Pretty, I suppose? Verdant, at least. Whatever. Let’s look closer:

That’s right– they’re loaded with berries. Blackberries, and lots of them. And with this revelation, I’m hereby announcing the First Annual Crapshack Design Contest. We need a sign to put on an old wooden post and stick in the ground in front of these berries, something that says WELCOME TO THE CRAPSHACK. HAVE A FUCKING BERRY. And if you’re not a designer, well, should send it to all your designer friends, especially those who don’t mind getting paid in berries, and especially those who don’t have any crap for us, who should feel shamed enough to deliver something signedly wonderful.

But today’s richness is in more than just berries. We scored a Huge-Ass Pile of Beautifully Shaped Double Paned Windows. I don’t even know how many — 10, maybe? More? And don’t tell me to just count the panes, asshole, because our benefactors kept a couple.

They’re pretty nice, these windows, and cut in such a way that they’re never going to be mistaken for Crappy, but we’re not complaining. They’ve been sucked out of the frames you see below, because transporting a 25-foot-high frame full of windows down the road is a job for the chronically insane or the way-too-drunk. But you get the gist of it, surely– it’s going to be a glass palace among crapshacks by the time we’re through with the joint. And I can’t promise much (except berries, lots of berries), but I’ll bet the joint is going to simply SPARKLE.

Thanks to Dick and Barbara, who not only gave us these windows, but FED US and allowed us to dork around in their CANOE. Because, my friends, beggars CAN be choosers, and there’s nobody choosier than us. Very very sincere thanks and xo and as many berries as your stomachs can hold.

Now I know. You’re going to look at the photo and say So What? A fire pit, whatever crazy lady, go back to playing with your muscles.

You think I don’t hear you? Well, I do. I HEAR YOU.

Listen, look a little closer. See that grate? That’s the grate that makes sure we don’t burn down the whole damned forest. It’s the grate that makes sure we can start a new fire in the morning after it’s rained all night. It’s the grate we use to defend ourselves against the coyotes. And see those dishes at the top of shot? In those dishes were shrimps and asparagus and other dinnerstuffs, that, prior to making their way to our insides, were marinated to salivorating perfection and skewered over the fire whose dregs you see here, and all of it held in place by this, the Grate. Except for the cup. That had either whiskey or cranberry juice, depending.

But you get the point, right? The grate, in its own way, is the key to all happiness on the mountain right now. And I don’t mean “key” in the rosetta stoner sense. Actually, yes I do. Except for the stoner part. We’re too delicate for that shit. Precious, even.

I’m not sure where the Grate came from– all I know is that it’s heavy, and Scott toted it up the mountain on a sling he fashioned, which didn’t leave it any less heavy, only easier to tote. And he brought it up and said “Found this in a freepile.” And then we got busy.

So we’ve got a nice little camp set up now on Cooter Hollow, and are expecting another payload of Crap this weekend, which excites me greatly (or grately! ha!). But while I’m bragging, do you see the nice big flat rock at the top of the firepit? I pulled that bastard out of my garden. I mean, I dug ALL these rocks out of it, virgin soil, you know, but that one was exceptionally ball-busting. Which is why Scott mostly moved that one. But I still got a big muscle from it.

LOOK AT MY BIG MUSCLE:

But, okay, listen it IS a big puddle of mud. I know this.

But more importantly, this big slurp of mud represents the breaking of ground of Project Crapshack. And more accurately, it’s called a swale.

Stay with me here: do you see the muck to the right of the swale? That’s what our entire half-mile-long driveway (such as it is) was like. It wasn’t the bucolic grass-up-the-middle driveway of our dreams. It was a goddamned Muck Canal, and canals are for Roots and Venetians.

You see, there are lots of tiny little springs pissing out from beneath The Big Ledge, which is great, in that we’re not likely to die of thirst up there. But without anybody telling this water where to go, it just rolls right down the road. And so, we dug a ditch (the ditch you see here. Or rather, the SWALE.), gods of water that we are, and minutes later, everything to the downhill side of the swale dried up, miraculously (because we, gods of water, perform miracles with it, get it?)

I’m going to say that again for emphasis: we dug a fucking ditch, man. With shovels and teeth clenched and mud traveling to parts of our bodies that had never ever been compromised.

And the whole point of this entire mad diversion is, of course, that it’s begun. Groundbreaking, literally and metaphorically (and not literally AS metaphorically, like “I was so excited I LITERALLY shit myself. I mean, why do people say that? Do they not know that to be so excited as to lose one’s bowels is probably not something to brag about? But, in fact, is probably a reason to lock oneself indoors for a very long time.)

In any event, ground has been broken, selves have not been shat, and there’s more where this came from.

And just to celebrate the benefits of jailhouse labor, I’m introducing a brand new feature called CHECK OUT MY BIG MUSCLE. You can watch it grow!

It’s really quite nice — it’s full of big heavy iron compartments in which one makes fires, and who doesn’t love starting fires?

We like fires around these parts, and so we’re a big fan of anything that enables that. Cookstoves are particularly and rustically nice, especially given our current chances at coming anywhere near a “conventional” oven.

Of course, it should also be mentioned that this stove — er, this COOKSTOVE — looks quaint and modest, but pictures do lie because the bitch weighs about eleventy billion pounds. Remember wen I noted that this beast is full of big heavy iron compartments? Do you know how I know this? Because we had to move it last week, along with Stacey’s few and meager material possessions and Scott’s reliquary, comprised of a hundred thousand old quarter-inch audio tapes, a hundred crates of wires and cabling and a half ton of India BS546-to-Switzerland SEV1011 power adapters. Because you NEVER KNOW when we might inherit an Indian television station and decide to move it to Bern.

But do you know what this means? This means we’ve moved it all, and the quest for Crapshack-worthy materials begins in earnest. And it also means we need a beer, probably. As always, you’re more than welcome to give us one or both.

(A sidenote: if you click the link to the auger and look at those two guys, patiently drilling away at the earth as if there’s nothing to it, know that it’s a TRAP! Augers like this are designed for men whose bellies protrude enough to rest atop the handles and provide extra stability so that when the drillbit becomes lodged on a rock, you both don’t go flying down the hill while the drill continues rotating unsupported in some goddamned science fiction IT’S ALIVE scenario.) But back to it– we’ll have running water!

To celebrate, we went out and promoted ourselves a sink. It’s charmingly dumpy in looks, isn’t it? We found it at the side of the road freshly disposed of by the local vegan B&B, about which some off-color jokes regarding what may have been an imagined mild essence of tabouli lurking about. And if you know anything about my general dietary preferences, which I’m sure you do, you know that it’s no more off-color than anything else about me.

And the sink may be a dumper, but we got ourselves a whole pile of sink bling, of which this is only some.

These came from the Paula Pile, and will give the whole outfit a veneer of class. Even if we never, ever manage to scrub, bleach, or scour the tabouli smell out of the thing.

In the meantime, here’s some tile, of the edging or dividing variety. Scott just had this idea for a way fancy tub, whose incongruity in a Crapshack is just the sort that sits well with me, so maybe this tile can line that. Or maybe it belongs around a flower bed or cozy secret-garden bench. Hell, it beats me… I’m the sort that’d use it to spell out highly offensive words on the ceiling. And I may not be good at a whole lot, but I’d be willing to bet money that the offensive words I know are the most offensive words there are.

Speaking of money, on popular request, I’ve added a donation link at the side. If you really want to send us some Crapshack Bucks, and you just can’t sleep till you do, I’m no longer going to stop you. But if you really want to send some, you’d better send a whole lot.

How it got here: this, too, is from Paula’s Collection of Crap. What I’ve discovered in the first month or two of crap collection is that it’s really to nobody’s advantage but yours to hook up with benefactors with exquisite taste. One day I’ll post some of the other artifacts from Paula, and you’ll see that even the dropcloths are shiny and gorgeous.

These are all door accessories, in a sense. Knobs, bolts, handles, you know. I didn’t ask Paula why she had so many spare door parts, and I half expected to arrive at her apartment and find all her entryways naked out of some weird obsessive irrational aversion to door handles. But her doors looked perfectly clothed, so I don’t know, and it’s not my place to question. Because they’re ALL OURS NOW.

This is the first of what promises to be several featured items from the Pile of Paula’s Crap we inherited (with no short order of profound gratidude*) last week. Paula is brilliant in ways I’d disclose to you if that didn’t seem weird and effusive, given that she’s a former work colleague. But she also does wicked things with paper that you can see here. Among other things, she makes very clever cards, which you can buy from her and stuff with money and send to me.

Distance traveled: 300 miles of the scenic route

How it got here: well, I admit a sort of thrill at pulling the battered and bumpy truck in front of Paula’s doormen, loading up the cab country-transplant style, then really revving it hard as I pulled out.

(* That was a typo but a pretty good one, and has to stay.)

And it will make very fine wainscoting. Even though now, by association, I can’t think of the word wainscoting without giggling and going all red-faced. I know only a few words funnier than tongue-and-groove, none of which I can mention here without attracting the wrong kind of crap-benefactor to this web site.

But it’s very nice and we’re looking forward to you coming around to help us rip the nails out, and sand it, and cut it down to size. This is from Agi, with a thousand thanks for saving it from the fate of Erik’s fire-happy maw. Here’re a few of them lined up, with the mountain of more in the background.

Distance traveled: a few miles

How it got here: well, that’s not as interesting as what happened this weekend. We went to the future home of the Crapshack to clear out some space for the Pre-Shacking Trailer, which involved cutting down a few overcrowded little birch trees that are in the way. And let me tell you, I suffered what might have been some sort of manic fit, thinking that maybe I’m the kind of asshole who poisons frogs in his pond because they’re keeping him up at night. The kind who moves next door to the dairy farm because she loves the bucolic idea of the farm, without realizing that, you know, it smells like shit. Or the kind who cuts trees so that she has a place to live.

(I can mail you that Harpers piece if you don’t have a subscription)

But I’m no dummy when it comes to trees, and I know what happens when they’re overgrown. They start out ambitiously growing up with no support, in a futile attempt at a fresh breath of sunlight, then get sad and lose their fight for life and start to bend over and droop. And it’s best for everybody to thin some of that crap out. But still, you try taking a bowsaw to a birch who was never given a chance. And try doing so with a three-day hangover. In the rain that’s just about to turn to snow. And tell me you wouldn’t shed a tear.

That’s what I thought — heartless bastards. Let’s get back to dirty puns on shiplap, and pretend this little intimate divulgence never happened.

Later in the week, stay tuned for the kitchen sink. Or parts thereof.

But until the Crapshack generates its own electricity, in the Camper and Foundation Days, we’re going to need to suck the nacreous teat of the big black grid.

And for that, there’s a power transformer that runs all the way up to (and, as far as you need to know, ONTO) our Southeastern corner. And there will need to be a Meter Socket, like THIS ONE, the SLOT B to the transformer’s FLAP A. And no, we don’t care which slot or flap you prefer. All orientations are welcome.

Distance traveled: you know the story; same as this one and also this one. If you don’t, you should read it.

How it got here: it was in the back of the bumpy truck with the rest of the equipment from the mothership. We ripped this out of the ground on Christmas Day, which is what you do on Christmas in the southern parts. Shoot guns and dig in the mud and pillage from your own mother.