King of the Woods

After a long day at work I was driving home through the dark on the quiet county road. The 30 mile commute on this cool autumn night was fairly uneventful until I neared the river bottoms. Approaching the river is my cue to perk up and force my tired eyes to scan the ditches closely for deer. As I started down the hill carrying me into the valley, I spotted you...an unusual movement off to the right side of the road. I slowed to almost a stop. You turned and I saw you in your grandeur; wearing your antlers like a proud crown of years upon your head. With no hesitation in your purposeful stride, in a seemingly slow-motion and fluid gesture, you turned your crowning glory and leapt over the fence as you had done a hundred times before, disappearing into the black of night. As I drove home, I silently sent you good wishes and a prayer of invisibility that you could hide from the cars, arrows and bullets for the rest of your years. A hope for a lifelong monarchy for this king of the woods.

Here we go again

Giving the blog another shot. Life's made some changes in the past year and good ones at that. Listed our house for sale, it sold to a wonderful couple that will be great caretakers. We moved to our new community in SW Minnesota that we absolutely love and say it out loud several times a week. We both have new jobs that are going great. It sounds just too nice right? I know! I keep waiting for the hammer to fall but apparently we keep seeing the positives around us and maybe the hammers falling, we just don't care. Life is good.

I look forward to writing about our discoveries in this "new land" of ours. There is an abundance of good people, beautiful scenery, creative souls and great reminders that the important things in life are not things.

We've made many friends here in town and one very good friend is the city clerk. Another one of those creative souls I was talking about. Well, every month she sends out the bill for city utilities to everyone. I'm not sure why I did, probably to brighten her day at work a bit, but I started "decorating" the envelopes that contain our check and invoice stub for the monthly utility bill. It's usually a combination of a poem and some drawings. She says she's been saving them. That doesn't surprise me as she's a scrapbooker. It is expected now so it got me into a creative schedule again. At least once a month I do something creative. I hope she enjoys getting it as much as I enjoy doodling it out. This month I wrote a poem and a few doodles...thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy!