Midnight Serenade

Around three this morning, one of the horses started pawing at the wall of their stall. Boredom had set in and she was out of hay. I yelled at her and waited until she stopped for a while and then got up and went out to throw some hay at them. I use these forays to go heed natures call and, after throwing the hay in their stalls, walked on outside.

As often happens, I was glad that I was up and forced to come see what a beautiful moonlit night it was. The weather report was calling for high winds, but this must have been the calm before the storm. The temperature was just below freezing and it felt a lot warmer. I caught a bit of coyote yipping off in the distance so I stopped moving and strained to listen. It was two sets of coyotes, one off to the north and one way off to the south. You could barely hear the ones in the south. I stayed out for awhile and listened for other animals or movement. Sometimes the owls will answer the coyotes but tonight it was just coyotes. From inside, I could hear the horses feeding and an occcasional movement from them as the worked the hay pile. I felt sorry for everyone who had indoor plumbing and missed wonderful nights like this one. I stayed outside for a few more minutes, just listening and enjoying the moon light, thinking how lucky I was to have witnessed this bit of natural beauty.

It was after three, so I started a fire and put the coffee water on. I had to chop some kindling and you would think it would wake up Kris when I split wood inside, but it doesn't. When I yelled at the horses earlier, I was laying in bed next to her and she just kept on sleeping. She has gotten used to the noises I make and sleeps through them.

People can sleep through a lot. Years ago when we lived in the log cabin in Orland, squirrels moved into the floor between the downstairs and the loft. My first wife and I slept in the loft and the kids slept in the bedrooms below us. I had tried everything I could think of to get rid of the squirrels and still they lived with great impunity in the floor. When you were in the bathroom, which was downstairs, they would peek at you through a crack where the sheet rock ceiling met the log wall. I borrowed a twenty two pistol and bought some bird shot. When I went to the bathroom, I would take it with me and shot several while sitting on the pot. (The upstairs floor was still plywood and I cut a trap door in to remove the dead squirrels.) Anyway, I kept the pistol in a night stand next to the bed and I woke up one night and saw a squirrel on the railing of the loft. Beyond the railing, at the other end of the room, was a log wall with no windows. I judged that to be a safe backdrop and pulled the pistol out of the drawer. I put a shell in and shot the squirrel. The squirrel dropped off the railing onto the stairs and never stirred. Neither did anyone else. My wife kept sleeping peacefully and the three kids never let out a peep.

Maybe I could sleep through a gunshot too, but I always found it odd that no-one woke up. In the confines of a quiet house, that twenty two seemed pretty loud to me. Makes you wonder how big a blast you can make without waking anyone up. I've got a twenty gauge shotgun over in the corner. There's some shells over here on the shelf. Mmmm. I have to run now, I am going to see if I can wake Kris up to enjoy the moon light too. Wish me luck.

Anyway, it was beautiful outside last night and it's too bad you slept through it.