This past week I have spent almost every day outside in the fresh air and sunshine.
Though the breeze was quite often cool, I compensated for that by digging out my heavily-lined winter jacket. The land up here has a gravel base, so part of my time was spent picking stones that had surfaced in the garden during cultivation. That is a job I usually hate, and I suspect that everyone here in the neighbourhood thinks likewise. But for some reason it seemed to be an okay job last week.
During the aftermath clean-up following last year’s tornado, picking a few stones felt more like a picnic. The fact is I have finally learnt how to pick stones with relative ease – without having to bend my back. I simply pick them up on the tip of one of those partially-expanded, expandable sweep rakes, and toss them into a series of buckets that are set within easy reach of my extended rake. Why it took me 75 years to learn that, I will never know.
A couple of my days were spent putting the trim and the battens on the board-and-batten building that we had, over the past few weeks, especially constructed to house my bantams and canaries in. That is a hobby that has turned my clock ever since the double digit pre-teen years of my childhood, and as my father once said, “It’s a damn poor hobby that doesn’t pay for itself.” And this one just happens to do just that.
On one of the mornings, just as the sun broke through the mist shrouds that hung low over the back meadows, I decided to take a tour around the fence-line of the farm. I quite often do that just for the fun of it. But this particular morning, because I had heard the coyotes yipping, not their usual howling, for quite an extended period the night before, I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity.
I sat on my butt, just puttering along on the little riding mower, quite enjoying myself with our house dog, Foxy, trotting along beside me, keeping me company. Just as we puttered down one of the slopes two big old black ravens flew up in front of us and took off, bitterly complaining, across the tall grass of the field. Foxy, being the young and ambitious pup that she is, took off, bounding and leaping in hot pursuit. But their departure told me that I would soon find what I strongly suspected the night before.
There, on the short-grassed path was a fresh coyote kill. The backbone, rib cage, neck and head of an eight point buck deer lay there, stripped of all flesh, on the ground before me. It was not an exceptionally pleasant sight to see, but it is what I expected, as it is part of the web of life in the sometimes cruel world of nature.
Though I’ll have no bragging rites, as many neighbouring hunters do, at least I’ll have a nice rack of horns to mount over the door of my newly-finished chicken coup.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105
