May 4, 2024
Bitter And Bold
I said it before, and I would say it again. There was nothing quite like the feeling of waking up on a Saturday morning with my wife by my side. We both awoke at the same time and spent another half hour snuggling each other without saying a word. For me, this was the feeling of happiness and love.
Of course, there were other things to do. This morning, we had plans to go into Wilson to get breakfast, something that excited us. We fed the dogs, washed up, and changed clothes. After, we promptly exited the house and headed into Wilson to the Cracker Barrel, where I had not eaten since the last time I was there with my wife.
While heading north on Old Davis Road, we spotted a large wild turkey feeding in the middle of an empty crop field. These birds were enormous, with an impressive fan of feathers. I wouldn’t mind harvesting one with my bow this turkey season. Last year, my trail cameras caught a rafter of wild turkeys moving in single file along the creek and again moving past a deer feeder that sat under a tree blind. I knew most people hunted the birds from the ground with a shotgun, but using my bow sounded more pleasing.
Breakfast was amazing, as always. One of the many things my wife and I connected over was time spent conversing while eating a delicious meal. The girl liked to eat, and well, I did too. Over breakfast, the conversation turned to our favorite beverage: coffee. My wife, who just spent a week at a bed-and-breakfast, told me about the Nespresso machine the place had and raved about the taste of the coffee. About thirty minutes after we left Cracker Barrel, we were walking out of a store with a brand new Nespresso machine and milk frother.
When we arrived home, we set up the machine and put it to work. In a few minutes, I was drinking one of the best coffees I had tasted in my life. I instantly fell in love with the setup. In our home, coffee was an important daily ritual, something I would say was akin to a monk drinking tea in the monastery. While we found the beverage delicious, morning coffee time had become a place of communication and connection, a way to start the day off strong through the daily cultivation of our relationship. Coffee time was introspective when done alone, and interactive when done together. Coffee, for me, had a strong bitter taste that reminded me of the human experience. Life was delicious, bold, and occasionally bitter. This was a philosophy I embraced.
After drinking a cup and eating a Tous Les Jours pastry, my wife got busy studying while I sat down to write. Several hours later, we both needed a break, so we went around the house, gathering trash bags from the pantry, both bathrooms, and a bag full of cans for recycling. I picked up a bag by the fence that contained two discarded liquid fly traps. This time of year, there were biting flies, and we purchased the traps to help control them. After a couple of weeks, however, the traps, which were attached to the outside of the deck railing, stank. Their odor hit me a few times when the wind shifted while I was outside relaxing on the deck. To me, they smelled like straight up sewer. We threw all the garbage in the truck and headed to the trash service center.
While at the service center, the sky clouded and light dimmed, looking like it wanted to rain. As we were unloading the garbage bags, the wind picked up, suddenly cooling the air. From there we drove to the Piggly Wiggly in Bailey for some groceries. The drive to the Pig was beautiful, with large crop fields lining the road on both sides. Along the way, it started raining. At the store, we picked up some meat and vegetables for dinner, enjoying a rain shower on the way home. It had been over a week since it last rained and the water would do all the new spring growth well.
By the time we unloaded the groceries, the rain had subsided, so I took out a small towel and wiped down two chairs on the deck. My wife and I went outside, sat down, and drank a cold beer together. After some silly chatting and laughter, we started up the Traeger as some white Kagayaki rice cooked inside. Once the grill was ready, we threw on large slices of yellow squash and a few heaps of seasoned mushrooms. After five minutes, I placed two salted ribeyes on the sizzling grill. Dinner was amazing.
After our stomachs had settled, we went for a walk in the woods, even though most of the light was gone. It was drizzling, and the forest looked extra dark from the clouded sky. We made our way to the northwest corner of the creek where I had seen deer for the past several days. During the winter, this area looked messy with tall dead grasses so the neatness of the recent growth surprised us. It was just about dark when we headed back toward the house. My wife saw I had my Petzl headlamp fastened to my hat, and she was happy I brought it with me. The bright lamp illuminated the path home, so even though it was dark, moving through the woods was easy. The light shone on the forest floor and green sparkles reflected brightly from all the spiders’ eyes. They were everywhere.
I asked my wife if she wanted the lamp so she could see the spiders and she affirmed she did. I passed her the lamp and watched in delight as she moved lightly through the forest, stopping periodically to squat down and touch the spiders, greeting them with a friendly voice. When we exited the forest, there was just a glint of light lingering in the sky. We paused, taking it all it for a moment, before heading back into the house and going to bed.