At a distance, I couldn't tell if that was a horse or a mule. I think a horse, as the other two in the pasture certainly were. Sometimes I like to take the long road home from town. Over the meadows and through the woods and over the streams and past the pastures and up and down the hills. There's always something beautiful to see.
And apparently we are doing a hella better than New York or Block Island, where they are roasting and sweating and seeing a bloody sun every dawn and dusk from the forest fire smoke.
Inwardly, here things are not as placid as they seem.
I have been increasingly suspicious of the couple living in the bnb across the street while they build their off-the-grid house. The woman seemed friendly enough at first. She said it had always been her husband's dream to live off the grid. She said she had grown up in upstate NY and had an aunt in NYC named Claudia. Upon questioning, she said they had lived in Massachusetts and moved here from Rhode Island.
Perhaps I asked too many questions or someone in town told her what I was (liberal, journalist, etc), or maybe her husband (?) shut her down, but she didn't want to talk to me any more. When I invited her over to see my place, she hurriedly said they had to meet someone. And then they went in their room and closed the blinds and shut the door. They spend a lot of time that way. When not carrying tools, presumably to their job site.
I looked at the license plate, and the car is registered in Missouri. She looks to be in her 40s, and he in his 50s. I started to think they were running from something. Ex spouses, or children or the law. I mean, what could they be doing in there all this time? Witness Protection Program? Fucking?
Then today my real off-the-grid Hatfield neighbor told me that the guy went to church with his cousin. He said the guy has a lot of guns. He said that the church was comprised of gun nuts, men, with at least 30 carrying during services. I had already noticed that the man across the street went off by himself on Sundays and had theorized that he was going to church. But why without "Ruth"? Now I am doubting that her name is Ruth. Wasn't that the name of the Biblical model wife? Not a popular name these days. And my neighbor said that his granddaughter went to the church once and said the sermon was ok but that martial arts class was part of the service. She has not been back.
The churchmembers believe that Covid-19 can be caught from those who have had the vaccine, that Bill Gates has implanted those people with magnetic chips and is tracing everybody. And now most of the people in the self-styled church have gotten Covid themselves, as have most people in the county jail and several people in Thomasville. Lord, lord, our population is only about 50!
Call me crazy?
"That couple is running from something," I said to my neighbor.
"Probably if the police ran the tags we could find out," he said.
But of course they have new tags, and we have no police.
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