One-Track Mind

We marked the last day of regular firearms deer season with a dinner of fresh venison and grouse. The glass door had gotten the grouse, so no license was required there. Cut very thin, lightly breaded and fried, both meats were a hit with the five-year old.

Bow season continues and muzzle loader opens this weekend, but even though he’ll likely bring home one more deer, I should get to see a bit more of my orange-clad partner now.

We made the hour+ trip to town together one day last week, and our conversation was like one from a sitcom. Both in our own separate worlds, he was focused on the hunt and I was focused on the birth. I later apologized for my one-track mind, and he laughed. “Me too,” he said sheepishly.

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November

Two months in and most days we still ride together as a family to drop the kindergartner off at The Angle’s one-room school house. She loves it, doesn’t want to leave afterward and calls every one of her classmates her friend. As we were getting into the truck on that first day back in early September, she was a bubbling mass of excitement and told us as she hefted her new backpack up onto the seat that it was “the importanest day” of her life.

Her papa’s eyes met mine and we both smiled.

As Summer as the Fair

I woke to the roaring whisper of the wind through the treetops. It held me those first few minutes, like a song can hold a memory, and then the rain came. Quietly at first, it was the tuning of an orchestra on my rooftop before it burst into the bold sounds of brass and percussion.

It felt exquisitely “summer” lying awake to the sound of a warm rain. I had long since kicked off the quilt and lay with only the sheet covering my body. The ceiling fan kept the air moving and I shifted to my other side once more, one arm under my head and the other cradling my growing abdomen.