Work Out - Honk

By Nancy Leasman

It was a semi-coolish prelude to a warm and steamy July day. I was out early to put in 3,000 steps down the road and back, adding a few choice agates to my collection. The sky was an empty blue, the fields and trees all those summery shades of green. Birds sang. And though I had seen a shifting of small dark shadows down the road at the beginning of my walk, no wildlife made any appearances. The Amish horses weren’t even in their usual pasture.

After the walk I slipped into my gum shoes, pulled on my work gloves and headed for a little garden work before the day got hot. I hoed the row where the basil hadn’t come up. Mulched a little closer to the lone pumpkin plant, excised a few weeds in the beans I’d missed the day before during a weeding session that had heated up in mid-day. I cleared a few weeds in the squash rows and spread wild hay a bit closer to the plants.

I have to say I’m enjoying this smaller-than-normal garden and since it’s encircled by a permanent fence, I’m calling it the new normal.

Having accumulated 5,537 steps and it wasn’t yet 10 a.m., I arranged myself in a comfy chair on the porch, positioned a second chair so I could put my feet up and settled in to read. I was well into Cabin, Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison, a book I had ordered through my library system. I had been way down on the wait list so had forgotten I had ordered it when the emailed message told me I could pick it up.

Mr. Hutchison’s book revealed his progression from Seattle writer, to Cascade Mountain cabin owner and fixer-upper, obviously back to writer about his fixer upper. I was into his description of the mud slide that threatened his home-away-from-home while still tuned in to my own landscape. I was also fascinated by the story of a newbie handyman’s approach to restoring a cabin while I was sitting on the porch constructed by my husband against the house we physically built together when we were young and able to spend long days pounding nails.

But, as I said, I was still tuned in to my surroundings. I noticed the parade of vehicles passing on what had been a quiet rural road when we moved here. I also heard a blaring of horns as a truck, the neighbor’s septic pumper (a royal flush beats a full house) heading east, got about 500 feet beyond my driveway. When a second truck, a waste truck from one of the local disassembly plants, honked, too, I put down the book and went to investigate.

I figured there were about three reasons for honking on down the road. One would be a deer, two would be turkeys, three could be a bicyclist straying too close to the center line. A possible fourth could be a stranded motorist, but that’s not a reason for honking, nor is it likely at 10:15 a.m. on a Thursday.

I stood at the end of the driveway, looking east and then north, and then west, just in case. Nothing. I repeated the rotation a few times and was about to grab the recycling wheelie bin from its pick-me-up position at the top of the driveway, to put it back in its parking spot, when I saw it. A small dark head bobbed at the roadside about 500 feet down the road. As I watched, the head materialized into a turkey-sized body.

I have to give those truck drivers credit for warning a lone turkey out doing its morning turkey trot. It will live to dance on the verge for another day.