Indevan

I wandered out to the barn last night as dusk was settling down and getting comfortable on the hills where we live. The boys were shooting their pistols and revolvers--they have a small arsenal between them. Believe it or not, I have never fired a handgun, which I find appalling (generally sticking to my favorite, a .22 rifle, because even though it sounds like a light wimpy gun with no kick, if you're good with it, it doesn't matter that the bullet is small. And I'm not too bad). So the boys undertook to teach me.

It's not what I expected. Heavier, rougher (two pinched fingers), louder, and less accurate (I couldn't hit anything). But I do believe a concealed weapons permit is a good idea (everyone should take the class), and I want to know more about handguns so I'm not so leery of them. Knowledge makes a better weapon, anyway, in more ways than one. And I need to get better. Granted, the bottle cap fell out of the knothole, but my brother claims that it was just because the board jarred it loose. I can't really contest that yet, but I'll show'm. ;)

We stopped when the sun sank below the horizon with an audible groan of relief, and the fireflies began to scatter across the pink-skied hayfields with small shrieks of joy. The fields and forests were fair crackling with them. And then...a red fox ran across, weaving between the round bales of hay. He stopped and looked at me for a long moment. There's something unworldly about looking into the eyes of a wild creature. It makes you feel...smaller. A little more humble. I have a lot to learn.

Dirt under your nails

There's a satisfaction to be found in a long, freshly planted row of tomatoes that I'm not sure can be experienced anywhere else. I do know that we ended an evening this week just that way, over in the new garden at the new house site. Dad had just finished showing me where the living room is going to be, and we were discussing which kind of stone to use for the fireplace (river rock, of course), and what style we should use when we lay it out. He showed me a handful of perfect arrowheads they found where the barn is going to be. I'm so excited--so ready to have a home again. This new place is lovely of an evening.

So I had plans skipping through my thoughts, and dirt under my fingernails, and I sat back and watched a beautiful sunset as Thomas, our huge loveable barn cat, rubbed against my knee. His deep rumble of a purr is the most soothing sound I know. I watched my mom weeding the asparagus (50 feet of it!) across the way, and dad and the little brother putting up a fence for the half-runner green beans, and I thought, God, this is it. I am, in this moment, perfectly content with my life, who I am, what I do, what I am becoming and where I am going with it. I have missed this feeling, this joy. So if there was ever a time for me to keel over and die, this would be that time, because it is impossible for this moment to get any better, and if I had to go I'd like to do it planting tomatoes.

Obviously, I'm still here (typing from Valley Vista summer camp where I have hacked into their internet after working over an unsuspecting young man who had an idea what the password might be). So I figure that there must be even more amazingness coming up, things I don't even know to dream about, because I live and breath; and also because I feel God's excitement when we discuss my future. If he sees that much to look forward to, why shouldn't I be just as thrilled? Future, this one's for you--may you be filled with freshly planted tomatoes.

(H'okey, I know this one is a bit silly. I was just happy. Still am.)

For Alex and Victor

Every time I read through these, I’m hearing “Vanilla Twilight” run through my head, by Owl City.

Watching our last night draw closer
Guess this means I’m getting older
How’d we never see what this might mean?
The hardest part of moving toward our dreams
Your picture in my wallet
I cried the day I saw it
That crazy little kid I knew just grew
I like the man you turned into

Horizon lightens as the fire dies
And we start to make our goodbyes
We feel the minutes quickly pass
Wish we had a million and a way to make them last
What you’ve been to me you’ll never know
And as I stand and watch you go
You turn back long enough to smile and say
“I’ll see you again someday.”

all the bedtime stories sound like warnings

Our new foal is pretty clueless. Like all new babies, he likes to chew on things as his teeth come in, and every once in a while he'll take a bigger chew than society deems acceptable. The welts on my stomach and shoulder can attest to this, and he just barely caught my just-recently-broken-and-wrongly-healed finger in his strong little teeth. The shriek this poorly planned move elicited sent him skipping and whirling across the round pen, and I swear he was laughing. The little shnitzel.

The little sucker isn't named yet, sadly, and we've been fishing around for something that fits him perfectly, that will immediately give any newcomer a correct impression of his character and temperment. Dad says that we also have to give him a name that, if we have to sell him, won't scare buyers off. Unfortunately, this rules out Trouble, Mischief, Scalawag, El Diablo, or my personal favorite, Spawn of Satan. Grandpa calls him Rastus (not a complementary name--they don't get along well ever since the little bugger took a hefty nip out of the tail of grandpa's coveralls). Amanda wants to call him Alf, but I don't think that this gives an accurate feel. I'm sticking with Rascal for now. That's nuetral enough, right?

But he is a cute little devil. Even though he's losing his baby hair.

He's also getting ready to lose his mom to a rare form of cancer, which horses typically never get. That's one of the reasons he's such an imp, is that she's not feeling well enough to nip him and set him straight when he's acting rambuctious. So when I try to warn him away from biting, my heart's not really in it. I watch him nuzzle up to her and fall asleep leaning against her side in the sunshine, and I know he's just a little horse, but they feel loss too. And my heart aches for him.