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The Slow Yearly
The almanac tells me that today was National Dog Day. Our trio did seem to have an extra degree of strut in their collective gait, come to think of it. Bluebelle smiled at us this evening, her frontĀ teeth in a perfect circle. We had just called her off of Jinx, whose throat she was biting with unsettling gusto. And Jinx was pleased though nonplussed when I sang to him at the end of day. I sing a tune to him called The Jinx Song, lyrics improvised each time, to the tune of the old Oscar Mayer baloney jingle. The spotted feller’s pleasure probably sprang from the fact that this…
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Woden’s Day
This morning, I had just settled in at my desk to begin work when the power went out. Mrs. Orr received a text notification from the power company that they were working to fix the problem and provided an estimated time for service restoration. I sat and listened to the silence of the house — one forgets how much noise even passive appliances make, like the hum of the refrigerator, etc. — and then went outside on the back porch to sit with the dogs. The hummingbirds are busier than ever, loading up the precious nectar to strengthen their taut little bodies in preparation for the upcoming journey down to…
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The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Yesterday was our day to run errands, including mailing a birthday gift to my sister and shopping for a birthday gift for one of the grandchildren. Since the post office was closed on Saturday and since I had procrastinated in wrapping the gifts and packaging them, we had to resort to one of those UPS stores to get the thing shipped. I spent the morning wrapping each individual gift — small items that represent a variety of my sister’s interests — and then packing everything into a well-used cardboard box. I wrapped the box in plain brown paper and taped it thoroughly and added a hand-lettered shipping label. When we…
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Bears All Her Sons Away
I stepped outside with the dogs into a morning blanket of warm mist and fog, a sultry Woden’s Day in the mountains, and I breathed deep. The fog muffled the cow-calls and the birdsong, and the dogs disappeared into the gray air as they went to do their business. One of the female hummingbirds zoomed out of the gloom, right up to my face, cocking her head with a curious gesture that drew a laugh from me. She retreated to the feeder and breakfasted while I stood and absorbed the last quiet I would probably know on this particular day. I felt a tinge of sadness, and wondered why. And…
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All I’ve Got
I was working at my desk this afternoon when I heard Bluebelle whimper and fuss behind me. I looked back at her, followed her gaze, and saw a lovely young spike buck in the front yard, feeding on whatever caught his liquid brown eye. I watched him for a bit, took a few pictures, and then sat back down. When I looked up again, the buck was gone. He lives with a fully-grown six-pointer, two does, and a fawn in the woods behind our house. It is a never-fading wonder to watch such lithe, muscular beauty move through my world in such an unself-conscious way. And I am grateful. ***…
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A Day No Chests Would Swell
When I arose this morning, I tiptoed out onto the back porch and sat for a long time, listening to the mountains come awake, watching the woods and fields shake off the night’s humid blanket. I checked the dogs’ water dish and saw that some insects had perished there during the night. There were two daddy long legs, which have the habit of trying to drink from the dish at night and falling in and drowning, I lifted the little bodies with their curled-under legs and placed them in one of the flower boxes, where I knew the ants would soon find them and do their recycling job. Then I…
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The Value of Moments
This morning, this gray and dripping morning, I walked in a neighbor’s corn field, thick-grown with silage for his cows. Except for the soft sighing in the tops of the trees in my woods behind me, the silence was deep and cyclical, like a tide, like a black spot in space between two stars. I stood in the chest-high corn plants and listened, and heard nothing but breeze, and I listened again, and inexplicably, a song came into my head, a song I have neither heard nor thought of in years. I walked on through the corn and then at the perimeter found some bear scat. A calf watched me…
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Snippets
I let the dogs out into the back yard while my wife was drying her hair tonight, just as full dark settled down onto the green slopes. Looking north, I saw a series of silent flashes, looking just like artillery does from a distance. But the boom-boom-booms never came, never rolled towards me. Silent and silver. Heat lightning. I opened the door and called to Mrs. Orr, and she came outside. After we watched for a minute, I took two chairs down into the yard and we sat for a while and watched the quiet light show, including the lightning bugs that danced in the woods and along the fenceline.…
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Mother’s Day
First things first — a happy and blessed Mother’s Day to all of my dear readers who are mothers. May your day be peaceful and may your hearts find some happiness in thoughts of your children or of your own mother, even if you are in the midst of sadness today. I remember Mother’s Day in churches in my younger years. Many of the Protestant churches had a tradition where all of the mothers would receive a red rose, and the non-mothers and the adult men would receive a small rose bud…red for those whose mothers were living, and white for those whose mothers had died. Several years ago, I…
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Nearing The End of April
The days are longer, walking in with soft daybreaks and shuffling out with glowing coral sunsets, and the early, surprising heat has modulated itself back to where it should be, and it would be easy to unwind at least eighteen of the hours of the day outside under the dome of pollen and barnswallows and floating spider webs. I’ll get this out of the way first — I haven’t even tried to work on my memoirs for a while. There are some things, some images and events that are too evocative of too much rawness, and my instincts tell me to sidestep them for a little while until it’s time…