He cackles every time he talks about them and tries to scare me with their existence.  His Yetis have coyotes for pets and so whenever we hear their howls, they are nearby, examining our property, deciding whether they want to take up residence in our house.  He knows I have city girl sensibilities and others with my bent would be frightened.  But he counts on this being our little joke.  And it is.

If there are Yetis I’d probably invite them in, ask about their family and see if they drank coffee or tea.  I wouldn’t mind their muddy paw prints all over my kitchen floor and I could even abide their musty, earthen odor.  They would be other creatures, entities  with whom to interact, to converse with, to share a moment of intimacy in this forsaken vacuum called, The Country.

I’m being to hard on it, him, and them.  It is actually very beautiful here with mountains, creeks, lavishly colored sunrises and sunsets, but it is a far cry from charity balls and designer gowns.  But that’s what we have right now , so our Yeti joke comes off pretty well, especially since the other topic of conversation is whether it will be wet enough to burn the pile.

You ask what is this about.  It’s all about manicuring the woods, improving on God and then getting rid of the residue.  More exactly, it is setting fire to a hogan sized and shaped pile of logs which have been dragged out of the woods.  Conditions must be right or the rest of the 23 acres might go up in smoke.

So now our holiday is determined by when we can burn the pile because right now it is so high that my husband the “Yeti Lover” can’t throw more logs up to it’s  maximum height.  I try to pull a fast one on him in order to get us to the city for a celebration by suggesting that the Yeti have taken up housekeeping in the pile and if we burn it they will come stomping out, homeless.  Not unlikely for I’ve heard it’s happened at another pile where a mother bear and two cubs came lumbering  out when their home was torched by another one of God’s self-ordained forest landscapers.

I wonder if a chit chat with Yetis can compare with my visits with the two or three people I see each month as I luxuriate in our Eden off the beaten path.  There is the Australian woman who comes to shear our neighbors exotic sheep,  lambiepoos bread specifically for their extra rib cages.  She doesn’t seem to care less that her work tailors the victuals for most of the embassies in Washington D.C.  Grab, secure, shear the chest, toss, shear the back, resecure, shear the face and off it goes.  Problem is, all my well chosen questions go unanswered because the job, during which she loses an easy fifteen pounds, must be done in one day.  No time to waste.