June is one of my favorite times here in Michigan. Ma Nature flips her switch (yeah, that one, why not, whatever it takes) and deems our state worthy of sun and warm temps after months of cold, miserable weather.
As a bonus, the days are super long; the sun can come up before 5 AM and not fully set until after 10 PM some nights, which is also welcome after 6+ months of darkness and grey.
Then August comes, and it becomes increasingly difficult to drag my ass out of bed when the clock ticks 6:20 AM and the sun is just starting to peak over the horizon. Yes, we still have a couple of months before the time officially changes, but my rhythm method circadian rhythm takes note.
I started off last week with a 7.5-mile lumber that was both stupid (due to nursing an ongoing foot issue) and amazing because I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I covered 7+ miles on foot and did it in just over 2 hours.
“Give me any chance; I know I can fuck it up!” — Me.
My plantar fascia has been throbbing since early May, and I have tried everything to ease the pain except a steroid injection to provide extended, temporary relief or to ACTUALLY rest my foot for more than a few days, even though I know I should.
A while back, I even wrote some self-love-type stuff that sounded like I had been on a late-night bender with my therapist. All of it was true, only I didn’t follow a word for more than 48 hours. Why? Because I’m an idiot.
The past week has been a whirlwind of lumbering, heavy sweating, porch painting, lawn mowing, appointments, beer consumption, and generalized slack.
All of that is my way of saying that while on the outside, I may appear to have my finger(s) in the gaping chest wound of social media and unreadable content creation, I really don’t care much these days, which is a good thing.
I’ve included a post I wrote last week below, then didn’t publish. Read if you want or do not.
Hoping to get out before the heavy storms arrive later today, but if not, there’s always tomorrow. Or not.
Later.
Of Eagles and Bulldogs
I wrote the following last week. I then realized that I wrote, or at least THINK I wrote something similar, about a wildlife interaction a couple of months ago. So, I aborted. I have no photos that relate to the actual words other than a photo of Lola.
Sorry.
— Management
I was about 4 miles in and finishing up a back loop at Deerfield, known as the Covered Bridge Trail; as I briskly made my way back towards said bridge, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an immature bald eagle doing immature bald eagle shit (fishing) down in the river before it heard me coming and quickly took off over my head.
I could hear the flapping of its large wings above as water droplets fell onto the trail in front of me. I could also see that the maturing juvi was starting to turn “bald” with hints of white feathers on its head as it flew majestically (sadly, there really is no other word for it) above, following the winding river with mid-summer greenery flanking its banks.
I was in awe.
The only camera I had was the small Fuji x70 ensconced tightly in my pack’s pocket; truthfully, I did not even attempt to grab it. I was too in awe and was content to stand completely alone and watch while talking aloud, “Holy shit, look at that!”
I’m not going to lie; my heel was aching, and my mind was distracted by the post-hike trip to Home Despot I needed to make for paint supplies and the actual task of painting the front porch that I promised myself I would start after. But for some reason, seeing that eagle boosted me, and with 4 miles already in my legs, I finished off the remaining mile in front of me with a spring in my increasingly painful step.
I have had multiple bald eagle sightings since I started my near-daily hikes last September, and it never gets old. For me, seeing a bald eagle is like a grizzly bear encounter without the potential paw-to-skull beheading. Somehow it represents that the forest is still wild, and we humans, despite our best efforts to pave over anything green and put up a Dollar General, are just upright walking passengers in nature.
Soon I was home, showered, and off to wander around Home Despot like the unskilled home improver I am to buy paint supplies. After paying, as I walked to my car, I saw a pickup truck in the lot with a cab cover completely wrapped with the image of an angry bald eagle flying with talons at the ready while American flags waved valiantly in the background.
I then realized yet again that I look at the world differently. Of all my encounters with bald eagles, I have never thought they looked menacing or angry, just beautiful, even when on the hunt. And I’m happy that I am the kind of person who lumbers through life seeing nature and its critters first hand, rather than the sort who turns my vehicle into a garish, jingoistic clown car.
Don’t mess with a bulldog, you’ll get snored on.
As I drove home, I realized that eagles and bulldogs aren’t all that different (Hear me out, gahdamnit!). There are roughly 1.2 million sports teams with an angry English bulldog as their mascot. However, as the owner of two English bulldogs, I can tell you the only thing they ever get angry about is someone interrupting their sleep or forgetting the 2 PM feeding and subsequent post-early bird special treats.
I took the day off from hiking on Tuesday because I was maxing my time washing down the front porch railings in preparation for painting in the near future and mowing and trimming the lawn of the vast (not really) estate of the Cul De Sac Shack. So, come Wednesday morning, I was itching like a Lot Lizard’s gizzard to get out and lumber.
NOTE: There are no photos in this post. ‘Cause I ain’t got none. Also, this post is written with a tinge of dickishness and a pinch of sarcasm. Don’t take any of it too seriously because I don’t.
Hikes are very much like rides, “a bad ride, er, hike, is still better than a good day at the office” or some such bullshit we tell ourselves. And that is mostly right, but when it’s not, it goes sort of like this;
Do you want to know how NOT to start a week? I’ll tell you.
Wake up at the first glimmer of summer sunshine on Monday morning, eat breakfast, use the dumper four or five times, cover yourself with bug spray, and get into the woods before the nearby river is clogged with loud, cigarette-smoking, littering, beer-swilling, camo-swimsuit-wearing, neck tattooed river tubers trying their best to get e-coli from the tons of cow shit and crop runoff polluting the water.
Then push yourself to do six miles of hiking even though you are nursing multiple painful foot issues, the air is thick and humid, the sun is getting intense, your jaw hurts from gritting your teeth, and every item of clothing you have on is drenched with fat man sweat that smells like stank taco sauce and stale keg.
And when the hike is done, your goal was met, and you’re finally home; rinse the bug spray off, put on a dry shirt, and mow the grass of the vast (not really) estate of the Cul-De-Sac Shack during the hottest part of the morning, all the while wondering if it’s possible to buy new human feet on Amazon (surely it is) and if I might actually be mentally challenged, because tacking on a 2-mile walk behind a lawn mower after a 6-mile hike in the woods was fucking stupid as hell. I thought I might die and, like you, was mildly disappointed when I did not.
But hey, that was yesterday, it’s the 4th of July now, and we’re celebrating the way three people who could give a fuck do; Wifey went to a movie alone, B is sleeping and will remain so until roughly 2 PM before going out to scout a location to shoot a short film bit he’s working on, and I putzed around the yard trimming shit, doing laundry, making some food, and soon commenced toasting all the freedoms that we Americans enjoy (FINE PRINT: actual freedoms may vary based on tax bracket, skin color, country of birth, gun ownership, religious beliefs (or lack thereof), gender, and sexual orientation).
I only took a few photos on Monday due to the hurt I was in, and they still sit on the z50’s SD card, but I did find a stranger’s grocery list in a cart the other day, and I thought this one was the perfect 4th of July photo. And it’s all I have.
Do you want to know how NOT to start a week? I’ll tell you.