Fields, Dogs, the Sky and a Friend

My to-do list today consisted of a round dozen.  Blogs to write, website pages to create, book chapters to write, taxes to file, stuff to do around the house, on and on.

I managed to knock a few things out this morning in between episodes of walking out to the backyard lake to throw tennis balls for Dolly, our rat terrier.  By 11:00 I found myself donning cammo clothes and packing shotguns into the truck.  Nishta convinced me to take Dolly with me, so off we went in my big red pick-up to meet my favorite hunting buddy Bill on our lease near Wallis, Texas.

Bill is a retired guy with a scruffy white beard who drives a beat-up Chevy truck, owns a thousand shotguns and fishing rods, and has crates of hunting and fishing gear in his garage.  We've hunted together for a decade or more.  He hunts with his golden retriever, Hunter, a 3-year old bundle of energy and love.

Bill, Hunter, Dolly and I sat in a pasture all afternoon waiting for mourning doves to come to our decoys.  Dolly is not a hunting dog, but loves to be in the field anyway - that is, until she gets tired and wants to take a nap in my lap.  So, for a while I cradled a sleeping rat terrier while Bill took 2 of the 6 birds who flew within range.

Mostly, we just sat and watched things.  We watched large flocks of redwing blackbirds swirl and swoop like black, living tornados across the pasture.  We watched small groups of doves meander along a creek bed in the distance, far out of range of our shotguns.  We watched Hunter and Dolly run and chase and smell and explore everything within 75 yards of where we were sitting.  We watched a nearby herd of white cows - a big bull, a dozen or so heifers and a few calves - make their way through 3 big round hay bales.  We watched hawks careen and soar overhead, hunting for their prey as we were, reflecting the sun off their wings and through the pale feathers of their tails.  We watched 3 V's of snow geese pass over us, honking and crying to one another as the sun made them look like blinking diamonds in the sky.

Finally, at sundown, with guns unloaded and stored, birds cleaned and in the ice chest, we stood and watched the sun sink below the tree line and felt the sudden chill in the air.  The full moon was already a third of the way up the sky.  It was time to go home.

My to-do list is still here next to my computer.  Only a few things have been crossed off.  But, I don't regret a moment of this day that I spent not doing the to-do list.

I spent the day with my friend, our dogs, and the world - plugged deep into the natural rhythms of things.  Practicing the only religion I practice.

I had a good day.