I look at the following picture and think- “Mmm, loins on the grill, meatloaf, pot roast, tacos, bacon wrapped tenderloin and a handsome man!”
It’s possible you may look at the picture and think- “Ick, dead deer and a guy dressed as a pumpkin.”
There’s no accounting for taste.
The rumors are true. We went bird hunting in North Dakota for our tenth anniversary.
I know there are a fair amount of you reading this who think that’s grand- you’re probably related to me. I also know that there are a fair amount of you reading this who think I’m nuts. I know this because I’d been telling all sorts of people about our plans before we left. And while only a few were so bold enough to say such things as “Do you hunt?” and “Why?” the rest of them had it in their eyes.
The first question is an easy yes.
As for why we chose North Dakota over some place with sand and drinks with little umbrellas, well…
There are few times that I will willing get up before the sun rises just for fun. 
Very few times.
But if you don’t get up early enough to get some breakfast, get the dogs ready to go and get to the field, you just don’t make it in time to see mornings like these.
Mornings in a field of grass that stretches as far as you can see, where you are just as likely to flush an owl or a deer as the pheasant the dogs are searching for. 
Mornings so still and clear you can hear the dogs running and sniffing through the field ahead of you.
Or the cold mornings where the frost on the grass bursts off as the dogs run through it, leaving streaming trails of glitter in the sunlight as they hunt for birds. 
As the morning wears on, the birds move out of the easy cover and become harder to find. The dogs get tired.
I get tired.
But there are always more field to explore.
And you can’t stop yet, because there are probably birds, just over the next hill. And yes the hill might be a mile away but the dogs are looking birdy so you can’t stop now. And when you think about it, you find you no longer even want to. 
Suddenly the birds will be coming back into the heavy cover for the night, the dogs will be pointing left and right and when it seems far to early to be done for the day, the sun will go down.
Invariably I will be astonished that the day’s hunt is over, exhausted, yet still filled with plans of places we can go, fields we can try and combinations of dogs we can run – tomorrow.
And, if it’s been an exceptionally good day, there just might be a bit of extra weight on my back.
A bit of weight in a bundle of feathers that holds both the promise of a delicious dinner and the story of following a dog through a sea of grass to see what happens next.
I’ve spent the last week doing this:
With this guy:
And a pack of these:
A great week!
I’ve got to clean my gun tonight but I’ll have more pictures to share tomorrow!
The best part of my day happens late at night when the house is quiet.
After I lay in bed reading far later into the night than a person with responsibilities before noon ever should.
When, eventually, I set down my book, turn out my light and curl up on my side to fall asleep.
Right then it happens.
The best part of the day.
I reach behind me and gently tap on John’s sleeping form. Then I wait with quiet, happy anticipation for him to roll over, wrap his arm around me, and tuck us together. Safe, warm and loved I fall asleep.
The perfect end to any kind of day.
As of today we’ve had ten years of perfect endings but it’s not enough.
I’m holding out for a lifetime.
… two words…
…Tough… 
…Mudder.
Photos courtesy of Jess Dingee
Saturday morning John and I did our first ever open water swim race. I will freely admit that doing a 1.2 mile swim, at a time of day I’m usually in bed, was something I was having a hard time looking forward to. But, I must say, the whole experience turned out to be much less hellacious than I feared.
The terrible-ish parts were as I suspected. You see a person, like myself, who had followed a nice straight line on the bottom of a pool for 14 years when set loose in a lake with the sun shining in her eyes as she attempted to watch for random boats and buoys to guide her, (All of which, I might add, were not conveniently located on the bottom of the lake.) might not completely enjoy that aspect of the race. But, other than that minor annoyance, the race, as well as our two weeks of “training,” was lots of fun and reminded me just how much I love to swim.
It also reminded me how difficult it is to get any meaningful time in the water with three young kids and a husband on second shift. John and I made it into the water to train every day for the two weeks prior to the race – and did nothing else. This week when I’m playing catch up with the household chores I guess I’ll just have to look at my shiny third place medal to remind myself that it was worth it!
Saturday morning after it was all over John and I were rehashing the race on the drive back home and I realized something. I realized that the best part, wasn’t the race, or the training, our time away from the kids together, our cheering section or even the shiny medal. It was that our short open water racing stint literally pointed out that John’s got my left. We swam together, training and racing, John on my left. We worked well together that way. I sighted and attempted to keep us going straight. We used each other for motivation and pacing. I never had to worry about what was happening on his side- I knew he had my left.
If that sounds insignificant to you, picture racing in semi-murky water, others swimming around you, attempting to find those rotten buoys all with limited visibility. I can breath to both my right and my left but, lacking that good ‘ole bottom of the pool line, if I would like to swim a straight line – I breath to my right. This means that I have no idea what’s happening off to the left. But with John cruising next to me it was all good.
Nobody ran into me from the left, nobody attempted to draft off that side of me, nobody made a move to pass without me noticing, and I didn’t spare a seconds thought on any of it.
Not one.
I knew John was there, he had my left.
He always does.
And, I?
I had his right.
I always do.
For those of you who are Facebooking members of society pictures of the race can be found on Rock Lake Activity Center’s page.
I went to the park and I found these noisy monkeys.
They hooted and grunted, jumped up and down, made faces and climbed the bars of their cage.
They were very entertaining monkeys.
But even all their noisy antics couldn’t compare with those of the Monkey King.
Yup, that’s my husband.
The biggest monkey of them all.
Sometimes I have a picture that just begs to be shared but my mind is too full of the rest of life (You know like selling our house to the DOT attempting to buy another house, packing, baking cakes, feeding kids… stuff like that.) to write something that will do it justice.
So today I’m cheating and asking you.
How would you caption this picture?
A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape
Back in February I wrote that the line had been redrawn and that the highway construction on our road would also involve the demolition of our home.
Since then we have had, as expected, many meetings, phone calls, e-mails, appraisals and offers but we are severely lacking in the decision department. As of today, we have 88 days (not that I’m counting or anything) before the DOT buys our and house we need to start deciding.
But, weighing the options of something we never wanted to do in the first place has been hard. Do we buy, build, rent, stay local, move away? We talk ourselves in circles everyday and leave our conversations with a vague feeling of nausea but no closer to a real decision.
Today, after a morning of looking at properties and an afternoon of feeling ill when faced with the options and decisions before us John called me from work and told me we needed to think positive. Then he told me a very long paragraph worth of stuff that he is going to remember when he gets frustrated. It was all nice, happy stuff and I’m sure it will do wonders for him.
As for me, I had spent the afternoon cleaning up cheesy, toddler puke. My attention span is short and I’m much better at, as John would say, “mustering the hate” than thinking up long, flowery, positive statements. I needed something a bit more concise and it didn’t take me long to come up with a nice, short, memorable phrase of my own.
No matter what, we are escaping the road, life will be good.
Not only is the road the source of our current trouble but ever since the first Monday we lived here and the shock I had when the first semi’s started flying by I have hated it. I have hated the cars, the trucks, and the semi’s. I have hated the man with the barking dog that used to go by every day at 3:30, the way we live in the country yet are always on display, the heart stopping feeling of seeing any of our animals out on the road, and the fear that the semi behind us isn’t going to stop and wait as we turn into the driveway- again. I have been mustering the hate for the road for a long time.
So, when I am next faced with the overwhelming decisions before us I believe that I will have no trouble remembering…
No matter what, we are escaping the road, life will be good.
Then John called back and told me a confusing story about a 50$ bills in a urinal and how he should buy me a goat to make the move easier.
Yeah, I didn’t get it either.
But, I’ve always wanted goats and so I’m not questioning it. I just told him a goat always needs a friend and changed my phrase a bit…
No matter what, we are escaping the road and getting goats, life will be great.
Behind the Willows 