The ticking, banging, gong, and flutter of wings that signaled the wood stove was heating up could be heard clear on the other side of the house. It was the sound of comfort on it’s way, and even though the floor was too cold to walk on in bare feet and she could see her breath in the closet where she hurriedly tried to change from pajamas to out door apparel there was something about that sound that gave her a warm feeling. Sadly it was a warm feeling that wasn’t real and she quickly cursed and how frigid the air was and how long it was taking to get a bra on with her fingers numb.

Winter mornings weren’t always this way. Most nights her insomnia would wake her around 2 a.m. and she’d slip out of bed, sliding her feet into her old plaid slippers and her arms into the thick robe kept at the end of her bed. She’d quietly make her way down the hall towards the still glowing stove, careful not to touch it as it maintained it’s heat in a way she wished her sheets would. Carefully opening the front door, sliding the air vent to the wide open position, and grabbing a poker from the rack of iron tools, she’d shuffle the contents around getting hot coals to glow all over the bed of ashes before adding a couple pieces of wood. Not quite closing the door she’d return the poker to the rack and step back to watch the fire reignite.

Sometimes the fire came slowly, the coals not quite hot enough or the wood she placed inside a bit damp or very, very old and therefore difficult to start. Other times the fire wooshed up, spurned on by the front door and air vent being open, the cold flue and the still warm stove creating a sucking and drawing that immediately brings the flames to life. It was an art, a dance, this fire making, and she’d only recently become an artist.

When she’d first arrived in the mountains, new to the cold and the idea of a wood stove for heat, she’d read the manual for the stove and followed all the directions to a t. She struggled mightily with each and every fire. It was somewhere around the second month of her first winter, her city car unable to make it up her street in the snow and therefore sitting as far as she could get it off to the side of the road but technically in her neighbors yard, that she mentioned to an old-timer at the local coffee shop she’d walked to for breakfast just how difficult it was keeping her house warm. They commiserated a bit and then he clued her in to the best kept secret she’d ever heard about starting fire: pinecones. Just one pinecone would get any fire started, wet or dry, old wood or new, just throw a pinecone in there when you go to light it.

For the rest of that winter and the winter next she always had a fire and never had trouble lighting it or re-lighting it. She did, however, start to have trouble with smoke. It turned out that summer as she was having the flue cleaned for the first time ever that pinecones leave behind a substantial amount of creosote and she was lucky she hadn’t smoked herself out or worse, started her whole house on fire. Pinecones were now a thing of her past, and so were cozy warm winter fires.

In her third year of mountain living she met a guy who was intent on proving to her that he knew how to start a fire anywhere and keep it going. By the fourth month of their relationship when it was freezing cold and they were both desperate for just enough heat to sleep in they started going to his place where he could actually light a fire and keep it lit. Their relationship was as doomed as his ability to work her stove.

Another year and another guy, this one claiming there was no need for a wood stove, simply use the HVAC system. Which was all well and good until the electricity bill arrived. It turns out you can’t heat a house in the mountains using your electricity, or your propane, unless you’re willing to pay dearly. Their relationship also ended, much the way the stove was never lit.

By her fifth year in the mountains she had figured out a thing or two. She no longer had a car that stayed parked in her neighbors yard each time it snowed, that was a win. And she’d figured out how to make the stove limp along enough that she didn’t need a heater. But damned if that limping didn’t mean numb fingers on a bra strap in the morning.

~~~Combined With Podcasts, That’s One Hour~~~

Whatever’ed gotten caught in the netting was large, not a small songbird or even a jay, she’d rescued plenty of smaller birds from the netting, one hand on their back, head between index and middle fingers, other hand unwinding or even cutting the netting from their legs or wings. It was a simple process, the hardest part being keeping her hands relaxed so as not to crush their little bones. She’d feel their hearts beating terrifyingly fast and always worried they’d have a heart attack before she was done. But they always flew away, not far, just far enough to sit and ensure they weren’t hurt, try to understand what exactly had happened, reaffirm for themselves that the giantess no longer had them in her clutches.

This was no small bird. Whatever this was would require two hands just to hold, and it was up a bit higher than she was used to, roughly shoulder height, she figured. Perhaps this would be the first creature she didn’t find in time. It wasn’t moving. The lack of movement was more intimidating than the creatures size.

She’d seen something in the netting from the kitchen window, seen that it wasn’t moving. Immediately dropped the glass she’d been rinsing, and rushed out of the house throwing on shoes and grabbing her gardening gloves trying desperately not to trip or lose momentum. She stubbed her toe shoving it inside her shoe, nearly twisted her ankle taking the corner around the garage, rushing to the netting, slowing only as she realized the creature was a hawk.

A beautiful hawk, with a wicked sharp beak, and large talons. How was she going to hold this bird and get it out of the netting. If the bird was already dead there was nothing for it, if still alive she would need to be very smart about this rescue. She stopped to think. Burlap. Burlap would be best. She could put the burlap over the hawks back and head. In the dark of the cloth the bird would be unlikely to try and take her fingers off. Burlap was something she didn’t have.

The hawk moved, not much, she could tell it felt the netting getting worse with movement rather than better. Smart bird. Think. Think, think, think, think, think. A feed sack would be too noisy and would surely cause the hawk to struggle, a blanket would reek of human and would probably cause the hawk to freak out as well, it’s not like she had a lot of options. She finally settled on a horse blanket. Horse smell would be unlikely to cause as much stress as human, and it would be suitably thick that if she wasn’t able to secure the hawk it at least wouldn’t be able to remove her fingers while she fumbled.

Rushing to the barn, grabbing the blanket off the wooden horse, rushing back to the netting. She slowed several steps away. The bird was definitely up at her shoulders, this would make it more difficult as it’s defenses would be right in her face, although luckily she was facing it’s back. How far can hawks turn their heads, she wondered. She decided there was nothing for it but to tell the smart hawk what she was going to do and hope he understood.

“I’m going to help you,” she nearly whispered, “please be calm. Please trust me.”

The bird remained motionless and she took it as a sign that she was welcome to get to work. Lifting the blanket up she began to narrate her actions, if knowing what was happening helped people at the doctor and dentist feel better perhaps it would help the bird.

“I’m going to put a blanket around you from behind back here and up over your head so I can see how to help,” and she did.

The bird still didn’t move. She realized she’d been holding her breath since “help” escaped her lips. She couldn’t feel the hawks heartbeat through the blanket. Perhaps it wasn’t alive after all. With the head and wings under cover she looked at the legs. Not too much thicker than her chickens, and there was the netting, all looped around both legs. The hawk was very much alive, as it was holding itself up at the elbows. The longer she held it, the more it relaxed back against her. She wouldn’t be able to untangle it like this. She needed a free hand.

As if the hawk had read her mind it completely relaxed it’s body, including it’s talons. That’s when she saw the netting was weak, it had been ripped, torn perhaps by this very hawk. There was very little netting left holding the hawk in place and captive. If she could tug the bird a bit the netting would rip the rest of the way and she’d be able to lower the bird down and maybe have a moment or two to get the straggly bits off before the hawk took off or took off her finger.

“I’m going to pull on you a bit, please trust me, I won’t hurt you,” and she began to gently lower the hawk down towards her chest, tugging the netting still wrapped around it’s legs.

Once the hawk was at her chest it was much easier to see what she needed to do, although not any easier to do it. She still only had two hands and they were both around the hawks back keeping it’s wings down. If this was one of her chickens she’d simply slide the bird over and down to her hip on one side, switching her hand over from its wing to its lower chest. She didn’t dare try that with this bird, it left her fingers much too vulnerable. What else could she do. She took a deep breath, realizing the bird would feel her chest rise, and fall as she let the breath out. The hawk didn’t move.

Checking that the blanket was still in place over the hawks head she said, “I’m going to hold your legs with my hand. Please trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

Keeping the bird firmly against her chest with her left hand, she slowly moved her right hand towards the hawks chest and then pressed gently to keep the hawk firmly against her. She then moved her left hand slowly down towards the hawks legs. Rather than grabbing both, which had been her original plan, she simply began to unwind the netting. This was working quite well and even though she was excited, she remained wary, this was still a wild animal and likely to decide it had had enough at any minute. She worked quickly but calmly and with steady movements.

She soon had the hawks left leg free and the hawk moved. She became stalk still although her already racing heart began to beat faster. The hawk was simply retracting its leg, pulling it in closer to its chest, it stretched the talons, too, merely checking for injury it seemed.

When the hawk stopped moving again she said, “We’re almost done now. I’m going to free the other leg.”

And with her left hand she let go of the bit of netting she’d removed from the left leg and took hold of the netting still surrounding the right leg. It was even easier to remove the netting from the right and soon she was left holding a hawk. A perfectly healthy hawk. How was she going to let it go without hurting it or herself.

The blanket was still covering it’s head and back, “I’m going to put both hands on your wings again, then walk a bit so you’re away from this netting,” she said, “then I’ll set you down and remove the blanket. Please trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

She returned her left hand to where the hawks left wing would be and slid her right hand back to the same wing space on the right. She walked as smoothly as she could while also moving somewhat quickly, taking the hawk to an open bit of land and sky. She very slowly lowered the hawk to the ground and just as she grabbed the blanket and stepped back, the bird leaped up into the air and took wing.

A gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it, it was truly breathtaking. She watched as the hawk flew up and up and then circled above a bit before flying west. She’d been holding her breath again, or rather, she’d been holding an exhale and gasped for air. She simultaneously wanted to fall on the ground in a heap staring at the sky and run and jump and laugh. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins and for an instant she almost thought she could fly after the bird she was so high.

Instead she returned the blanket to the barn, walked up to the shop for a ladder and some clippers, and began dismantling the netting.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

When she designed the garden she thought about practical things like the space between the raised beds being large enough for a wheelbarrow, the raised beds being tall enough that you could tend them without hurting your back, plumbing running to the beds so you could set a timer and not have to spend two hours every morning watering the garden. She did not think of things that would be just as important later and much more obvious like the garden itself being beautiful.

Due to the enormity of the project and the skill required to complete it, she hired a man to build it for her. They were on the same page, or so she thought, and she left him to it. Later that day when she came out to check on progress she was dismayed to find that things had not been begun as discussed. There was now a large step to get up and over into the garden, entirely impractical for the use of wheelbarrows, there were now large posts sticking up throughout the space which would later be used to help create a netted canopy to protect against birds.

The man explained to her the reasons for these things. She understood in practical terms why they were necessary, but did not understand why he didn’t simply tell her before hand they would be needed. Perhaps there could have been another way, a different way, a better way. This was to be the first of many disappointments and if she’d known she would have ceased work on the garden immediately. Sadly, the work continued.

Water lines were run underground and into the middle of each bed but they weren’t run until after the beds had been built and gopher wire strung and stapled. Now the gopher wire was cut to make room for the water lines. None of this was her plan. The water lines were plumbed such that they simply couldn’t water the garden as necessary and had to be re-plumbed and then re-plumbed again.

By now her excitement for the garden had waned and her dislike of the project and the way it was being handled had turned to loathing. The project was to be completed in two weeks time but suddenly the man in charge ceased to arrive. Nothing was happening in the half-contrived space and the deadline was drawing near. Every day the man assured her the project would be completed on time and every day no one arrived to work on it. She began to spend her afternoons and evenings out in the garden, working to build the garden space she no longer wanted.

When the final day of the project arrived and the man didn’t, she was glad she’d continued the work, irate that she hadn’t simply taken it upon herself to do it all herself to begin with, and grateful that at least by working on it herself she’d managed to do some things the way she wanted. When the man arrived two days later to “finish up” she told him not to bother and not to come back.

It was not as satisfying as she’d hoped. Like the garden, the dismissal of it’s creator was disappointing.

When the space was finally complete she drank a beer in celebration. Tomorrow she would begin planting. Her excitement for the garden returned.

The space was so large and her seed bank so full that it took the entire morning to plant half the space. She took a break for lunch, nothing more than a quick bite of apple and cheese, a bit of bread with real mustard and a few capers. She was back out and planting before the leftover mustard had begun to crust on the knife. She finished planting the second half of the garden and heaved a deep sigh with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. She grabbed another beer and drank it while watering and singing to the seeds.

The sun came and went, came and went. The sprinkler system worked as it should. Around the fifth day she noticed a slightly different color to the luscious dirt in the beds. That would be the seeds starting to germinate, the little leaves still too small to see without a microscope, but their presence making itself known subtly. By the tenth day little leaves were obvious. And they were everywhere.

She took to spending the early evening on her porch where she could see the garden. She’d watch as squirrels tried every space they could think to try and get in, thwarted by the chicken wire all around. She’d watch as birds sat on the poles, pecking at the netting wondering how they’d get in, unable to. She felt some triumph, some vindication. Her crops would be safe from these free loaders.

As the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months her garden grew. There was so much green! And red and yellow and purple and orange. The rainbow of her garden delighted her and she couldn’t wait to begin to taste the bounty it promised. Only after two months there was still nothing quite the right size and color to pick. Everything grew a bit stunted, a bit off. By the third month it was obvious that something was really very wrong. Her corn wasn’t as tall as it should be and the ears were no larger than her hand. The squash had flowered beautifully but the nubs growing from the vines were smaller than pickles.

Her disappointment in the garden returned. Looking at it from the porch she realized how orderly, and ugly it was. She watched as the birds sat on the poles, unable to get in, and she was saddened. She watched as the butterflies flew into the netting, unable to get through, and flew away and she was embittered. Even the parts of the garden that had been done right were clearly all wrong.

By autumn she was able to claim that she’d grown ten beautiful pea pods, five delicious cherry tomatoes, and one somewhat acceptable zucchini. The garden would come down. Perhaps she could still salvage the beds, but the posts and the netting and dreariness of the garden must be removed.

Winter came and took care of the netting for her. The snows were heavy and wet, so wet that it stuck to the netting, weighing it down, unable to slip through and land on the garden below. It was really quite beautiful to see this large space completely untouched by white. Until about the third day or so when the netting finally succumbed to the pressure.

The giant posts remained and she’d decided to leave them and use them to her advantage. In February, the time for planting peas, she placed seeds all around the base of each post. They would prove perfect for climbing peas in spring and climbing beans in summer.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The fridge was buzzing…again. That high pitched drone that completely disappeared when you got close enough to shake it, rendering the shaking of it unnecessary. But the minute you walked away…. It was going to be the death of her.

Sometimes she’d shake it anyway. Shake it, shake it, shake it. And of course it wasn’t making the buzzing while she was standing there so she’d begin to walk away and just as she was thinking, “finally! I finally got it!” the buzzing would start again. Sometimes she’d shift it just a smidge to the right and it would stop. “Vindication!” she’d think, only to walk away and hear it brrrp-brrrp-brrrp and buzz all over again. So, obviously, she’d shift it a little to the left. That never helped.

Repairmen came and went all saying the same thing: everything’s clean, nothing’s out of order or out of place, perhaps moving items around inside would help.

Fat lot of good repairmen are.

The buzzing would sometimes begin to escalate and make wha-wha-wha sounds and the distraction of it was just maddening. She couldn’t read a book, watch television, scroll through the internet on her phone. Anything she tried to do she’d realize she wasn’t actually doing because she was really listening to the fridge.

She’d finally be down the hall in her room, in bed, asleep, desperate for an hour or two in between insomniac moments, and the next thing she’d know she was awake. Why was she awake? This wasn’t her insomnia, this was something else, something had woken her. What?

The damn fridge.

She thought about unplugging it at night. If there was no one around to open the doors the food would remain cold til morning at which point she could plug it back in. And why not? Perfect solution to the unsolvable problem. Only unplugging it required moving the beast out far enough that she could reach the plug. And plugging it back in required moving it out even further so she could pick the plug up off the floor and get between the fridge and the wall and the cabinet and re-plug it in. It was a different kind of nightmare that plug.

Plus the moving of the fridge was bound to destroy the floor. It was only a matter of time. Moving a fridge back and forth and not expecting it to wear grooves into the floor or tear the floor completely, that was foolish. And she didn’t want to have to replace the perfectly adequate flooring in her kitchen just because her damn fridge didn’t work properly.

The only other thing that would work would be removing everything. Literally everything. If there was nothing in the fridge or freezer the damn thing was quiet. So very wonderfully quiet. Maybe she could just eat out of boxes and cans. Boxes, cans, and the kind of fresh fruit she could keep on the counter. Never buy anything that required refrigeration. Never bring home leftovers. Never use condiments at home. Never drink anything cold or have a pint of ice cream for one of “those days.”

If friends came over she’d simply warn them before hand that all she had was a little handheld cooler with ice for drinks or something. She’d just have to remember to buy a little handheld cooler. And buy ice. How hard could that be? Remembering to buy ice on the rare occasions her friends came to her house instead of meeting somewhere or going to someone else’s house. Easy.

She could do it. Live without a fridge. She was sure of it. What did they do in the old days before electricity anyway? She’d read about it somewhere…oh, right, they had those beautiful wooden boxes. Freezer boxes? She couldn’t remember what they were called, but that sounded right. She’d get one of those. Only they required a big block of ice. How often? Wouldn’t that make a terrible mess as the ice melted? Why did they make them out of wood anyway, wouldn’t the melting ice ruin the wood? Maybe it was best if she just made do with nothing.

Winters were cold enough she could leave some things out on the porch. Summers she’d just do without. It would be worth it if she could sleep. Worth it if she could hear herself think. Worth it if it meant never having to hear another repairman tell her to shift the contents around.

“Or you could just buy a new fridge,” her friend offered.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

When I was growing up there weren’t all these rules as you have today. You shoulda seen the things we got away with, you wouldn’t believe it now. But that don’t mean nothin’ really. It wasn’t any better or worse then than it is now. Don’t let anybody fool you with all that nostalgia crap. It seems every generation is destined to see things as better “back then” and no generation is open to seeing it as pretty great “right now.” Maybe we’re just programmed that way as humans. Maybe things always seem better when you didn’t have to live through them. Maybe we only remember the good stuff so only the good stuff gets passed on and remembered.

It’s hard to believe anyone looking back on World War I or The Great Depression as “good ole days.” But they will. They won’t call it WWI, but they’ll be pointin’ to the early 1900’s and waxin’ poetic. Ain’t nothin’ poetic about war, famine, rationin’, food lines, gas lines, children workin’ in factories, none of it. But these are the same people who blame the time change on farmers.

What do these people even know anyway. How can you possibly think the farmers are responsible for the time movin’ back or forth. I mean really. When have farmers ever been given an ear by anyone in any space of power. And these people think they’re responsible for the movements of time. Please. Now honey, you wanna know about time change you gotta think money. We are in the United States after all, ain’t nothin’ happenin’ around here if it ain’t for money. Money and time, time and money. That’s what oughta be printed on the bills, cause you better believe it ain’t got nothin’ to do with God or trust.

What were we talkin’ about? Oh right, growin’ up and life and stuff. Well, lemme just say I feel sorry for the way these kids are growin’ up. They don’t walk anywhere anymore. They don’t spend time with they friends. I ask my great great grandbabies what they learnin’ in school and they can’t hardly tell me. Sound like they don’t rightly know they own selves. But they can tell me what time the bus comes and what time they get home and what time they favorite television show is on. That’s just sad, it is.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched television. I think it musta been back when I lived with your grandmama for awhile. They always watch so mucha that box. Seems they had it on all night and day, got to where you couldn’t tell if whatcha were watchin’ was real or not. Is this still the news or we watchin’ one a them stories. You ask me that’s one a the things wrong with people today, they still don’t know the difference. Is it true or is it a story, they almost seem like they don’t much care either way. Like it don’t much matter to them if it’s true or not so long’s they can play on they phone while it’s happenin’.

You don’t get nothin’ outta your life if all your life is spent on a phone. I can tell you that right now. I can see the value of ’em, sure. It would have been right nice to know where my kids was at on a summers day when I needed to run to the store for somethin’ but it wasn’t necessary. Back then I’d just run to the store. Maybe leave a note on the kitchen table case they came lookin’ for me. Like as not I wouldn’t have to go to the store at all. Just call out the back door for one a the kids to go for me or ask my neighbor for whatever it was I needed. I bet you don’t even know your neighbors name. Am I right.

It’s not just connection though, y’all are missin’ much more than that. You have all kinda connections too, don’t ya. You got the interweb accounts that let you see what everyone’s doing all the time, and that makes you feel connected. Right. It’s why they keep trying to teach us how to use the computers. They got these real small ones now you don’t have to plug in or anything, ain’t heavy at all, like a magazine just about. They keep tellin’ us that usin’ those things will let us keep in touch, just like television but with our families. Well, that ain’t no kinda connection I know. And sides that it don’t get you any closer to the point does it.

Everyone’s always askin’ for the secret, the purpose, the point of life. I heard some great theories, lemme tell ya, but none of ’em are right. Truth is the whole purpose of life is failure. You wanna fail at so many things you can’t even count, but you don’t want to fail at the same thing twice. And the thing is, after all that failure, at some point there’ll be a thing you don’t fail at. It’s statistically impossible to fail at everything. Trust me. So you just go on now, go out there and give it all ya got, as many times as it takes to fail at all the things you wanna try, and then you just let me know when you hit upon something you can’t seem to lose at.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

It was foggy that morning. The mist hung in the pine trees and the oaks, the manzanitas were completely obscured until you got close enough to see their red trunks and branches bleeding through the white bandage. They were following a deer trail. Well worn, lots of hoof prints from the larger stags hooves splayed a bit to the smallest fawns hoofs barely visible and looking like miniature hearts. Cupid signaling the way to a long love.

Daddy had told her to get up and come along. So she had. It wasn’t even first light, but she could tell by the way his arm brushed hers that he was wearing flannel and by the sound of his steps receding that he was in boots. And of course he’d be in jeans. Daddy always wore jeans. She remembered Mama chiding him about wearing those jeans to his own wedding and she’d laughed thinking it was a joke til Mama showed her pictures. Mama in the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen, long and white and tatted in a pattern she’d never have the patience to learn. And Daddy in button down shirt and jeans. She knew Mama wasn’t really upset about those jeans though, she could hear it in the tone of her chiding and the tilt of her lips that wasn’t quite smile. That was the tone and the tilt that meant you’d gotten away with whatever naughty thing you’d done cause Mama was secretly pleased you had the gumption.

Dressing as quietly as she could in the dark, shivering from the cold, clearly Daddy’d only just recently rebuilt the fire and the heat hadn’t made it’s way back to the bedrooms yet, she found her jeans from the day before thrown over her desk chair, found her flannel under the jeans, and her boots on the floor, the left one knocked over from when she’d accidentally kicked the chair in the dark on her way to bed last night. She hustled quietly out her door towards the kitchen not smelling anything but hoping Mama was up and making something warm.

The kitchen was cold and quiet. Whatever was happening it’d just be her and Daddy. That meant Daddy was planning on being back for breakfast. That man never missed sausages in the morning, nor coffee to boot. And if it was just her and Daddy that meant he’d already be under way, he’d have given her in his mind the time it took to pull on her clothes and then he’d have started off. Shoot. Her cold tummy would have to wait. Still keeping quiet but hurrying a bit more, her steps more like hops than shuffles she made her way out the back door and bounded off the porch.

Hitting the fog she stopped. Daddy wouldn’t leave her on her own in this. This was dangerous. People got confused in fog like this, fell off the bluff, walked into a coyote snare. She’d been told since she could remember that guns weren’t toys and fog wasn’t a dance partner. Her instinct was to turn around and return to the porch but she knew in fog like this turning around could get you lost. She steeled herself, looked down at her feet to see which way they were facing, then put one foot directly behind the other, backing up in a straight line til her boot thunked against the wooden stair. Only then did she turn and walk up the stairs to the porch and start looking around for Daddy.

He reached out a hand and tousled her hair clearly proud of her, then he reached down and took hold of her hand walking off the porch with her in tow. It would have been nice if her fear of the fog evaporated holding Daddy’s hand. She felt like it should have, if Daddy was here there should be nothing to fear, but she was old enough to know that even Daddy couldn’t save her from everything.

The deer trail led them to a meadow and it was here that Daddy stopped walking, crouched down, and gave a gentle tug on her arm signaling her to crouch down, too. The fog was beginning to lift a bit, still stuck in the trees like so much cotton candy, but no longer a curtain down to the ground. Looking out across the meadow she tried to see what it was they’d come to see. Daddy wouldn’t ever tell her what they were about on adventures like this, he always waited to see what she could intuit, what she could figure.

The first time they’d come out to the meadow it was spring. Still bitterly cold in the morning and stunningly beautiful in the evening. They’d come after breakfast, full bellies and the trail easy to follow. They’d sat down on plastic dish sleds they’d carried all that way so they’d be out of the mud. The wild grasses were just emerging but the bulbs had bloomed stunningly bright colors dotting the meadow everywhere she looked. She had assumed that’s why they were there: the bulbs. But it wasn’t so. Daddy wouldn’t say anything, but he didn’t shush her queries either. She soon got tired of guessing and sat quietly, enjoyed the beautiful flowers bouncing in the breeze, and the flutter of a butterfly on her left shoulder. And then another butterfly on her head. Turning to Daddy she saw three butterflies on his arm and one on his head, too. Turning back to the meadow she suddenly realized there were butterflies everywhere. Where had they all come from? The butterflies were emerging from their cocoons and it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

Another time they’d come to the meadow in the darkest black of morning, earlier than she’d ever been awake. The kind of dark night that only comes when your sixty miles from the nearest city with no moon to speak of and knocking on 2 a.m.’s door. She’d stumbled out after Daddy more than walked. When they arrived at the meadow, grasses dry and crackling under their weight and the lack of water the end of summer always wrought, she nearly collapsed on her back when she saw Daddy lay down. She was all ready to fall right back to sleep if her heart would slow when she looked up and had a moment of panic. She was going to drift away if she didn’t hold on to the meadow, she was going to drift away into the impossibility of all those stars. And then lightning streaked across the sky and she caught her breath. It happened again! But there were no clouds, how could it be? She was beginning to think she’d imagined it when it happened again, and again! Later that morning over sausages and eggs and toast and Mama’s homemade, she learned about meteors and they sparked a whole new passion in her. She checked out everything her library had on space and worked with the librarian to check out everything the other libraries around had on space. For weeks her life was reading, returning, checking out, reading, returning. Until one day the books she opened no longer gave her new information.

And now here they were again. She searched the meadow for a clue, knew the sky couldn’t be seen, finally looked to Daddy to see where he was looking. A bit ahead and a little to the right, not twelve on the meadow clock but not one either. She strained her eyes to see.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

She bought the house because it had turquoise trim, it was almost one hundred years old and had original hardwood floors, and the neighbors on either side were clearly super liberal. She would be safe here. She bought the house because it needed work. So much work. The house would cost roughly two years worth of paychecks to fix, assuming she didn’t touch her savings or go for a loan. The work would save her.

The day she closed escrow was a Thursday. She’d anticipated the close and taken Thursday and Friday off work. Waking at 6 am out of habit and excitement, she had some time to kill before her 9 am meet up with the realtor to get her new keys. Her first stop was coffee. She should probably give up drive thru coffee, it was so expensive and not any better than what she could make herself at home, but it would be her last luxury, she told herself as she took her place in the line of cars and rummaged through her purse for her cards.

Coffee in hand, or rather in her cars cup holder, she proceeded to her second stop. Arriving at the home improvement big box store she grabbed her list from her purse, her coffee from her cup holder, her keys from the ignition, and walked inside. It felt so amazing to be in jeans on a work day. She couldn’t help the bounce in her step or the excitement mixed with fear she felt as she grabbed a cart and turned left toward the cleaning supplies.

She would need loads of wood floor cleaner and the right sort of mop for the job, something good to scrub all the wood paneling with too, and those giant trash bags definitely some of those. Didn’t they sell a giant pack of cleaning rags, cause that would fit the bill. And some generic all purpose cleanser, at least a gallon. Window cleaner, check. Paper towels, check. A thick face mask for when she pulled up that carpet. A good pair of gloves for pulling those weeds. And last, but not least, and certainly the most exciting part, new door handles and locks for the outside doors: front, garage, and side.

She spent quite a bit of time perusing the handles. Choosing the right front door handle was important. This house would be celebrating it’s centennial birthday in a few years and deserved to have a handle that fit that status. No silly newfangled electronic thing or plain round knob. The house deserved an elegant handle. And she finally found the right one. It was copper, which would tarnish with age to a lovely turquoise to match the trim she intended to re-paint but keep. It had scroll work and a Victorian look to it, perfect.

Before leaving, she checked on inside paint colors and grabbed a few samples cards. The wood paneling was awful but removing it would be too expensive and dirty, and it would delay her move-in. She’d been scouring the internet for weeks to see what paneling looked like painted and had found scads of beautiful results. She knew she wanted everything in the house to be bright and cheerful, especially since she was leaving the original wood floors, the wood beam ceiling, and several of the built-ins in all their natural wooden splendor. The painted paneling would help offset all that brown, help make it pop.

With her car loaded up, she made her way to the house. She was still a little early but she figured she’d just sit and commune with the home, enjoy the morning sounds of the neighborhood, get a feel for her future. There was no street parking but she didn’t care, she wanted to pull into her driveway anyway. Hers. This was hers now. Exiting the car to walk around it and stand in front of the house she suddenly froze. The enormity of what she’d just done hit her. She’d bought a house. A house that needed a ton of work. A ton of money. What was she thinking? She’d never restored a house before? She didn’t know the first thing about…anything.

Sinking to the concrete she sat. Staring.

She had planned to lose herself in the work. When you have to clean and scrub and scour and prepare for painting you have nowhere to be but inside your head. Sure you can turn on music to help the time pass and make it a bit more fun, but after the third or fourth hour, after the first and second breaks to pee or grab lunch…at some point you realize the music is on and you’re not hearing it. You’re listening to yourself for maybe the first time in ages. She’d counted on that.

She wanted to fix the house up, sure, but in return the house was going to help her fix herself. The house would force her to exercise. The house would force her to listen to her own thoughts as she pulled weeds for the third hour in a row, or scrubbed the paneling of yet another wall, or pulled up that nasty carpet in the bedroom. The house would be her therapy. Isn’t that how it works in the movies? You start a project that’s too big for you, you find yourself during the work, and by the time it’s all done you have something you absolutely love and you’ve also managed to find love within yourself and somehow magically outside of yourself too, because Mr. Right always makes an appearance. She’d counted on all that.

Her realtor arrived, chirping with the thrill of a house sold and another satisfied client. It wasn’t til their eyes met that the realtor realized something was wrong. Taking the tack that sitting down might be appropriate, she criss-cross-applesauced her way to the cold cement and stared up at the house.

“Did you ever do something you maybe shouldn’t have?”

“All the time. It’s important to scare yourself at least once a day…someone famous said something like that anyway.”

“I think I’m in over my head.”

“Then you’re right where you need to be.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The birds were calling in the trees all around and it felt a bit like spring even though it was still the middle of winter.

“Are you going to keep the turquoise?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. I like it, too.” After a beat she asked, “ready for your keys?”

~~~That’s one hour~~~

“It’s time,” she said to herself, “there are far too many roosters; they’re attacking each other, eating too much feed, costing me money. It’s time.”

She dressed in her old torn and stained jeans, the t-shirt that wasn’t good for much more than being cut up into rags, and a pair of rubber boots. She drank what was left of her coffee, cold now and a bit crunchy with some grounds that’d snuck through the screen of her French press (this might be the country, but good coffee knows no class). Rinsing the mug and setting it in the drainboard she headed down the stairs and out the door.

She walked through the pasture toward the coop. There was a stump of oak in the ground from when the oak beetle had decimated her favorite tree. That stump had been eyeing her for weeks. Calling out to her. Whispering to her. She knew it was perfect for the chore at hand. Knew the minute the tree was felled and the stump appeared. With the rest of the tree cleared away and smoldering under a tarp a few feet away, there was nothing left but to make use of the stump. No other chores to distract her from the task at hand.

It was cruel to leave the roosters this long. It was no kindness making them live for her squeamishness, letting them peck and scratch and attack one another, spilling one another’s blood so she wouldn’t have to. It was time.

She found the ax out behind the barn, leaning casually against it, waiting right where she’d left it after cutting up the oak. The ax normally lived inside the barn, a little tool and tack room that protected the ax from the elements. But she’d been tired the other day, finished with the oak, preparing for the roosters. So tired. Too tired to put it away properly. Plus, she figured the roosters might see her with it and know what was coming. She didn’t want to spoil the meat. She didn’t want their last few days to be spent in fear.

Although how could a creature fear a thing it’d never seen before? She’d read a thing once, or did she hear it on the radio? She wasn’t quite sure. Anyway, it was all about how human babies who have never seen a snake or been warned about them can see the squiggle of a snake and are immediately afraid. Dern things have never seen a snake in their short little baby lives, but you show ’em a snake squiggle and they cry and cry for their mamas. Ever since she learned about that she’s taken more caution with things.

Walking the ax out to the stump she dropped it down in the weeds and mimed the actions to come: if she walked up to the stump this way with a rooster in her left hand, she could hold it down like this and…oh. There weren’t any nails in the stump yet. She’d forgotten that part. Leaving the ax in the weeds she went back to the barn and this time entered the tool room rifling around for a hammer and a couple of nails. Finding what she needed she headed back out to the stump.

Once again standing before the stump, she figured about where she’d need their necks and hence about where they’d need their heads. She drove the nails into the stump in a “v” formation. Once again she mimed out the process: she’d walk up to the stump this way with a rooster in her left hand, she could hold it down like this, slip it’s head into the “v”, pull the body back a bit to straighten the neck, then grab the ax with her right hand, like so, holding the body with her left hand like so, then a quick downward motion with her right arm, and… the stump didn’t move a bit as the ax hit it but the air resonated with the thunk.

She tried not to shudder. She could do this. She had to do this. “It’s time,” she said aloud.

Walking back to the coop she saw two of the roosters attacking one another, wings outstretched, leaning backwards, dancing on their toes. It could have been a mating dance if it weren’t for the sounds they were emitting and the occasional jump, dive, slash movements they did with their spurs. It would have been funny, two ridiculous animals fighting over nothing (she’d moved all the hens to a chicken tractor when the roosters became old enough to be a nuisance to them), if it weren’t for the blood they drew, the eye they occasionally removed, and the brutalization of the losers body that sometimes occurred afterwards.

She opened the gate to step into the coop and the parade of roosters watching the fight ignored her. The sparring partners ignored her. She knew it was mean to let them continue, but it was also the best way to keep the gawkers from flapping around like crazy as she tried to catch them. She quickly and without hesitation grabbed the rooster closest to her around the neck and swept him up into the crook of her left arm. Nobody stirred except the two roosters on either side of the gap she’d just created; they shuffled a little bit, closing the gap, eyes still locked on the two roosters intent on killing each other.

Exiting the coop she wondered why anyone would ever pay to watch such a thing. Her right hand still around the roosters neck and her left arm cradling his body, she cooed down to him hoping to keep him calm. It was no use, of course. His heartbeat had been wild from watching the fight, she felt it the moment he was in her arms. It hadn’t gotten faster since she nabbed him, but it hadn’t slowed since the scenery changed either.

She wondered how badly the meat would be affected by the fighting going on today. Was it even worth it to butcher these creatures today? If not today, when? Tomorrow would be another day of fighting, and the day after that. Plus, she could only butcher so many birds in a day and she had to kill all twenty. Or did she?

She had planned on keeping one rooster. She liked hearing their crowing throughout the day. Most people thought a rooster only crowed in the morning but it wasn’t so. The roosters crowed all throughout the day, several times a day. In fact, a week ago there’d been a full moon the likes of which she’d never seen in her forty years. It’d been so bright and so clear that the roosters had taken to crowing much of the night, too. That night she’d decided she didn’t need to keep a rooster.

Still. Maybe just one rooster.

That left nineteen to kill, gut, pluck, bag, and freeze. That was more than she could get through herself in a day. She thought she could probably get through ten on her own in a day…maybe twelve. She liked the idea of getting through more on the first day so she’d have less the second day. A mini-reward on day two, the reward of having to do less. If she kept one and killed twelve today, she’d only have to get through seven tomorrow. It would still be a full days work, but not quite so full as today.

Quick as she could she held the rooster down on the stump, stretching his neck a bit to get his head on the other side of the “v.” Quick as she could she raised the ax and brought it down hard. The thunk sounded more like a shlunk this time and the echo was a bit muted.

~~~That’s an hour~~~