A Run in With a Deer, Almost Literally.

So I was out taking the dog for a walk. He was trailing along behind me, possibly feeling like going for a walk in the heat was pure madness. Or maybe he just didn't give a fuck where we went today. I dunno. Whatever. It's hard to tell with dogs. I however was engaged with that lovely and important human occupation of thinking about all the things I could have been doing today but totally was not doing. We were just tooling along, when we got to the part where our path runs through a little grove of hemlock trees. You know that kind of patch were everything looks all Grimm's Fairy Tales.

So I glance up and realize there is a deer like maybe twenty feet in front of us. Naturally I freeze as not to scare her. But I only get a bare second of that weird exhilarated feeling you get when you see animals in the wild and then we both hear a twig snap somewhere in the deep green beyond her.

And then she starts running.

Right at us.

And when I say running I really mean that thing where they shove their white tails in the air and briefly defy gravity by leaping along in great bounds. It was about that point I start getting a hint that maybe this isn't such a good super magical thing to have happening right now.

Then she looks up and our eyes meet and her eyes are as wide as saucers and my eyes are as wide as saucers and then it seems like time has stopped for a brief second where she is all ears and eyes and I am all bug spray and dog and floppy summer hat.

Then she does a fairly smooth ninety degree turn and runs off aways into the forest where she does that thing where she shakes her tail a whole bunch and looks irritated. As though I had caught her at home in the shower or something.

Then I look at the dog and he looks and me and we are both like “did that really happen?” And then he smiled sheepishly and then I smiled sheepishly and then we got the fuck out of the forest.

Of course all this really made me realize that oh-shit-WTF is a pretty universal expression.

So is holy-shit-did-that-really-happen?

So I suppose this is where I should close with how lucky I am to have my farm where I can get to see wildlife up close and personal and how I never would have had the wonders and beauty of nature available to me if I still lived in the city, but really all I can think of is her face.

You know, that time when me and a 200 pound female doe briefly shared the same facial expression.

At least I won't need any caffeine this afternoon, though.

So there's that.

My Place and a Conversation with Grandma.

So a few days ago, when I was still hepped up on painkillers due to injuring my back, my family came to visit me and bring me pizza and make sure I wasn't laying in a field somewhere since Scott was at work that day. So they showed up and we shoved the mediocre fast food pizza of love and family into our faces and then had some of Grandmas home made cake that tasted like the breath of angels. Then we gathered up everyone and went outside because Grandma really wanted to see my chickens.

Considering the last time they had been to my place was way back when my dad was alive, there was a lot of changes. She was really super impressed with our stone walls, and seemed delighted with her great grand chickens. As we were wrapping up our tour I showed her the retaining wall. As she was gazing at the many tons of fucking rocks we had moved, she looked back the way we had come over the fields and into the sunset and said “you know what, after he died we never thought that you would stay.”

And then I said. “Of course I stayed, I love it here.”

Then we had to turn around and walk back because Granddad was tired from a long day and then I never got to say what I really meant.

Because when I said, 'I love it here', what I really meant that everyday is a new story in that anything could happen and that just yesterday the frogs that live in the small stream had stopped leaping away in fear from me and the dog because they know us now and that when I see the sunlight hot on the meadows contrasting the forests dark, and the shadows of the clouds rolling across the mountains that I feel so happy it's like my heart might burst and that the little patter of chicken feet behind me in the grass is the sweetest sound in the whole wide world and that this was the very thing I had dreamed of my entire childhood and it was what I always wanted and never thought that I would have, and that sometimes I feel like I can see the whole universe on a cold winters night and when I stand in that special spot in the meadow I can see the rolling mountains and it feels like the whole world is falling away from me and that if I closed my eyes and then opened them again I might be flying, and how I have learned where all the little birds keep their nests and watch them become the parents I know they have always wanted to be, and when I see the creek running cold and clear in the dappled sunlight on a hot day and then I peel off my socks and farm boots and put my feet in to the rushing coolness I feel just like Calvin and Hobbes must have felt had they been real people and or tigers and how every morning I wake up and see my own trees and know that whatever else happens in life this is my land and no one can take that from me.

Although, after looking at all we had done and all we had been through, maybe I didn't need to say it.

Maybe my land said it for me.

Maybe.

Caffine Optimism and a Good Day

Caffeine makes me optimistic about life. Really, it does. Today we visited our favorite coffee shop. I normally don't drink caffeine, but today I said what the hell and got a small tea. Then I came home, and decided to go hiking. Not that pussy kind with trails and shit either. The kind where you and the dog come home muddy and scratched up with sticks in your hair and you are both panting kind of hiking.

Did I mention having 30 acres is awesome? Because it totally is. (Except for the part about the unending spirit crushing maintenance that comes with inheriting a place that has been left to rot for a good number of years)

We saw a good number of wild turkeys in a field, which I did not get close enough to count because I did not want the dog to bananas and chase them. Also, I spotted the dog attempted to murder a gray squirrel, and I stopped to admire two of the three impressive waterfalls on the place. The sun was shining through the trees, and it was warm enough I didn't have to wear a coat, even if I had to wear a full set of thermals.

Then I played fetch in the yard with the dog. Well her version of fetch. Basically we chase each other around the yard like looney's and fight for possession of the bone, which I then dutifully throw for her.

After really exhausting ourselves, I put the dog inside and went and collected some eggs, warm from the nest, and gave both the rabbits and chickens some treats. This, this right here folks, is what life in the country is all about.

It's about getting eggs warm from the nest, and being tired at the end of the day. It's about being able to go out in nature and just be. It's about playing with and petting, and treating your happy healthy animals that come running when they see you. It's about watching a different sunset set every day and breathing in fresh cold air that doesn't smell like exhaust.

This right here is life in the country, and I'm damn proud of it.