The Total Body Freakout

Moving to another state?

Good for you!

It's a great way to exercise your body and exorcise your mind at the same time!

If I had been thinking, I'd have filmed this entire delightful process. The before and after segments would have been, uh, unintentionally funny? 

The farther down this road we go, though, the more that lucid thinking eludes me. I've gotten good at "overthinking" and extremely efficient at "reacting without thinking," but...

Important note: those aren't nearly as helpful as actual thinking. 

Especially when action is required! And decisions must be made. Hastily! 

Moving-Related Tasks That Are Fun AND Good Exercise:

{checks list}

Okay, changing that to

There were unexpected things
hidden in this mulch pile

Moving-Related Tasks That Are Good Exercise:

• Clearing the deck of plants and furnishings ahead of power washing deck
• Actual power washing of deck
• Moving plants and furnishings back onto clean deck

And as long as we're power-washing things...

• Climbing ladder to power wash moss off the roof
• Moving ladder multiple times in hot pursuit of more moss
• Actual power washing of moss off the roof

Let's re-clean all the things!

• Re-cleaning power-washed deck, plants and furnishings, driveway, et al, because power washing the roof is hideously messy and moss flies everywhere
• Re-wash formerly clean windows because
• I'm not very smart 

Let's break some things!

• Dismantle blue chicken coop and haul the pieces up from the back
• Demo grey chicken coop and haul the pieces to the transfer station
• Deconstruct predator fencing and netting while cursing predators nonstop

Let's talk about mulch

Mulch, as a general matter, is useful stuff. It quickly refurbishes places chickens have roamed for the past three years, and will eventually help restore the habitat to its lush PNW origins.

Yay, mulch!

Important note: mulch doesn't move itself. It requires shoveling, carrying, dumping, and spreading. These activities are all good exercise! Especially on the steep slope between the mulch pile and the back of our house!

Related: I've never seen so much mulch, let alone hauled it from one place to another. One day our driveway was clear, the next day it was buried in shredded tree-stuff. It was many, many days before the driveway was clear again.

{sighs, re-checks list}

We have so much more to do—and just three and a half days to do it.

Maybe this would be a good time to stop writing and start doing.

#notfreakingout #atall

Completely Normal

We were out walking the dogs when the cops rolled up.

Three SUVs, lights on, came to a halt perpendicular to the sidewalk, not more than 15 feet from where we were standing.

We stopped and waited, expecting some sort of explanation. Instead, in a conversational tone, one of the cops just said, "Keep walking."

"That was our plan," I said, and we kept walking.

Half a block later we were home, still looking over our shoulders, still wondering what was going on. In the interim, several more SUVs had arrived, and the cops were out of their cars, searching for someone. Overhead, a sheriff's helicopter appeared and was circling—low and at times right over our heads.

Meanwhile, pedestrians ambled by, cyclists cruised past, almost as if the increasingly abnormal scene was completely normal.

We sat in the sun on our front deck, occasionally venturing to the sidewalk in front of our house to see if anything different was happening. The little bridge over the ravine had been blocked off, and car traffic was being diverted. A couple more police vehicles came and went, yellow tape was deployed, cops patrolled the stretch of sidewalk in front of the still-parked SUVs.

Two women walked by, checking Twitter on their phones. "Any update?" my wife asked. "Just something vague about the fire department responding to a 'scene of violence,'" one of them replied.

A second helicopter was now circling the area, but aside from that little had changed in the half-hour since we returned home. We sat on our deck, reading the paper, searching Twitter for any kind of update. There was nothing.

By 7 p.m. the helicopters were gone, along with most of the police cars. I went inside and began the completely normal routine of making dinner—music in the background, a baseball game on mute on TV.

By 8:30 p.m. dinner was over and Anthony Bourdain was getting sloppy drunk on "No Reservations."

That's when we heard the shots.

Outside, there was nothing to see, but someone on a bullhorn was calling for "Junior" to come out of the house.

"Drop your weapon and come to the front door with your hands up."

Again. And again.

***

This happened four days ago, and this morning the neighborhood seems completely normal. Almost insanely so.

I've given some thought to the people who live closest to the scene. Some are empty-nesters, some have very young children. I wonder what they're thinking, how they're processing that beautiful summer evening. What they saw out their windows, how they're explaining it to their children.

Because as it turns out, "Junior" is dead. He reportedly shot himself right around 8:30 p.m. 

Earlier, not long after we walked by their front door, Junior shot his mom several times. Somehow she made it out of the house and was rushed to our local Level 1 trauma center. There's been no word how she's doing.

Junior was 20 years old, his mom is 44. We didn't know them.

***

We still haven't walked back past the house. 

Holding On Loosely

"What's wrong?"

[sobbing] "I'm just having a moment."

When the moment came, it arrived quickly and landed like a ton of wood shavings from the bottom of the coop.

[still sobbing] "I've just been holding on too tight for too long."

***

It started in February, during a snowstorm. 

Melissa was in Hawaii, which meant I was home solo. This has never been a big deal, mostly because year in and year out managing our little urban farm has always been manageable.

In February, though, the coyotes showed up.

And I got belligerent.

The most immediate expression of my hostility was simply standing watch over our chickens. Every morning, just as the automatic coop doors opened, I was out back, coffee in hand. Rain or shine, cold or not-quite-so-cold, a pile of throwing rocks here, a big stick there.

Outwardly I didn't make a big deal of it. It just became something I did, part of my daily routine, part of our responsibility to our creatures.

Inwardly, though, there was fear and frustration and dissonance.

Dissonance, because I respect the role of predators in a healthy ecosystem—and yet I literally wanted to kill these intruders. 

Frustration that despite our counter-measures—from hazing to fencing to visual screens—the coyotes kept coming back.

Fear that the coyotes would succeed and I would fail.

***

I learned the sounds of warning from the crows and alarm from the chickens. Their cues were invaluable, but not infallible. 

Which meant not a day went by that I didn't react to some unseen threat, real or otherwise. I would fly down the stairs and out the back door, triangulating off the crows' position in the trees and the defensive posture (or lack thereof) of the hens. 

"Where is it??" I would literally ask the crows as I scanned the fence line and the neighbors' back yards.

Often the alarms were false...but sometimes they weren't. Sometimes a coyote, or a hawk, or a raccoon was actually within rock-throwing distance. Three times an attack was in progress. Twice, one of our girls died.

Yes, I took it personally.

***

This cycle of watch-alarm-reaction continued, sometimes multiple times a day, until the day we re-homed the girls ahead of our move.

My moment of ablation came the next morning, when I would've normally been out with them.

Some days I still hear them back there. I don't *think* that means I'm crazy. 

I just think it means I was part of their flock, rather than the other way 'round, all along.