Hitch 4

Any four walls are quick to become a home. Those walls may only be ten feet apart, but it seems almost instantaneous that things are put in order. Within a day the seating chart is understood and hours of silence are not uncommon. The neighbors stop by regularly and make themselves at home. Those neighbors being a pack rat that can be seen leaping in and out of his crawl space above the ceiling and a hummingbird that waltzes through the door and makes himself at home in the middle of a random conversation about K.D. Lang. After awhile it seems like nothing is new, the dangers have disappeared. The snakes are gone, the hornets have thinned. Then, on some idle Wednesday, walking to work just around the next routine turn in the trail, a bear is ravaging a grove of bushes for their fruit oblivious to the presence of others. No doubt, it is a conflict quick to wake both parties from their routine.

Nearly two miles of trail brushed, three pick-mattocks broken , one new bread-maker, 212 thimbleberries eaten, one burnt loaf of spelt bread, ten dips in the creek, one mouse found in mouse trap, two junctions passed, one oblivious black bear, and 417 trips inside cabin by one hummingbird.