June 17, 2024

The Green Dragon

After a long night full of strange dreams, I welcomed the buzzing of my watch, the alarm I used to wake up. The mind’s ability to create characters, storylines, and absurd details during a dream was impressive. When I let the dogs outside, I stepped onto the porch, checking out the sunrise. The bats were fluttering above the yard, hunting for insects while all the songbirds were awake, making for a noisy but pleasant morning.

After a long day of working in the heat, yesterday, my wife and I recounted how sore we felt, as we sipped coffee on the couch, occasionally taking a moment to stretch our limbs. Forty minutes later, I was seeing my wife off to work for her last week of her current medical rotation. After she left, I knocked out a ninety-minute writing session.

When I closed my laptop, I raised the office window blinds and with my binoculars; I watched two deer feeding outside the tree line. The doe’s belly was enormous, still appearing pregnant. She stared in my direction, making me wonder if she could see me through the window. The other deer, a young buck with short velvety antlers, appeared less concerned. The buck had two long marks on its side, possibly from an old scratch on its fur. One line ran across its right rib cage and the other traversed the buck’s right hindquarters.

I changed clothes and went into the woods. Today’s skies were deep blue with scattered puffy white clouds that moved with the eastern winds. The shifting clouds created slow flashes of light that went bright when the sun was uncovered and then dark when a cloud passed in front of it. This created rapidly shifting lighting conditions inside the forest. There was a breeze moving through the trees, but the air felt wet and warm.

I made my way to the clearing where my wife and I worked to set up a place to shoot bird photographs. On the way, I heard a movement in the trees to the north. I looked up to see a single deer moving away from me. All the bird food I placed in the feeding area was still there. I decided I would give the birds a week to find the food and get used to the ground blind that I placed in the area. After cutting all the grass back and adding new items, the forest needed time to rest before normal wildlife activities resumed.

The marsh area seemed quiet today, although it was normal for the bright sun and increasing heat to push birds and animals into the shade to stay cool. I heard a pileated woodpecker thumping on a nearby tree, but never spotted it. The creek was gurgling in a much deeper tone than usual, sounding like water filling a bathtub.

On parts of the trail, I spotted small red cherries on the ground from the wild cherry trees all around the forest. Almost daily, there were new species of mushrooms growing. This morning, I spotted one with an open cap that was grayish-mauve. When I returned home, I grabbed some water from the refrigerator, gulping it down. After I cooled off, I showered and got ready for work.

Work started off busy, but slowed after completing my morning meetings. My wife had scheduled a septic tank company to come in the afternoon and they planned to call me when they were on their way. They arrived several hours early, however, without notice. The worker was very nice, and I felt good after he told me he visited this property about three years ago to empty the septic tank. Based on our paperwork and home inspection, we thought the tank had not been cleaned before we purchased the property.

Within a half hour, the company finished emptying the tank, finding no issues with the septic system. I wrote the man a check, because, in 2024, they still didn’t accept cash or cards. Luckily, my wife had a stash of checks handy. I examined the blank check in the morning to make sure I remembered how to fill one out. I hadn’t written a check in over twelve years.

After the company left, I went to inspect the area, finding two interesting things. First, and most concerning, if not comical, was a large line of poo that had dripped from the hose as the truck drove off, leaving a six-foot skid mark on the front yard’s underpants. The second interesting thing was that because they had to dig to access the tank, when they put the dirt back, it looked just like a freshly dug grave. 

I later told my wife we should add a headstone saying something smart like, “We said no soliciting” or “Here lies a solicitor”. I also suggested she photograph me pouring a beer out over the grave, so I could tell people I was pouring one out for my homie, who we buried in the yard. All good clean fun, if you ignored the poop factor.

My wife arrived home around three o’clock toting groceries from the Piggly Wiggly. They included a watermelon for a snack and beef short ribs for the Traeger grill. She also picked up some cinnamon rolls to bake for tomorrow’s breakfast, since she would leave later than usual for school.

After work, I jumped in the kitchen and made more salad dressing, this time a small jar full at my wife’s request. She liked the dressing so much that she wanted to eat more of it. I still thought her dressing was way better, but after further discussion, we concluded it would be unfair to compare a balsamic vinaigrette to any type of homemade ranch dressing. I whipped up some of my fancy dressing and put it in the fridge. Twenty minutes later, I came back and added some more honey after doing some rough, recipe-related calculations in my head.

After throwing the ribs on the smoker, my wife and I went for a walk into the forest. By now, the temperature was hot, and the humidity made it difficult to breathe. We walked to the cleared area, finding nothing on the trail camera. At the creek, a deer barked, and we saw two of the beautiful creatures running through the marsh. Even though we saw deer daily, seeing them in the wild never got old.

When we got closer to the house, I heard the dogs barking. I told my wife there must be deer in the pasture. However, when we exited the grove, we were surprised to see a Wilson County Sheriff’s vehicle parked in our yard. When we walked toward the house, we saw a deputy who had been knocking on our door.

The deputy was looking for someone, but when he asked about our address, he realized there were several houses with the same address number, distinguished only by letters. I remembered talking to this same deputy a couple of years ago when he was looking for someone. I asked him if the person he was looking for was the same as the last time and he remembered talking to me. We let him know the subject had lived with our neighbors in an adjacent house, but had left over a year ago. And that the neighbors recently sold the home, so the current occupants were new. 

He thanked us, and I told him to keep safe. I remembered my days in uniform on patrol, especially when I saw him sweating. Bulletproof vests didn’t breathe very well and had a way of amplifying heat. As the deputy drove off and we entered the house, I kidded with my wife that someone had reported seeing a fresh grave in the front of our house.

One of the evening’s highlights was when my wife found a large dragonfly. I had seen them hunting while sitting outside in the evenings. Dragonflies were efficient hunters with voracious appetites, but seeing them high in the sky made me wonder how large this species was. A colossal specimen, around five or six inches long, rested on our porch.

Unfortunately, the dragonfly appeared to be having trouble. I let it crawl onto my fingers and moved it to a plant, trying to provide it with a cooler environment in the shade. The flying insect stayed perched on the plant for about ten minutes. I snapped a couple of pictures, noting the neon green markings on its head and torso. The wings looked silvery and the insect’s gigantic size made the wing’s details more visible.

I carried the dragonfly to the garden, where I hoped it would recover or die in peace. While walking back to the porch, we talked about how the insect didn’t want to leave my hand. We ate an amazing dinner outside and when I cleaned the kitchen; I thought my wife was in the tub. When I looked out the window, however, I saw her relaxing in the hammock by the garden. Seeing her happy made me smile.