January 13, 2024
I didn’t sleep well last night. Yesterday, I woke up feeling a little under the weather, and this morning it was clear that I was sick. My wife let me sleep in and I didn’t get out of bed until 6 AM.
After grabbing some coffee, I sat down with my wife at the breakfast table. She was sick, too. She probably caught a bug from the clinic and brought it home. While I’m around few people, she sees hundreds of sick patients every week. Still, I had no complaints. I had not been sick since before the COVID pandemic, and for the past several years, I haven’t had the flu or even a cold.
Still groggy after coffee, I cleaned up my writing desk and got to work hammering on the keyboard. While I didn’t feel like being overly active or outside in the cold, I felt well enough to squeeze out about one thousand words. Feeling tired towards the end of my writing session, I put both my computer and myself to sleep for about half an hour.
The weather was clear, but it was very windy. My wife and I needed to take some food scraps to the feeding areas for the local wildlife, so we grabbed two dogs, Kilo and Koda, and headed into the woods. Just as we entered the pine grove, my wife and Kilo spotted a pile of hawk feathers. We checked the area out and it was clear something killed and devoured a large hawk. Since we were carrying food, which included tomatoes, pears, and bread, I decided I would come back later to inspect the carnage.
The walk was fun and while the humans took it slowly, Kilo and Koda tore up the trails. While both dogs move swiftly through the woods, I gave me a special pleasure to see Koda running through the brush and trees. Several months ago, he had a spinal cord injury, and we weren’t sure if he was going to regain use of his back legs. We even had discussions on whether he needed to be put down, but alas, steroid treatments brought him back to a solid eighty-five percent of his former self. Now, the dog that I would hold up to keep him standing, and walk his hind legs with my hands hoping his brain would remember how to move, and press my hand against his stomach to activate his bladder so he could relieve himself, that dog now raced past me at blinding speeds.
When we returned to the house, I got back to writing, finishing up an article about a dream I recently experienced. The rest of the day was lazy and quiet as we downed medicine with the precision of a Swiss clock, trying to give our body the rest and nutrients we needed. For lunch, my wife prepared an amazing ox tail soup from a recipe she learned from my mother when she lived with us in Texas. It was just what the doctor ordered.
Axel, our youngest dog, had been restless lately, so before the last light, I took him out into the woods to romp and play. We stopped to inspect the hawk feathers, exploring the site more carefully. There were three of four piles of the black and white feathers where something had moved the enormous bird from place to place while feeding. Now, the only things that remained were several feathers of different sizes, and a hip bone that connected to what used to be the hawk’s back and wing. The bones looked clean, and the parts that were left spanned almost two feet, which was just one side of the bird. There were two hawks that lived nearby, and I wondered if we had lost one of them. What ate the bird and how did it catch an enormous hawk? Nature can be both beautiful and brutal.
In the woods, Axel and I developed a game, where while Axel was ahead of me on the path, I would dart off the trail and hide behind a large tree. The moment my footsteps went silent, Axel knew his job. He zigged and zagged with his nose in the air and on the ground until he found me, jumping on me, licking my face while his tail wagged uncontrollably.
Along a part of the trail that is long and straight, I let him roam ahead about fifty yards. Then, I took off running in the opposite direction as fast as I could in my boots along the uneven trail. As I was running, I would turn back and see him a hundred yards away, on the chase. A few strides later, I turned again, and he had cut the distance in half. I ran my fastest and within seconds, I could hear his feet hitting the ground behind me. He blew past me at lightning speed, and as soon as he did, I turned in the opposite direction and started the game again. We did this six or seven times until we were both winded. I decided I would not want a wolf or coyote, or Axel, for that matter, chasing me down for a meal. A running human wouldn’t stand a chance.
After arriving back at the house, I took Bodhi outside and kicked the ball for him. In the backyard lives a deflated basketball, which is two of our dog’s favorite toy. Bodhi likes to play the part of the goalie, wanting me to kick the ball past him while he would try to catch it midair. His excitement for the game is almost at intense as his loud barking. We had an excellent time, and I was happy to get outside for the evening, even if I was sick.
Just before it was completely dark, I took a bag of deer corn into the pine grove and dumped it into several piles. My wife and I had a light dinner with grilled salmon and rice, part white and part brown. As we were shutting down the house for the night, we saw five or six deer, their shadowy figures grazed in the pasture in front of our house. Today was a time of recovery and it was time to rest and heal.