The Gutter Was a Hollowed Log

There is a last kilometre on every walk and it is the one that asks.

What I had to give on it was tone, and staying alongside, and not stopping. Not one useful sentence in it.

The future of Ukraine was holding on to my hands. Children's hands. It is not a figure of speech.

A few tears of my own left over at the top.

Much of the span after that went into readying the place. Ordinary work, and a great deal of it.

The seven panels are up.

They came up the mountain behind two horses a fortnight ago and stood waiting since. Now they are mounted and feeding in, and the array is sixteen.

What they are for is hot water. The house runs camps for children over the summer, and hot water is not a small thing when a camp is running.

Two days went to the city — introductions, numbers written down, and the first invitation sent out for the English speaking club.

The first meeting was a hike.

Up the mountain. Blueberries, cherries, raspberries. Mushrooms.

Cows with bells on. Cheese, milk, yoghurt.

Then, in the grass off the path, a trough. A whole trunk, hollowed, split down one side, grey and lichened, a stone set under the low end. A little water is still standing in it. Grass is growing up through the water.

A hollowed trunk is not a thing that happens on its own. Somebody cut it, and somebody brought animals to it, and that means somebody lived within carrying distance.

The houses were further up.

One of them has an apple tree in front of it, still carrying fruit — small, green, unpicked. Behind the tree the roof is split shingle and half of it is down. The chimney is red brick and it is the straightest thing left standing.

Wild vine has come over the wall and into the roof. The doorway is open and there is nothing behind it but dark.

A second house is still whole. Log walls, a board gable, white window frames, a rail fence, stones packed under the corner where the ground moved.

The gutter on it is a hollowed half-log. Moss is growing the length of the inside of the channel, and behind the moss a season of needles has packed itself in.

Nobody explained any of it to me.

Most of what I have here is English and a few words of Ukrainian. Between the two of them I get through a day. Neither of them answers a question.

A few words, then. I do not know how I get from those to understanding, before winter.

The house is ready for the next camp.

Days 27–35 — Kompostieren — Soil and Peace
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | Soil and Peace | CC BY-SA 4.0
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