Every year many species of birds gather together at the end of summer, and every year someone says, "See? It's going to be a cold winter."
It's been a wet year here. The grasses and shrubs made a lot of progress taking over Phillips county, the mice bred, and the birds of prey are everywhere; fence posts, wheeling across the highway, watching the side of the road. And the rattlesnakes have moved into town, whether hitching a ride on a farm rig or just the natural expansion, I don't know, but the neighbor below me had one on his front step. The mice are enjoying my house also. I threw a bugbomb into the attic one evening after Carter swore he heard noises. I didn't hear them, but loud rocknroll and too many gunshots take a toll. The weather conditions were not favorable. I'd bombed the attic before on a hot summer day with little negative effect to the humans in the house, but this time the fumes drifted down and we all fled. Well, except me. I stayed and took a heaping helping. I was obliged to inhale the stuff, I'd lit the fuse afterall.
The chipmunks have been getting into walls, and the last thing I want is a snake following them. We could film a Survivorman episode here if this keeps up. I really like that guy. He's as paranoid as I am.
At school yesterday a really wonderful thing happened. The highschool football team visited the kindergartners and painted jerseys and did foot prints on black paper with white paint. Nothing like that happened when I was a kid. Keith said with awe, "Dad, they were bigger than the teacher. They picked me up and carried me."
You know what the football team did later with their copies of the art? Put them proudly on their lockers at school, for all to see. No one told them to do that. They wanted to do that.
It makes my heart swell as I think of it. And once a year they come out and read to the Fifth graders. The Coach said he's never met a fifth grader yet who did not remember the name of his player the rest of his life.
I called the Coach. I told him Thank You. He was touched and complimented, as well he should be, but it was I who was as awed as my small son. In a world where we're drifing apart, it is small things like this, taking stands and breaking across barriors, that have meaning.
The colors have begun to change. It's funny. One day it's summer, and the next the fringes of the trees have a little fade, a day or so after the reds and oranges and yellows start, magnificent cancer, beautiful transformation into the brown stick forms of winter. I might even hunt deer this year. Carter wants to. Might be the last time too, if the mountains become off limits as it appears they will be.
It's time to chop some wood.
munk
It's been a wet year here. The grasses and shrubs made a lot of progress taking over Phillips county, the mice bred, and the birds of prey are everywhere; fence posts, wheeling across the highway, watching the side of the road. And the rattlesnakes have moved into town, whether hitching a ride on a farm rig or just the natural expansion, I don't know, but the neighbor below me had one on his front step. The mice are enjoying my house also. I threw a bugbomb into the attic one evening after Carter swore he heard noises. I didn't hear them, but loud rocknroll and too many gunshots take a toll. The weather conditions were not favorable. I'd bombed the attic before on a hot summer day with little negative effect to the humans in the house, but this time the fumes drifted down and we all fled. Well, except me. I stayed and took a heaping helping. I was obliged to inhale the stuff, I'd lit the fuse afterall.
The chipmunks have been getting into walls, and the last thing I want is a snake following them. We could film a Survivorman episode here if this keeps up. I really like that guy. He's as paranoid as I am.
At school yesterday a really wonderful thing happened. The highschool football team visited the kindergartners and painted jerseys and did foot prints on black paper with white paint. Nothing like that happened when I was a kid. Keith said with awe, "Dad, they were bigger than the teacher. They picked me up and carried me."
You know what the football team did later with their copies of the art? Put them proudly on their lockers at school, for all to see. No one told them to do that. They wanted to do that.
It makes my heart swell as I think of it. And once a year they come out and read to the Fifth graders. The Coach said he's never met a fifth grader yet who did not remember the name of his player the rest of his life.
I called the Coach. I told him Thank You. He was touched and complimented, as well he should be, but it was I who was as awed as my small son. In a world where we're drifing apart, it is small things like this, taking stands and breaking across barriors, that have meaning.
The colors have begun to change. It's funny. One day it's summer, and the next the fringes of the trees have a little fade, a day or so after the reds and oranges and yellows start, magnificent cancer, beautiful transformation into the brown stick forms of winter. I might even hunt deer this year. Carter wants to. Might be the last time too, if the mountains become off limits as it appears they will be.
It's time to chop some wood.
munk
