User:KevB-ing/Drafts/The Valley

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The Valley


Courier New again. Sitting at my station, my brim-&-band-only open-top remnant of a bucket hat on. Somehow it hearkens back to an era of green eye-shade visors and I guess serves a similar purpose of buffering the light of a lamp.

What gifts to bring to this page? Is it to be an alter today or a toilet for slops? Or perhaps just a humble page, a vessel for worlds through word to manifest.

Full screen focus mode engaged! Looks even more like a sheet of paper extending above an old manual typewriter. I never had much experience with ball type electrics, have mostly used older machines on the rare occasions that I have. Didn’t use the transition LCD line word-processor typewriters much either. Pretty much went to computers. But there was the formatting syntax period before “WYSIWYG” took over. Nice that LibreOffice lets one hearken back to such by making the formatting visible in blue glyphs. If one wishes, it’s off by default.

Courier New, new courier, carrying thoughts and such. To be delivered … ? Hard to say at this point. Probably the author in the future, if that, but – throwing kanje poems to the water – it makes for a practice regardless. And a joy and a pursuit. A diversion? No, not at present – as this is the thing which at present might be diverted from. “Something to do” but not a petite version. Something chosen. Elements of commitment – at least for now. A work, a working. A refuge.

~

A refuge. A small village of sorts nestled in a cleared section of the valley. Homes, more small cabins, tucked among stands of trees at and in the foothills. The main meeting house, dining and assembly, stands free on the flat. A few modest fruit trees and shrubs around it, but definitely not wooded like further up. It can be seen from all directions. The polished (and polyurethaned) copper ball below the wrought iron weather-vane rooster and its compass points serving as a sort of beacon marking, “Here it is!”, the heart of things.

Out back, beyond a gravel span and a short graveled utility drive stood the warehouse – fairly plain, blocky, and utilitarian. A sliding window at the corner housing a small office inside then double-doors on human scale and beyond them a big roll up on a much larger scale. Coming left off the gravel span and concrete pad in front of the warehouse the utility drive continued off to the left (when viewed from out back of the kitchen in the main lodge) to the “root cellar” at the base of the foothills. This cool storage was a clever piece of construction. A mark of pride in the community that one of their own had come up with it and that the rest had had if not the imagination then an acceptance of such to actually allow and accept and support its being brought to fruition.

From the outside one saw a pair doors like one might see on a barn styled wooden shed – white cross braces over a rusty brown – with that steeper to shallower shift to a peak as one might see on a barn as well. But this was just a brief extension out of an earth covered mound at the base of a hill. Little more than a facade. A clear stream ran off through a culvert and channel to its left to follow the undulations of the foothills and the slope of the valley. Little bridges and culverts at various points where paths extended to the various family cabins tucked into the cool sheltered tree lined slopes.

The stream came from a deep cool artesian spring that had been routed through a series of conduits and vaned heat exchangers around and through the cold storage rooms set in the hill. Well insulated and spring cooled, it never went above 55 degrees Fahrenheit inside in the summer or below 38 in the winter. A variety of root vegetables, gourds, squashes, and cheeses and other preserves made their home there. And there was talk of expanding it to accommodate a creamery and brewer’s fermentation locker as well.

The valley tended to angle from a bit south of west to a bit north of east. The southwest bit had the upslope narrows at the crotch where the foothills came together and things flattened and widened on their way to the northeast entrance. So, to the west of north a little about 40 or 50 yards from the more northerly face of ‘the lodge’ – to the right and ahead of the warehouse – stood a pump-house that had started as a small shed but was now a block building almost as large as a two car garage. It had a concrete pad on its far side for parking trucks and farm vehicles and whatever. Hoses were housed there for washing or filling as suited the need at hand and drainage had been configured so that gray-water leached through a gravely field and a marshy pond before joining the main creek-bed passing through.

Out past that there were pole-barns for farm equipment—and the community’s larger transport vehicles—as well as the mechanic’s/machinist’s workshop. Beyond that a bit of floodplain, the creek, the higher bank, and the lumber sheds and wood shop – accessed over some low wide sturdy bridges and an overhead cable system (for transporting materials, and the occasional person, directly to and from the shops).