May 13, 2024

Hard Pass

As we climbed out of bed, I noted how rested I felt, while my wife told me her muscles were sore. Yesterday, she spent hours outside pressure washing the back of the house and pruning trees. We sipped coffee together, talking about how much we would miss each other. While I never wanted her to be sad, it felt good knowing I wasn’t alone. Misery loved company, as the saying went.

While my wife got ready for the morning, gathering everything she needed for the week, I edited photos on the computer. After, I grabbed some paper towels and went outside to wipe the condensation off her car mirrors and windows. The morning was humid, but still cool. When it was time for her to leave, I walked my wife outside, gave her a big kiss and an awkward hug, trying not to get dog hair on her. Leaving the house hair-free was a feat to be protected.

About five minutes after she drove off, my wife called me, telling me about another raptor experience she witnessed. A few weeks ago, she saw a large hawk carrying a mouse during her morning commute. This morning, she saw a hawk with something larger, probably a squirrel. She knew I appreciated these sightings, and I was happy knowing she was seeing amazing things in nature, too. When she arrived at work in Cary, she called me on FaceTime and we chatted a bit before she started work.

I sat down in my office and wrote for an hour before changing clothes for a walk in the woods. From the front door of my house I heard the hum of farm equipment, so I walked into the grove toward a nearby crop field. The morning was sunny and the bright light cut through the forest’s canopy, creating beams that shot down to the forest floor. The temperature was cool, and I pulled my hood over my head to block the crisp air and deter any biting flies.

When I arrived on the east side of the grove, there was no activity in the empty crop field. To the south, however, a large green John Deere tractor was pulling a long rotary tiller attached to the back. As the tractor moved down the field, which sat just south of the pine grove, an enormous plume of dust followed it like a jet’s contrail, only moving much slower. The machine moved east and west, tilling a crop field that was probably about forty acres.

I snapped a couple of photos from my location, but I wanted to get closer, so I cut through an open lane in the grove. Every couple of hundred yards, I would cut east to the tree line to peek out and snap more photographs. I saw the tractor in better detail once I was on the south end of the grove. This was not your grandfather’s John Deere. The large vehicle sported a fully enclosed cabin, completely climate controlled. It was an impressive machine. I remembered playing with Tonka brand construction and farm toys as a child. Those early memories still created a natural affinity for tractors, bulldozers, and fire engines.

After I shot a satisfactory number of photographs, I made my way back toward the house. While making my way through the grove, I noticed a large pine tree that a recent storm had knocked over. It had crashed down onto other pines and broken into three large sections. It was going to be a chore to clean it up, but I appreciated the free firewood. While I had no plans to cut down live trees, I remembered how Ralph Waldo Emerson’s land that he let Henry David Thoreau borrow at Walden was actually a timber lot. In those days, the affluent purchased timber lots to produce trees used for construction and firewood.

When I got back to the house, I showered and got ready for work. As expected, things were busy after a quiet week. All the workers who were gone on vacation had returned, and soon, I was working hard to keep up with the sudden influx of emails. My lunch break arrived in a flash. During this time, I drove to Wilson to get groceries at Lidl. I came home with enough food for the next few days.

When work ended, I spend a little time rousing the dogs. We all played in the backyard. Axel liked to run around with a piece of firewood in his mouth, while Kilo carried a coveted tennis ball. She was smart enough not to bring it to me, as she knew I would throw it, forcing her to run. Why run after something you already had? Bodhi and Koda enjoyed the same game with different views on how to play it. This involved an old deflated basketball that I would kick or throw. Koda loved to retrieve it and Bodhi enjoyed playing goal keeper, daring me to kick it past him. He was a decent goalie.

After some time with the pups, I put on my hat and boots, and walked to the barn to pull out the riding mower. I mowed large sections to the side of the house. By the end of the hour, most of the yard was complete. The pasture and area behind the barn would have to wait for another day. It was nice to knock out a large section, however, because it was supposed to rain tomorrow. 

After a little yard work, I put away the mower and took a walk into the forest. It was already getting dark and the nocturnal spiders were fashioning their webs between the trees, readying themselves for an evening meal. The forest’s lushness amazed me; it looked so different from just a few months ago. The woods smelled like freshly cut grass, with various woodsy and floral scents floating around. While walking, I thought about the next day. Tomorrow was my birthday, and I had requested the day off. While the forecast called for rain, I wondered what I would do with my time away from the office.

Time sure was weird. My wife and I talked about this all the time. Sometimes it seemed to go by excruciatingly slowly, and other times, it flew by in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow, I was going to be fifty-two years old. That blew my mind. While I didn’t feel like I was eighteen or twenty-one, I felt like a solid thirty-five or forty. But fifty-two? Wow! Maybe I would have to grow up one day. Nah. Hard pass.