After two weeks in a hermitage at the edge of the woods at St. Peter’s Abby…. reading strange and obscure text from the college library.. such as..

Very few recluses had chairs at all; at stone bench sufficed as a seat, and the greater number spent their days and part of their nights in prayer, mortification, and manual labour…(Anchoresses of the West, p. 40 )

I, on the other hand, had chairs, tables converted wood stove in which I roasted garlic for  cocktails at the hermitage. Also had expresso pot, wine glasses, toaster, bird food for the chickadees, redpolls. pine grosbeaks, bohemian waxwings. Had a visitation from woodpeckers, heard coyotes, and (according to Dave Carpenter who knows these things) a timber wolf.