June 11, 2024

Bad Guys

This morning, we woke up in good spirits, ready to take on whatever challenges the day brought. While drinking coffee on the couch, my wife told me she would miss me, and I recounted how I wrote about the dogs howling every time I went into the woods without them. I told her how this related to my feelings each morning when she drove off. She laughed and gave me a big kiss.

I fed the dogs their breakfast while my wife got ready for work. Once she gathered her things, I walked her out the front door and we said our goodbyes. After her car disappeared down the dirt road, I went inside, quieted my inner howls, and sat down in my office to write.

Because I had been feeling tired, I was working on getting the rest my body needed. After my writing session, I went back to bed for an hour. Once again, I woke up feeling great. After a quick shower, I got dressed and quickly found myself knee deep in emails. My wife texted she would get off at three. It would be nice to have her home early, and she could avoid rush hour.

For lunch, I drove into Wilson and picked up a Fuji Apple Salad at Panera. My wife texted some things came up at work and she would not be leaving early. I consoled myself with a tasty lunch. When I came back home, the new neighbor had finished putting up his wired fence and was mowing the lawn. So far, they seemed pretty normal. Most of all, I was happy they didn’t have any crazy dogs.

The previous owners had a dopey bulldog named Penny, who barked and chased us every time we walked by the house. While it was annoying, the goofy look of uncertainty on the dog’s face, along with her bulging eyes, always had me laughing. My wife didn’t like the way the dog snarled and chased us. Penny wasn’t the brightest dog and I would make a funny Scooby Doo voice mocking her, asking, “Are you the bad guys?” That seemed to fit her quirk of being fierce and completely confused about what was going on.

When my wife arrived, I was happy to see her. While she didn’t get home as early as we expected, she was still home earlier than usual. We sat down on the couch, sipping our afternoon coffee. I discussed a lingering concern with her. A few weeks ago, a tick bit me, and over the past week, I had been feeling tired and experiencing joint pain. I was worried about Lyme disease.

My wife listened to me intently, asking questions about my symptoms after she had gotten all her laughter out. She quickly showed how my symptoms didn’t match up with Lyme disease and gave probable explanations for some symptoms that sounded similar to those of the disease. I felt better after speaking with her and planned on correcting my sleep habits and monitoring how I felt. It was nice knowing there was a trained medical professional in the house.

My wife and I walked into the forest after work. We stepped outside and sprayed down with insect repellent. Thus far, using the spray had eliminated any new insect bites, including the ticks that were now active.

It was sunny and warm outside, and we left to walk earlier than usual, which was a pleasant break in our routine. I noted the grove was much brighter than it was during our usual walk time. When we passed by the yellow squash, we both laughed about how it still looked new. Even though it was daytime, the fireflies were already flashing. I wondered if they flashed all day.

We slowed our pace when we heard a noise that sounded like deer. After stopping to listen for a minute or two, we continued north, moving toward Beaver Tooth Rock. When we climbed up onto the boulder, we saw a foraging animal had peeled up all the moss on the rock.

I pulled up the footage on the trail camera. Most of the videos were of a large, old looking raccoon that had frequented the rock since mid-May. There was also a video of a large pileated woodpecker that stopped on the rock to gather food. The camera took a few pictures of a black cat I had seen on two other trail cameras, and a black crow that used the boulder as a lookout, just like us.

After a brief rest, we climbed down the rock and moved alongside the creek toward a small marsh. When my wife arrived at the creek’s bank, two frogs hidden on the edge shrieked loudly as they splashed into the water. This noise always sounded like a cartoon frog and was surprisingly loud and funny.

While standing by the water and watching the fish, we heard a doe bark. I looked up just in time to see two deer hopping through the tall grasses. The vegetation was so high that the deer disappeared every time they landed and reappeared on their next hop. I thought they looked like four-legged kangaroos. Before we left, I showed my wife the broken tree trunk that shapeshifted into a heron the other morning. We laughed and moved on from the marsh.

The newest trail looked inviting, so we turned west and moved on through this dark part of the forest. While walking through the area, we heard a deer bark and saw three deer moving through the forest, stopping just out of sight behind a row of trees. We smiled and moved on to a cedar patch, where my wife picked up a mimosa flower and brushed it against her cheek. It smelled so good.

Our walk was over, so we exited the tree line to head through the yard back to the house. When we did, a rabbit saw us and bolted for the trees. We went inside, slipped off our boots, grabbed a beer, and headed to the deck. My wife was in a mood and we listened to 80s and 90s gangster rap for the whole evening. I remembered how good rap was back then, as I had grown up with the genre. Most genres seemed to deteriorate over the years.

While we were relaxing outside, we heard the hoots of a barred owl. My wife mimicked it, sounding, to me, more like Santa Claus arriving during the season of savings. After eating a dinner of potato soup and a salad, we went inside and put together two new dog kennels my wife purchased. They were really nice, and the dogs were happy to try them out. We all climbed into our beds, falling fast asleep.