CIRCLE of LIFE

 From the R.M. Dolin novel, "An Unsustainable Life - The Book of Darwin"
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Chapter 16: Circle of Life

“Ya shoulda been there.”

“You should have waited.”

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

“I’d have come earlier.”

“You said this was 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 all.”

“When it comes to New Mexico little bro, it’s a Chicago kind of corruption; they figure I’ll sell them with a requisite flow-back in donations. As hard as it is to believe, each tag is worth ten grand.”

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

“Gave em away; well, to be more precise, I bartered them away.”

“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 Adirondack chair “So you got three elk, that’s got to be like a thousand pounds of meat?”

“Just over eight-hundred boned. I bought a freezer I keep it at Victor’s on account of not having the solar power to run that bad boy. Most of it I’m giving away. Victor’s organizing a banquet at the community center next month; he’s even gonna have a cooking competition for who can make the best elk entrée.”

“You gonna go?”

“He says I have to; folks here are hard over about that kind of stuff.” Darwin pauses to ponder his slow migration into his Norther New Mexico community. He eagerly restarts his tale. “You should have seen it, I mean words can’t come close but there we are, me and Mateo, opening day, the crack of dawn and I’m putting a sneak on this huge six-by bull. It’s muzzle loader season, right, so I gotta get real close and only get one crack at this monster. I’m so close I can smell him. I’m going slow and taking my time, but when that bull shows me his broad side, I pop off a shot, drop him where he stands. I’m putting his rack on the outside wall of my shed; Victor says I have to otherwise locals will think I’m some sort of east coast loony liberal.”

“And the other two?”

“Cows, one later that morning and the other the next day. 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 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, and all kinds of mix kits. I’m gonna be sending elk home with you so I hope your plane has room for a cooler.”

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

Ilene steps out from the kitchen carrying a tray of courtyard cocktails and happy hour hors d’oeuvres she 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 patents or malpractice suits are gonna drive you into bankruptcy.” Darwin sips his bourbon, nodding his satisfaction. “I shot three elk last week with my muzzle loader,” he explains, “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 or preservatives, your chemical dependent body will likely go into withdraw but don’t worry, I have Twinkies and soda in my emergency food kit.”

“We’re right there with you,” Ilene laughs. “Once Issac came, we started getting 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 chemical free meat. We have stopped using tap water though, not so much because it’s unhealthy but 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 says in disgust. “A little FYI the last time I visited would have been appreciated.”

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

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

“They say it’s a hundred percent pure,” Ilene adds, “but still, I 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 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.”

“Thanks,” Darwin says from the comfort of his chair. “The squirrels sure like it.”

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

“It is, the thing about it though, is each day has a charm, a hidden beauty if you’re willing to slow down and see it but there’s also a brutality in how nature behaves, every living thing is just a random wisp away from killing you or you killing it. After a while you learn to see a symmetry, a certain beauty.”

“There’s beauty in everything,” Ilene counters while taking in the magic of late afternoon sun working its way toward the Jemez Mountains on the opposite side of the valley. Darwin detects a subtle change in her mood. “It’s the natural order of things,” she continues. “The struggle to survive, to find happiness, the circle of life according to Issac’s favorite movie.” Ilene pauses, losing 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.” Again, she wipes tears turning to keep the boys from noticing. “I have to go unpack,” she suddenly announces walking directly into the house careful to avoid being seen.

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

“She’s just tired,” Vincent dismissively 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 amiss as soon as I picked you guys up.”

Vincent can’t hide is disappointment in his Pandora’s Box being opened. “You always were good at that sort of shit.”

“Well?”

Vincent walks to the edge of the courtyard, to occupy the space Ilene just vacated. “We’ve been trying to conceive,” he slowly confesses, “for quite a while actually and it’s putting a lot of stress on things. Medically the problem’s with her but she blames me. At first, I let her because I could see how hard it was for her, lately though, things are starting to get weird.”

“How?”

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

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

“No! That was just a one-time weakness, 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 actually thinks I’ve developed some secret male contraceptive pill.”

Darwin laughs, but not enough to displace the seriousness of the moment. “Guy who comes up with that’s gonna be a billionaire.”

“Yeah, well it ain’t me. There are medical interventions we could try, 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 like some kind of crazy lady about getting Gwen to be a surrogate. But not in a harvest her eggs and put them in Gwen once fertilized form of surrogacy, no, she 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-quarters Issac’s sibling. I know it’s just desperation talk, but that’s how weird things are getting.”

“I’m really sorry man.” Darwin offers as he walks toward Vincent, “she just needs time to come to terms. It’s really unfortunate, Issac needs a little brother so he can learn the fine fun of tormenting siblings.”

“Ha ha,” Vincent scoffs. “Here’s the other weird way our crisis is manifesting, lately she’s channeling all her anxiety toward Issac. You know dad raised us tough, no slacking, no tolerating bad behavior, discipline a must, responsibility essential. Ilene though is taking Issac in the opposite direction and it’s starting to ruin 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 really 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 a rewarding 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; you just need to give her time to sort through her tragedy. Someone who was once close to me said that when a woman finds out she can’t have kids it’s like a death they need to mourn; you just need to help her work through that process.” Darwin walks back to grab their drinks. “And 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.”

“Thanks,” Vincent offers while missing the dark segue in Darwin’s summation. “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 but no point quibble about calculus.”

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

“They’re still in the upper meadow. They’ll migrate down at some point but it’s still early. We’ll drive up tomorrow afternoon; the Cubs are playing the Brewers and my mountain meadow’s a great place to catch a game. They’re not relevant anymore, but the starting pitcher’s this kid they just brought up from Iowa who could be good for next year, so we’ll see. In the meantime,” Darwin adds with excitement, “let me show you my off-grid upgrades. Did you notice the passive solar panel I built?” 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 systems, 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. For example, that passive unit heats the house and my hot water supply. The inside of the panel is painted black to absorb UV rays, I circulate glycol liquid over the surface of a hot corrugated metal sheet; think of it 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 heats the glycol and the active panel powers the pump circulating sun-warmed liquid 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 solar panel’s hot glycol circulates through the heat exchanger in one direction, glycol from the storage tank circulates through in the opposite direction thereby exchanging heat. A separate pump connected to a closed loop series of radiator pipes I installed below the floors uses the hot glycol from the storage tank to heat the house. In a similar manner, my water-heater tank is also warmed. I can heat the storage tank with a gas-fired boiler if the sun’s not cooperating, but ninety percent of the time I run without burning carbon consumables. 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 far an elk tag goes.” Darwin pauses to sip his cocktail. “I gotta show you my new shop!” He excitedly gestures Vincent to join him along the flagstone path leading from the edge of the courtyard. Together they pass several piñon pines making their way toward a massive stucco building situated south of the hacienda back near where the forest first opens to the valley floor. It’s not until they’re a good distance along the flagstone pathway that Vincent can see the green metal roof and the stucco side wall facing them that has two tall garage doors with a walk-in door in between. “It was time to retire my festival tent,” Darwin explains as they walk. “It gave me five good years but between brutally hot summers, bitter winters, and mind-blowing Santa Anna winds, the weather took its toll.”

Darwin stops in front of the walk-in door. “It looks like a normal adobe building right, but it’s not, check this out.” He beasts his fist on the stucco wall. “Whadda ya hear?”

“Nothing,” Vincent answers.

“Exactly, that’s because this adobe building is a metal framed structure that’s lined with straw bales. Here,” 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 wall and in between is straw bales, the bales don’t provide any structural support but they’re phenomenal for insulation and as long as they stay dry and sealed, they won’t deteriorate.

“Once the bales were in place,” Darwin continues, “I wrapped the outside wall with tar paper under chicken wire that I stuccoed over. The inside wall I covered with chicken wire over heavy plastic that I plastered over. The thing you notice most, beside how it stays warm in winter and cool in summer, is how much sound just dies inside.” He ushers Vincent to the center of the single large dirt floor room. “Shout as loud as you can.”

“I don’t think so,” Vincent stubbornly says.

“Chicken.” In a loud bellowing voice, Darwin shouts, “I love my life!” He waits for his brother’s reaction. “See what I mean,” he says grinning. “It’s like a single sound wave leaves my mouth, hits the walls, and is completely absorbed. Pretty cool, huh.”

“Makes me want to line Issac’s room with straw bales.”

“I was skeptical at first, but the locals insisted this is a centuries old system. If you ask me, we’re just inviting packrats to move in and you know how I am about that. So, what I did to stay ahead of disaster is along the bottom three feet of both the interior and exterior walls I put perforated metal panels that have enough porosity for the stucco and plaster to stick but pores so small and thick mice and pack rats can’t chew their way through, it was a bit expensive but 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 shed; but if the rat-bastards do, I’m ready for em.”

“I laugh whenever I tell patents about your war with rats. Funny to find there’s still now truce.”

“You try co-existing with the rat-bastards. As Napoleon and others have learned, the invader can never be completely comfortable they’ve conquered an indigenous population. I’ll never fully eradicate them, but what I can do is 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.” Just then, the sun that’s been hiding behind a dark storm cloud bursts through casting bright beams of light through the shed’s many sky mirrors illuminating the room. Darwin points to the previously dark back corner, “Check out my newest toy.” In the back corner is a medium sized orange tractor equipped with a bucket loader in the front and a backhoe on the rear. “This bad boy’s got four-wheel drive and a diesel engine that’s beaucoup powerful and dependable.”

Vincent laughs, “makes me think of mom and dad watching Green Acres on TV when we were kids.”

“Wait till you see my beehives, then you’ll be convinced I’ve gone full-on Green Acres. Wanna start it?” Darwin asks as they walk up to the tractor. “Take it for a spin? Dig a hole or something?”

“Maybe later,” Vincent’s unsure what the allure of a tractor could possibly be.

“We got all week?”

“What the hell you need a tractor for anyway; you haven’t started farming have you?”

“To survive in the mountain wilderness a guy needs a tractor. The first few years I was content to just hunker down whenever my road got snowed in, but I decided I must make sure I can get out when I need to and this bad boy can clear my road to the highway lickety-split. And it’s not just that, there’s deadfall to move, and lately I’ve been collecting granite and quartz boulders to put around the courtyard.”

“I did notice those, very nice,” Vincent reconsiders playing with the tractor. “Sounds like you’re making excuses to justify your toy, kind of 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 that has to be fixed. You wait and see tomorrow when we go up, there’s places that’ll scare the shit out of ya; 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 have my wood pile far away from the house because I can just drive over to the pile and grab a bucket of wood whenever I need to and then just dump the wood by the back door. I use a couple bucket loads every 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 come down to decimate their rat-bastard colony, so you see, an entire ecosystem depends on this tractor.”

“It’s quite the little logic you use to frame coyotes as the good guys?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, amigo. Murphy makes sure they don’t drift too close and when they do, it’s only to snatch a field mouse so, no downside.”

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

“Starting to.” Darwin proudly asserts. “It takes a while for this self-sustaining stuff to click but once it does, it’s not really all that hard, you just need to be willing to work with what nature provides and once you do, you find out she provides everything you need.”

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

“Like most things, it’s so wrapped up in complicity I’m agonizing over what to do. A logging company wants to harvest timber from some sections of the property. The Juniper’s of no value and I told them straight up my piñon is off limits. That leaves ponderosa and I struggle with what to do. Obviously, I don’t need the money, so they can’t buy my consent. Idle trust-funders in Taos think I should say no to timber harvesting because 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 tomorrow, there’s too many trees and they’re too densely packed 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 logging company wants to harvest the strong trees because they provide more lumber. So, we’re at an impasse.

“I want them 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. The logging company wants 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 whole nasty business of having a major operation disrupt my tranquility, I don’t want bulldozers, tree cutting equipment, and semi-trucks tearing up the mountain. They talk about using helicopters to airlift harvested trees, but that seems cost prohibitive. Besides, they’d still have to build roads to get the harvesting equipment in so does it 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 risky and the forest just gets weaker, but then again, I don’t see myself reaching consensus so, I don’t know what to do.”

Vincent considers Darwin’s dilemma, “Obviously the forest has survived thousands of years without harvesting so your Taos trust-funders seem on track.”

“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. The thing about mature ponderosa is their bark in fireproof, they can survive a ground fire but not a treetop fire that results when the forest is too dense, that kills everything. 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 rather the timber company come in with their roads and equipment and do what they can to help me restore forest health; it beats the hell of doing nothing and just waiting for the entire mountain to go up in one big blaze.”

As the boys approach 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.”

“Actually,” Darwin continues, failing to get the pun, “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,” Darwin defends. “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 categorically states, enjoying his ability to tease his brother. “Gwen’s not gonna be happy,” he says shaking his head, “you know she has a thing for you, at least she used to.”