March 12, 2024
Lazy Afternoon
This morning, we slept in until seven, something we hadn’t done for a long time. I woke up feeling recovered from the changes brought on by my wife’s evening shift. I forgot how good it felt to get a full night’s sleep. After I awoke, I took the dogs outside, noting the temperature was in the thirties. The air felt chilly, but familiar. The good news was that it was going to get up to 71 degrees today. I was excited about the spring weather.
As I showered, I heard the dogs barking loudly. The deer were out early, feeding on fresh growth in the pasture. I got ready for work and churned out several reports since I was getting off work early. While I worked, my wife made a trip to the Wilson County Library to study in a private room. After a study session, she stopped by the store to pick up groceries and arrived home right about the time I was getting off work. Both starved, we drove back into Wilson for some more La Rancherita, sharing the Lime Carne Asada and a sampler with cheese, bean, and guacamole dips. As always, the food was on point. On the way home, we stopped at Fred’s, buying two boxes of sour dill pickles and some peanut butter cups for my wife’s lunches.
Time off work was a rare treat. My wife and I sat outside on the back porch, soaking in the warm sun. One of the curious features of our house was that during winter, when you wanted to feel the sun’s warmth, the rear deck was completely shaded. As spring approached, the sun inched toward the deck. About a month ago, the first sunlight hit the deck’s railing. A week later, the light hit about six inches of the deck’s outer edge. Today, sunlight bathed half of the deck, and we arranged our outdoor furniture to soak up the sun’s rays.
The weekdays seemed quieter than the weekends. There was less ambient noise from airplanes and nearby cars. An occasional breeze rushed by, jostling the treetops, making a loud whooshing noise that sounded like a rain stick. A hawk soared high above, silhouetted against the bright blue sky. And in the yard, butterflies appeared. I had not seen them since last fall. Their ability to fly through the woods and skillfully dart around tree branches was impressive, especially since they fluttered wildly, looking out of control. With each breeze, a set of chimes hanging from a large pine tree sounded, their mellow tones resonating softly throughout the forest.
While sitting on the back porch together, my wife told me she had not read my blog in a while, so she asked me to read my last entry, which was from March 8th. While I write the journal entries daily, I had not posted the newer entries to my website. The entry was sweet, and I think she always felt surprised when she appeared in my journal. I read as she giggled and then we both teared up a bit in the last paragraph when I talked about how much she meant to me.
After, my wife blew some bubbles for Koda, since chasing the floating iridescent spheres was one of his favorite games. After tiring him out, she came back onto the deck and our sun had disappeared. We grabbed a picnic blanket and moved to the front yard near the pasture, which still had plenty of sun. She drank water while I sipped on a hot cup of coffee. The weather was perfect outside as it was sunny but still slightly cool. I took off my button up long sleeve shirt and stretched out on my back, barefoot in jeans and a tee shirt. Really, could life get any better than this? During our conversation on the lawn, we both talked about what we would miss most about winter. For my wife, it was the chilly nights in the house, where the temperatures dropped so low, you couldn’t help but bundle yourself under the blankets and snuggle. I would miss the freezing morning walks at Lake Wilson, where we wore three layers of clothes and faced the biting wind and stinging rain while walking in the dark. The only parts of winter that remained were in our memories.
It was getting dark, and we folded up the blanket and went inside to prepare dinner. I asked my wife how long we had before eating and she told me fifteen or twenty minutes. Like a little kid, I asked her if I could go outside and into the woods for last light. I missed the forest. After removing a bag of deer corn and a mineral block from my SUV, I carried them out into the grove. I poured the corn out in six piles, three on the left and three on the right side of the trail, spaced out about twenty feet apart. The salt lick, which was apple flavored and sweet, looked like a gigantic piece of candy which I expected to smell like an apple jolly rancher. It did not. I placed the small block on the trail and headed off toward the creek. The air carried a smell of disturbed dirt, probably from nearby farmers preparing their fields for the spring crops.
I made my way to Beaver Tooth Rock and sat down to watch the scenery. The place was quiet tonight. There were only a few birds chirping in the distance, while a small flock of geese flew overhead. Their echoing calls always sounded enchanting. The most prominent sound in the forest, however, was the sound of the creeks rushing water. I missed this place. With my wife’s recent deviation from her school schedule, I had not been in the woods as often as I wanted. While letting the forest rest from my presence was something important to me, I knew we were back on schedule and that I would be back out here in another nine hours. I looked forward to my morning return.
On the way home, I heard the first few frogs sing. I reminded myself to calibrate my internal clock to the pace of nature, whose force was unstoppable, but also moved slowly and with patience. While I looked forward to getting back to my normal routine, the clocks and weather had changed. I had been fighting winter’s departure, but this evening, I felt ready to accept spring’s arrival. I wondered what adventures the new season would bring.