while offering her his chair. “As usual, little bro almost gets it right. I hope for your sake he’s better with patients or malpractice suits are gonna bankrupt you.” Darwin sips his bourbon, nodding in satisfaction to the bartender. “I shot three elk last week with my muzzle loader, which means we’re having grilled elk steaks for dinner. Hope you’re okay with that. Trust me, it’s a delicacy. Grass fed, hormone free, no antibiotics, preservatives, or food dyes. Your chemical dependent body will likely go into withdraw but should that happen, I have Twinkies and soda in my emergency food stash.”

“We’re right there with you,” Ilene laughs. “Since Issac went to solid food, we get our dairy and eggs from an organic farmer in Wisconsin. We do the same with fruits and vegetables but it’s pretty much impossible to find clean free meat. We’ve also stopped using tap water. Not because it’s unhealthy, because I found out it comes from the sewer treatment plant and there’s just no way I’m drinking that after where it’s been.”

“Serious!” Darwin shouts. “A little FYI the last time I visited would have been appreciated.”

Vincent stirs his gin and tonic. “We told you to use bottled water.”

“I thought you were being pretentious. Who would have thought the shit Chicago uses for drinking water literally comes from shit. There’s gotta be some way-wicked payola behind that.”

“They say it’s a hundred percent pure,” Ilene adds. “I just can’t get past where it’s been.”

“Amen to that sister,” Darwin affirms.

Ilene walks to the edge of the courtyard for a better look at the new zero-scape lawn that naturally melds with the forested base of Marquez Mountain. “You’ve done so much with the place since last time we were here.”

Darwin settles back into the comfort of one of the courtyard’s folding chairs. “Thanks, the squirrels seem to like it.”

“It must be nice living this close to nature.”

“It has its charm, a hidden beauty if you’re willing to slow down and see it. There’s a brutality about it though that’s for certain, the unseen way every living thing is either trying to kill you or you’re trying to kill it. After a while you learn to appreciate the symmetry.”

“There’s beauty in everything,” Ilene counters. She allows herself a moment to take in the magic of the late afternoon sun working its way toward the Jemez Mountains on the opposite side of the valley. The imposing storm cell moving toward them though presents as ominous.

Darwin detects her subtle mood shift. He looks at Vincent certain he must see it too, but his brother is more focused on his cocktail than his wife.

“It’s the natural order of things,” Ilene continues. “The struggle to survive. To find happiness. The circle of life according to Issac’s favorite animation.” Ilene loses herself to a private moment of melancholy. “Yes, there’s death. Always disappointment. But first there’s life.” She wipes away tears. “When life is possible that is.” She again wipes away tears, turning further from the boys believing no one notices. She hurries toward the house carefully hiding her face. “I have to go unpack.”

“Everything alright?” Darwin asks Vincent once Ilene’s inside.

“She’s just tired,” Vincent offers hoping that prevents further probing. “We hit a bit of turbulence over the Rockies and the drama drained her.”

“I mean between you two. I sensed something as soon as I picked you guys up.”

Vincent can’t hide his disappointment in the Pandora’s Box Darwin’s determined to open. “You always were good at that sort of shit.”

“Well?”

Vincent walks to the edge of the courtyard occupying the space Ilene just vacated. “We’ve been trying to conceive. For quite some time now. It’s putting a lot of stress on our marriage. Medically the problem is with her, but she blames me. At first, seeing how hard it was, I let her blame me. Lately though, things are getting weird.”

“How?”

“It started when the hospital hires this new nurse.”

“God-damn-it Vincent!” Darwin shouts. “Not again.”

“No! That was one-time. A man shouldn’t be judged forever for one mistake. I tell Ilene that all the time but it’s becoming increasingly hard for her to hear me. She accuses me of intentionally preventing her from getting pregnant because I’m gonna leave her. She thinks I’ve developed some secret male contraceptive pill.”

Darwin laughs. “Guy who comes up with that’s gonna be a billionaire.”

“Well, it ain’t me. There are medical interventions, like IVF, but Ilene’s not there yet. We’re still in the denial and blame me stage. Get this though, on the flight down she starts going off with some kind of crazy lady crap about getting Gwen to be a surrogate. Not in a harvest her eggs and put them in Gwen once fertilized form of surrogacy, no, she’s all about how the baby needs to be conceived naturally; that I have to have sex with Gwen. The calculus in her mind is the baby will be three-quarter Issac’s sibling. I know it’s just desperation talk, but that’s how weird things are getting.”

“That is weird and I’m way sorry. She just needs time to come to terms with things. It’s unfortunate though, Issac needs a little brother so he can learn the fine fun of tormenting siblings.”

“Ha ha,” Vincent scoffs. “It gets worse. Lately she’s channeling her anxieties toward Issac. You know dad raised us tough. No slacking. No tolerating bad behavior. Discipline a must; responsibility essential. Ilene’s taking Issac in the opposite direction and it’s ruining him. I try talking to her about how boys need to be raised different but all it does is start a fight.” Vincent turns to face his brother. “I’m worried Darwin, worried for me and for Issac that if-” He takes a moment to compose himself. “I suggest counseling but that only starts another fight; it’s the one thing we’ve gotten good at. I’ve been hoping a week at your wilderness retreat can help turn things around but as you can see, we’re not off to an encouraging start.”

Darwin puts his hand on Vincent’s shoulder. “You’re a good father and if you’re not diddling that nurse, a good husband. Things will work out. Ilene just needs time to sort through her tragedy. Someone close to me once said ‘when a woman finds out she can’t have kids it’s like a death and they need to mourn.’ Just make sure you’re there for her as she works through her process.” Darwin walks back to grab their drinks. He returns handing Vincent his gin & tonic. “You’re right, a man shouldn’t be judged by his mistakes if he earnestly tries to make amends. We all fall, it’s how we rise that matters. Someone’s been reminding me of that lately.”

Vincent is too caught up in his trauma to recognize the dark drama Darwin’s hinting at. “Thanks,” he says. “I trust you’ll keep this between us?”

“Don’t I always?”

“That’s why you’re my favorite brother.”

“It helps I’m your only brother,” Darwin counters. “But no point quibble about the algebra.”

Vincent seizes his opportunity to move on. “When am I going to see your mustangs?”

“After first snow the herd migrates down from the high mountain meadow. Since I haven’t seen them here, I assume they’re still up there, which should mean it hasn’t snowed in the higher elevations. We’re not far off, early fall storms form fast and pack a lot of force. We’ll drive up to the meadow tomorrow. The Cubs play the Brewers and that’s the perfect place to catch a game. They’re not relevant anymore but the starting pitcher’s this kid they brought up from Iowa who could be a difference maker next year. In the meantime,” Darwin adds with excitement, “let me show off some of my upgrades. Did you notice the passive solar panel I installed?” He points to the black rectangular box on the roof above the kitchen facing south at a sixty-two-degree tilt toward the sky.

Vincent studies the panel. “I know there’s active and passive solar, but I’m not sure about the difference.”

Always an engineer, Darwin eagerly engages. “Active solar uses photo-voltaic cells to convert UV rays into electricity through an inverter. We’ll get to those upgrades later. Passive solar relies on heat transfer.” He again points to the unit on his roof. “That bad boy heats the house and my hot water supply. The inside of the panel is painted black to absorb UV rays. There’s a sheet of corrugated metal along the base that I circulate glycol liquid over. Think of glycol as residential antifreeze with good thermal properties. It’s hard to see from here but there’s also a small photo-voltaic panel up there to power the glycol pump. It’s quite an ingenious system. When the sun’s out, the passive panel gets hot inside, which in turn heats the glycol. The active panel powers the pumps that circulate hot glycol to a heat-exchanger I installed in the utility room. When the sun disappears, say at night or during a storm, the passive panel stops heating glycol, and the active panel stops powering the pump ensuring cold glycol doesn’t get sent to my heat exchanger.

“As the hot glycol circulates through the heat exchanger in one direction, glycol from the storage tank circulates through the exchanger in the opposite direction heating the liquid in the storage tank. A separate pump connected to a closed loop series of heat pipes I installed below the floor circulates the hot glycol from the storage tank throughout the house. In a similar manner, my water-heater tank is also warmed. I can heat both tanks with a gas-fired boiler if the sun’s not cooperating, but ninety percent of the time I run without consuming carbon. Zero footprint dude, that’s the goal of a self-sustaining life.”

“Very impressive, and you did all this yourself?”

“Mostly, although recently locals are lining up to help. You’d be surprised how much work you can parley off an elk tag.” Darwin finishes his cocktail. “I gotta show you my new shop!” He gestures Vincent to join him along the flagstone path leading from the edge of the courtyard toward the festival tent. The flagstone path snakes past several piñon trees that are dwarfed by their taller ponderosa cousins. As they make their way south of the hacienda back near where the forest first opens to the valley floor, Vincent is so busy taking in all of Darwin’s landscaping he doesn’t initially notice that the festival tent’s been replaced by a massive stucco structure until his spots the green metal roof. The stucco side wall facing them has two high-bay openings with off-white roll-up doors. In between the high bays is a smaller walk-in door with the same color. He stops to stare in disbelief.

“It was time to retire the tent,” Darwin explains. “It lasted five years longer than the salesman estimated but between brutally hot summers, bitter winters, and mind-blowing Santa Annas, nature finally did what nature does.” Darwin stops in front of the walk-in door. “Looks like a normal adobe right, only it’s not, check this out.” He beats his fist on the stucco wall. “Whadda ya hear?”

“Nothing,” Vincent answers.

“Exactly, this bad boy’s a metal framed structure but lined with straw bales. He stops Vincent partway through the doorway. “Look how thick the walls are, over two feet. You can’t see the frame because it’s stucco on the outside and plaster inside but there’s a vertical truss every eight feet along the length of each side wall with horizontal runners connecting them. In between the trusses I stacked straw bales. The bales don’t provide structural support but they’re phenomenal for insulation.”

“Won’t they eventually rot?”

“That’s what I said, but the locals say not as long as they stay dry and sealed. Once the bales were in place I wrapped the outside part with a double layer of tar paper and the inside with heavy plastic sheets. I screwed sheets of perforated metal mesh to the horizontal runners on the outside then used tie-wire I stuck through the straw bales to tie those perforated sheets to perforated sheets on the inside. Then I stuccoed the outside wall and plastered the inside wall. The thing you notice most, beside how it stays warm in winter and cool in summer, is how sound just dies inside.” Darwin ushers Vincent to the center of the single large dirt floor room. “Shout as loud as you can.”

“I don’t think so,” Vincent says.

“Chicken.” In a loud bellowing voice, Darwin shouts, “I love my life!” He waits for his brother’s reaction. “See what I mean. It’s like sound waves leave my mouth, hit the walls, and are completely absorbed. Pretty cool, huh.”

“Makes me want to line Issac’s room with straw bales. You have any idea how loud ten-year-olds are?”

“I was skeptical about the whole straw bale thing, but locals insisted it’s a centuries old system. Ask me, we’re just inviting packrats and you know how I am about that. That’s why to stay ahead of disaster I lined the interior and exterior walls with the perforated metal panels. They have enough porosity for the stucco and plaster to stick but the pores are so small and thick mice and pack rats can’t chew their way through.”

“That must have been expensive?”

“Can you really put a price on peace of mind.”

Vincent chuckles. “Only you would go to such extremes.”

“Not only that but I got my poison tubes scattered around both inside and out, and I’ve trained Murphy to chase rodents. As an added measure, I allow coyotes to come by and clean out the wood pile. That’s where the rat bastards set up base camp last year so if the coyotes can keep them in check, it reduces any potential they’ll wander into my shop. If they do though, I’m ready for em.”

“I laugh whenever I tell patients about your war with rats. Funny to find there’s still no truce.”

“You try co-existing with them. As great conquerors like Cesar and Napoleon eventually learn, invaders can never be completely comfortable they’ve conquered an indigenous population. I’ll never fully eliminate my rodentia problem, but at least I can keep them out of my space.”

“Only you could turn a rat infestation into some sort of Geo-political struggle of good versus evil.”

“That’s exactly what it is my brother.”

The sun, who’s been hiding behind that fast-moving storm cloud, suddenly escapes casting bright beams of light into the shop through the many sky mirrors sprinkled around the roof. As the room illuminates, Darwin points to the previously dark back corner. “Check out my newest toy.” Like a spotlight shining on a lone ballerina, a medium sized orange tractor equipped with a bucket loader in the front and a backhoe attachment appears from the dark. “This bad boy’s got four-wheel drive and a diesel engine that’s both powerful and dependable.”

Vincent laughs. “You’re totally channeling mom and dad with your own version of Green Acres.”

Darwin walks over to his tractor making sure Vincent follows. “Wait till you see this guy dig a trench or load rocks, you’ll be convinced I’ve gone full-on Mr. Haney.” Darwin checks to make sure the keys are in the ignition. “Wanna start it? Take it for a spin? Dig a hole or something?”

“Maybe later.” Vincent’s unsure what the allure of a tractor could possibly be. “What the hell you need with a tractor, you haven’t started farming have you?”

“To survive this mountain, a man needs a tractor. I was content at first to hunker down when it snowed but lately, I need to make sure I can get out and this bad boy can clear my road all the way to the highway lickety-split. There’s deadfall to move and since summer, I’ve been moving granite and quartz boulders around the courtyard.”

“I did notice the boulders, very nice.” Vincent plays with the backhoe’s controls. “Sounds like you’re making excuses to justify your toy, like how you tried to convince dad you needed a motorcycle in high school.”

“After a monsoon rain the road up my mountain gets all kinds of nasty. You wait and see tomorrow when we go up, there’s places that’ll scare the shit out of you. Ya look out the window and all you see is a drop-off several hundred feet down. Ya gotta repair those spots or things get dicey.

“Ah ha,” Vincent mocks.

“And the best part,” Darwin continues. “Having this bad boy lets me keep my wood pile far away from the house. I can just drive over to the pile and grab a bucket of wood whenever I want, then dump the wood by the back door. I use a couple bucket-loads a week, so no more hauling by hand. And because the wood pile is away from the house, the rats are too, and the coyotes are more likely to do their decimation dance. The success of my entire ecosystem depends on this tractor.”

“It’s quite the little logic you got going. You even managed to cast coyotes as the good guys?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, amigo.” Darwin decides to check the tractor’s oil. “Murphy makes sure the coyotes don’t drift too close or hang around too long but as long as they grab a mouse or two, there’s no downside.”

“You have it all figured out don’t you.

“Starting to.” Darwin states. “It takes some time for this self-sustaining stuff to click but once it does, it’s not that hard. You just need to be willing to work with what nature provides. Once you do, you find out she provides everything you need.”

The boys start back toward the courtyard with late afternoon sun beginning its descent behind the Jemez Mountains. “Tell more about this timber deal you mentioned on the ride in?”

“Like most things,” Darwin begins. “It’s so wrapped in complicity I’m agonizing over what to do. A logging company wants to harvest timber from my mountain. The low elevation juniper is of no value and I told them straight up my piñon is off limits. That leaves ponderosa and I struggle with the best management practice. Obviously, I don’t need the money, so they can’t buy my consent. The idle trust-fund crowd in Taos think I should say no to timber harvesting, they say no to any kind of resource utilization and on some level I agree.”

“The conservationist in me says I’m sitting on a tinder box that’s waiting to ignite. If I get a just-right lightning strike or blow-over from some other fire, my mountain’s gonna go up in one all-consuming blaze. You’ll see when we drive up the mountain tomorrow, there’s too many trees and they’re so densely packed it’s causing most to be stunted and weak. For proper land management I need to thin the forest. The problem I’m having with the logging company is I want the weaker trees harvested so the strong can thrive. The loggers want to harvest strong trees because they provide more lumber. So, we’re at an impasse.

“I want the loggers to reduce the density of trees per acre from over two hundred to something like twenty, maybe fifty. That’ll really open the forest for sunlight and growth, which in turn provides better food sources for wildlife habitat. The loggers want to clear cut; harvest as much timber per acre as they can because it takes time and money to move from one location to another, so that’s another impasse.

“Then, there’s the nasty business of having a major operation disrupting my tranquility. I don’t relish the idea of bulldozers, tree cutting equipment, and semi-trucks tearing up my mountain. They talk about using helicopters to airlift harvested trees but that seems cost prohibitive. Besides, they’d still have to build a network of roads to get the harvesting equipment in so does it even matter if they truck it out. Then there’s the issue of what to do with the stumps and branches. I contend they need to grind the stumps and mulch the branches. They say it costs too much.

“In the end, I want what’s best for a healthy forest. Leaving things as they are is not really an option, it increases the fire danger as the forest continues to get weaker. Then again, I don’t see myself reaching consensus with the loggers so there is that.”

Vincent considers Darwin’s dilemma. “Obviously the forest has survived thousands of years without harvesting so the loony libs have a point.”

“Oh, contraire mon ami,” Darwin counters. “Prior to environmentalists hijacking healthy land management, experts estimate every acre of Northern New Mexico wilderness burned every eight years. That cleaned out the underbrush and got rid of weak trees. Mature ponderosa bark is fireproof; they can survive a ground fire but not a treetop fire. Tree top fires happen when a forest gets too dense. Once a fire goes tree-top the entire ecosystem gets destroyed for generations. Because environmentalists have been fighting forest fires for the last hundred years, we’re in this all or nothing predicament and it’s only a matter of time before it all burns down. My mountain is languishing on death row, and I want to stay the execution, I just don’t know how. If push comes to shove, I’d let the loggers in with their roads and equipment and do what they can to help me restore forest health, it beats the hell of just waiting for the entire mountain to go up in one big blaze.”

As the boys return to the courtyard along the flagstone path, Darwin drops the bombshell news he’s been tacitly avoiding all afternoon. “I don’t know if you noticed, I took out four elk steaks for dinner.”

“I assumed you were hungry,” Vincent mocks. “All this wilderness survival stuff must work up an appetite.”

Darwin fails to get the pun, “Actually, there’ll be a fourth for dinner.”

“And her name is?” Vincent teases.

“Anna,” Darwin sheepishly answers.

“Ou la la,” Vincent laughs. “How long has this been a thing?”

“It’s not a thing. She’s someone I enjoy spending time with.”

“More than the others? What was the last one’s name, Adrian?”

“Addison,” Darwin corrects. “I still see her, although not so much anymore.”

“Because. . .”

“I enjoy Anna’s company more.”

“Then it’s a thing,” Vincent enjoys being able to tease his older brother. “Gwen’s not gonna be happy.” He shakes his head. “You know she has a thing for you. At least she used to.”