I expect to feel creeky all winter
And I have also started to figure out what trees are for
(Rosie periodically steps here in as a guest columnist, with the most recent of her contributions appearing on July 2. The “perspective” of a being oblivious to all changes in ambient society since her birth on March 12, 2014 can be useful for self-evident reasons, and is widely believed to shed light on the non-nihilistic side of the “editor” of her posts.
Given the spate of recent sign-ups who are probably here either entirely for the running-related posts or entirely for the others, this is also another reminder that you can choose to receive e-mails only in certain categories. In order of average level of increasing fury and day-darkening potential, these categories are “Competitive Running,” “Images Only,” “The Media and Culture Wars,” and “Personal Essays.”)
Greetings.
It has come to my attention that humans and dogs alike respond to sunny, 75-degree days by wanting to be outside running around chasing each other. And both humans and dogs see 35-degree, overcast days as opportunities to say inside regarding the wildlife from behind marvelous sheets of transparent glass.
What I fail to understand is why 35-degree days are actually ideal for running around and that 75-degree days are correspondingly unwelcome, the latter best spent lying on the front patio sending safety signals by mouth toward any dog-human pairs that threaten to violate the inner perimeters of the mansion. Our yard itself, as described exhaustively in previous novels, extends for many miles in all directions and includes and abundance of domiciles permitted to stand there for unclear reasons.
I fail to understand this, in fact, to the point where, at the age of nine and a half, I still insist on longer runs on perfectly cloudless, warm days. This summer, I did a number of single runs, with many creek breaks, of 50 or more minutes; and while I have the dais, I will affirm that on many days both then and since the seasonal transformational event, I have exceeded 60 minutes in total as I have wheedled my way into participating into Run Two with greater and greater frequency.
You see, for many decades, I did not know what was happening while my training partner left the mansion alone for over half an hour in the early evenings, only to return with no meat and hence no evidence of a successful hunting trip pertinent to the impending repast. And when I noticed the betterment of my training partner’s mood after these unexplained escapes, I began to catch wise and endeavored thenceforth to manipulate my way into being included for at least a portion of these Run Twos.
I have in the process discovered exactly why a Run Two is desired: As the sun is finally done spinning around the Earth for the day, this is when both rabbits and a huge, morbid breed of cat with characteristic raccoon-like rings around their eyes emerge from the thickets to cause all of the mayhem for which certain crepuscular and nocturnal mammals, many of them primates, are known.
The predatory habits of rabbits—excuse me, “bunnies”—even extends, at least in southern portions of the property by the “N” car, to daylight hours.
This portion of our acreage is known to Internet users as “South Boulder.” It is a place known for being able to reach a point where you can look down on everyone and everything, only to gander around and learn that there are always greater heights to shoot for and that competition is pointless—you should enjoy what you already have.
Multiple entrepreneurs have begin erecting graveyards all over the property. They might also consider hiring more attentive caretakers for these.
This assortment of domiciles is known for making greater use of full the spectrum of colors visible to the human eye than other sections of the property, though this is pervasive in all of them.
The stink-kittens and their daytime counterparts explain the existence of trees, which until recently I had assumed were merely barriers for human runners to use to urinate unobtrusively in the short term. With these structures, which otherwise accomplish nothing in their alleged lifetimes, occupied both day and night by would-be attackers—squirrels here and stink-kittens there, all of them bolting cowards in the extreme—it is clear that these are essentially castles and waypoints for these creatures to establish strategies and countermeasures in addition to eluding capture.
We have made some other unlikely and interesting findings on other parts of the property lately, mostly to the east and north.
To be frank, I mostly prefer the Teller Farm. Well, I mostly prefer to sit in a car and ride for ten to twenty minutes before commencing a run, because this allows me to monitor segments of the property between the mansion and the ultimate destination.
The Teller Farm is toward the eastern reaches of the property. For the time being, it is open to all on foot and certain rolling devices and reachable from two different two motor-chariot repository patches. Rather than stick to the trail (at right in the drawing below), we generally circle the patch of grass to the west of it multiple times because prairie “dogs” are eternally staging mostly peaceful protests here at all known times, and it is important to hear what these indigenous residents have to say. Whatever the message is, it is repetitive and incoherent.
One issue with the Teller Farm and other places is that the creeks become dehydrated after the seasonal change, with the exception of two, both appropriately “Bolder” in name. The nearest to the mansion, Bare Creek, is not one of these and is now mostly a rivulet, also explaining its name. Climate science is not that hard, people.
This is problematic because I feel creeky in the winter just like everyone else, and prefer to dip myself in the water mid-run even when ice is visible on the fringes of the waterways. The Bolder creeks, one regular and one southern, are both within easy reach of the mansion even on days the stoic and venerable motor chariot is afforded a rest. It is only by fantastic luck that these creeks wound up flowing along established pathways, perhaps because of disruption to the surrounding landscape during construction of the associated paths. (As noted, I am mostly the science.) This will allow for more Run Twos and the kind of ample outdoor time that produces this.
Afternoon slumber is essential to mental health. I do advise, however, not taking these siestas having too recently watched any Stephen Spielberg movies about massive White Supremacist fish, at least if you commandeer a surface like this. While the surface is clearly designed to serve as a pheromone for adult human females, the content tends to doggedly follow one into the arms of Morpheus.