February 6, 2024

This morning, I rolled out of bed and jumped in the shower, rousing myself for an early workout at the Wilson YMCA. The drive there was dark, but somehow the countryside still looked beautiful. As I headed east into Wilson, the moon was right in front of me. While the waning crescent moon showed only a sliver of light, it was bright, its light bouncing off thin lines of clouds. This illuminated the area around the moon and I could see the entire sphere, which looked like a perfectly shaded drawing in an art class.

After my workout, I dropped four books off at the Wilson Library, using their after hours drop box. The drive home was busier as people were awake and headed to work. I took a shortcut to avoid a school area that is always backed up.

During lunch, I took a short walk into the woods with my dog, Kilo. When we arrived at the pine grove, she stopped to sniff the remains of a red-shouldered hawk, which consisted of one long bone and a pile of striped black and white feathers. She caught something in the air and froze, staring at the area to the north. In an instant, she gave chase to three deer. I saw their white tails bouncing as they ran off. Kilo is a smart girl, and I knew she’d come back, eventually. To my surprise, less than a minute later, Kilo came trotting down the trail back to me.

The wind was blowing through the treetops, making a familiar whooshing sound. I love hearing this white noise on windy days. If you close your eyes, it sounds exactly like you’re on a beach, hearing waves on a shoreline, bubbling and foaming white. It reminded me of my life on the ocean when I lived on the shores of Maui, Cancun, and Puerto Juarez. So many memories triggered while listening to something I could not even see.

When Kilo and I arrived near the tree line, we spotted my ground blind. It was upside down about fifty feet from its sitting place. The wind had tipped it over and then blown it like a sail. I dragged it back to its original location and removed any branches it sat on. Kilo darted around the area, zigzagging, as she caught various scents in the air. We headed back in the house and I ate my normal lunch, a sliced cucumber with lime juice, salt, black and cayenne pepper, and hummus with smoked paprika.

After work, I went back into the forest where I had to pick up my blind again. This time I attached it to a post that’s used as a trail marker. I walked to the north end of the property by the creek and sat down for about an hour. It was cloudy and the moist air made it feel cold. I don’t mind being cold, though. I don’t think my body even shivers anymore. It’s just a part of being outdoors. Acclimatization is an interesting phenomenon.

I remembered training long ago at the police academy. They presented an old study where scientists took a box full of rats, shook them violently, and then threw them in a tub of water. Panicked by the unexpected shaking, most of the rats drowned. They also shook another group of rats without throwing them into the water tub. After a few days of repeated shaking, they were finally tossed into the tub, but they did not drown. They just swam around. The lesson was that because the rats had acclimatized to the mental disruption, they no longer panicked and could negotiate the water. Our training at the academy aimed to acclimatize us to stressful situations, something they called “stress inoculation”. Being outside so much seemed to inoculate me from the otherwise miserable elements.

When I arrived back home, it was almost completely dark. I could hear the dogs barking from inside the house and when I looked to the pasture, I saw the shadowy figures of a deer herd feeding in the field. I went inside the house, grabbed my keys, and walked to my SUV to grab a bag of deer corn. The deer, several hundred yards away, watched me. I switched on my headlamp and made my way back into the woods, where I dumped corn in piles. The next few days would be icy, and I knew the deer would look for accessible food.

I left a little corn in the bag and when I returned from the forest; I walked out to the edge of the pasture. At first, the deer watched me approach, but they soon spooked and ran off into the western tree line, disappearing from sight. I emptied the remaining corn on the east side of the pasture near a deteriorating hay bale I used to hold my archery target.

Just before I arrived at the front door of my house, my headlamp illuminated the eyes of a deer running out of the tree line, heading back toward the pasture. I saw the deer, then another, and another. I counted about seven pairs of glowing eyes, popping out of the trees, running in a single file line.

I looked out my office window about twenty minutes later with my rangefinder and saw the herd feeding by the bale of hay. I fired up the Traeger grill, throwing on a pile of chicken wings I marinated the day before with salt, pepper, and a dark porter beer. They turned out to be some of the best wings I’ve had in a while. I sprinkled Parmesan cheese on the juicy wings before devouring them. Of course, I saved four wings, hiding their meat under the dry kibble for the dogs. They thought the wings were pretty good, although the treat didn't surprise them. I’ve noticed that anytime I fire up the grill, they know they’re getting what we call “special dinners”.

I took a shower and fell asleep with my Kindle around 9 PM, after a FaceTime call with my wife. Tomorrow would be Wednesday, and my wife and I just had two and a half more weeks to go before being reunited. While time sometimes feels like it passes slowly, it stops for no one. The end of the month was moving steadily toward me, even as I slept.

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February 5, 2024