An Autumn-Hike with Bri-Tyke

20 October 2007

I raised myself perforce at Eleven, having nabbed three hours sleep. Felt...fair. Needed nod-naps a couple in the day. A bit wobbly in the legs, but otherwise could swagger up and down some stony wooded hills. Bri-Tyke and Paleo-Nate, we Two, left as a twosome in the woodsum, comrades cantering on El Campo. Venison, celeryleaf, broccleaf and coffy in hand, I joined Bri in the car-ride to Dewelsmere, the Lake of the Devil, near Bara-BOO! He'd a wish to walk trail-less parkland south of the south entry. We footed off and up, clambering over stick and stone, leaf and loam. Our poach-eyes darted, perked for edibles, and squirrel and deer. Right off I found worms and grubs and fed me gob. Just swallowed -- no need to chaw. Except for lichen and barberries (which barred and pricked our way till we went mad), the main 'food' I found was mushrooms, and dared not eat any. On a hollow beheaded oak, I found steepling heaps of oyster-shrooms. So I deduced, but feared the produce. In cloying clumps, they grew with high-arched gills in the armpits of oak-limbs, in the cradles of forks and furrows. Ate no bite nor wit of any 'Fun Guys'. I did munch a morsel of hard shelf fungus, believing fungal bookshelves of kinder kindred. I'd much have preferred a soft Fun Gal morsel, but found no morels, only poison belles. Moulds without morals.

I urged Brian southwest and downslope, admonishing that a lowland stream or bog would give lusher eats. Down and down doddered we, dodging Goblin Town. No snip snap Black Crack nicked us. Instead, a golden halo fell from fall heaven over the tops of big-boled oaks and maples. Incandescent Lórien light lit the leaves in the gap of the sky. We stood between sunlight and shade, engirdled by pale-lit tree girths, soughing boughs, falling crowns. Fall of woodland kings. Death and day rustled down the dryad rexes.

As far down as the land fell before skirting Beaver Pond, we crossed a windling creek, and Brian shore and whittled himself a [maple?] staff. Meanwhile, I'd crossed the crick again where it elbowed west and sat on a large log to chew on venison roasted in pumpkin and maple sap. Behind me rose quiet grey cliffs, walls wrought of boulders. I sat between sunbeams and cliff-shadow. Hornbeams grew at the water's edge.

Squirrel-Bri nibbled on his nuts and frittered away fruit from his bag, sultanas from his sack. He shared the munch - for me a nunch where I'd broken my fast with feral buckmeat, flesh from the stag.

Waywise Brian now led us south and up, where we swivelled around pointy patches of barb-bearing barberries, which battened me as I ate them. Their 'thirst-quenching' foliage I tested, mandibling the juicy leaves.

At hilltop, we found a road and camp, then fled the toys of civilization, turning tail downward again. We bore back full upon the boredrill berries. My hazehead made my legs sway some, and my words trailed off their trails. Gravity gave grace to my footfalls.

Nearing the entry drive below, Fox-Bri marked (as in noticed san urination) where a former road had long ago run downhill past the Beaver Pond and beside the remnants of a dwelling.

Peckish Brian now wanted food, and he looked for it like a falcon from the driver's seat. Prolonging our hunger, we popped in Delaneys flea-shop which had more odds than ends. We found much of this and none of that.

A commensal meal was had by all in Or-e-Gond, which some name Gond-or. One settler, faltering and faint, had not eaten for many days. A morsel of maple-sweet venison healed his hunger and mended his weakness. The folly of fasting!

The world's only made of wonders. -Nathan Paul Hillman