Coop's Corner: Sunday Morning On The Couch

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Sunday Morning On The Couch

Today's Post was supposed to be about the visit son Ben and I enjoyed at the IMS motorcycle event in Minneapolis yesterday but that was trumped by my time on the couch this morning.

That time was so very fine so as a result, a motorcycle themed post will have to wait until mid-week. No photos today (sorry Bob).

I slept in this morning until a very late 5:30AM. The house was quiet, 3 of our 4 kids are home (the Marine FINALly here) they and Mrs. C still asleep after a late evening of movie watching, the moonlight outside brilliant and my pot of fresh hot coffee brewed quickly.

Our house and farm buildings nestle against the base of the hill behind and our large windows on 3 sides at the rear of the house face a lot of (now) very wintry landscape. I found the nicest end of the sofa, grabbed my Kindle Fire, plugged the headphones in and thanks to TuneIn, began listening to "The Weekend" on CBC out of Winnipeg. I learned that Winnipeg was -10, Flin Flon was -20 and Thompson was -30 pre-dawn this morning. The Canadians really DO seem to have those decimal metric system numbers nailed down, the rule of 10's seeming especially easy.

As I warmed my hands on the too-hot-to-drink coffee cup, my lap hosted 1 1/2 cats and news from the north started streaming through my headphones. As my eyelids may have or may not have been completely open, I suddenly noticed what appeared to be a bit of movement in the moonlight up on the old hillroad. Not more than 20 yards, ~20 meters beyond the garden, there was a brown, horizontal 'something' that seemed to have moved. The key words here are "horizontal", "moved" and "brown". Looking into the woods behind the house, in the dim light most brown somethings are vertical and ANYthing horizontal should have been white after Friday night's new 4" of fresh snow.

There was a deer sleeping up against the slope and the only brown that wasn't horizontal were two very tiny eartips that poked above. For the longest time, there was no more movement. As the sky got bright pink in the East, the head poked up and I could detect some very busy ears, focusing on the quiet stillness outside, quiet to me at least. I heard nothing from my comfortable perch but what I then knew to be a doe out there in the snow was picking up signals, or thought she was. I heard a sound in the bedroom and one of the showers start to flow. Those signals weren't missed, the ears got wide and turned ahead towards the house. A few short minutes later, the ears went back, the head went down and then only the tips were visible again above her body as the sky brightened and her form became more pronounced.

With the attention I was affording the doe, I then noticed that further up the hillroad, another horizontal chunk of brown was stirring and no longer completely still. It was getting easier and easier to see the trail of tracks connecting both resting deer; the path of prints following the least resistant line between the two.

The 7:30 Manitoba and National news complete, an interview was held with the artist that this week would be performing Leonard Cohen songs in Winnipeg. The interview complete, our radio host played The Good Lovelies' version of Cohen's "Hallelujah" and for a bit my eyes were forced to close, my breathing slowed. At 7:47, most of the big sun popped over the Wisconsin bluffs across the river and flooded me as well as the deep snow around the snoozing doe; the mix of blue/white snow and orange more colorful than most would imagine a snowy landscape could possibly be. It was just after 8 when her head came up and while I watched that lovely face and the twitching ears connecting to sounds I noticed a tongue come out and little puffs of snow were witness to the doe gathering some available moisture, or so I guessed.

By 8:20, the doe did her impression of a camel, stretching her back and shaking off the frozen snow from her thick body. After some licking of the ice crystals from her rear haunches, her head went down and the wandering for some browse began.

Do early Sunday mornings get any better?

16 comments:

TroubadourJanuary 19, 2014 at 1:56 PM
Oh how I miss CBC radio... and by your descriptive way on how to spend a Sunday morning, makes me miss it that much more.
I must find an online feed to add to my favorites, since the motorcycles aren't going anywhere soon.
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SonjaMJanuary 19, 2014 at 2:02 PM
I also appreciate the solitude of an early morning. However a city or small town life would not offer a glimpse that close into nature.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayJanuary 19, 2014 at 5:22 PM
I suppose 'real' city would not, the kind of city that's 100% paved. There are so many areas in our local cities with green space that I'd expect to see at least some of nature's showoffs there. We do seem to have deer and turkey's showing up in places they really no longer belong or should feel comfortable in.
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VStar LadyJanuary 19, 2014 at 6:26 PM
A lovely picture painted with words - thanks for the vision. A great way to spend a Sunday morning.
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UnknownJanuary 19, 2014 at 9:18 PM
Coop:

No photos is like having no Television in the 50's. We have go read your words and let our minds imagine the scene, not much different than those old radio shows, of which I have a few. Remember; Intersanctum, or "only the Shadow knows"

even though we are in the city I can just imagine how those deer look like

bob
Riding the Wet Coast

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Keith - Circle BlueJanuary 20, 2014 at 6:16 AM
It is amazing the quiet early in the morning even here in the City. There is something magical about watching the place one is in wake up not matter where it is.

Deer and wild turkeys showing up in the City? You betcha ya! I've seen both on my completely urban commute...fox, too. I'm told there are coyotes in Forest Park.
~k
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayJanuary 20, 2014 at 10:08 AM
Keith, I agree with you and have always preferred being present for the waking up rather than the bedding down. It's just better overall in my opinion, typically quieter and more serene; my body clock in complete agreement.
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TrobairitzJanuary 20, 2014 at 10:55 AM
That sounds like a perfect way to spend the morning. Watching wildlife, listening to CBC, hot coffee, kitties on your lap.....

We didn't need pictures as you painted such a wonderful image through your description.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayJanuary 20, 2014 at 12:43 PM
Thank you Brandy, it worked out pretty well for everyone involved I believe :) If the camera hadn't been in the family room with our sleeping daughter, I'd have attempted the photo. There was only the briefest moment of frustration that the camera was out of reach.

That doe sure looked lovely up there in the snow bank and I did my best to do her justice.
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RichardMJanuary 20, 2014 at 1:13 PM
Nice narrative and, as the others have mentioned, pictures aren't always needed. Which is one reason books are still popular and in many cases much more vivid than videos.
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Dar January 20, 2014 at 1:36 PM
Coop,

Thanks for sharing your Sunday solitude! I could picture the doe and her friend, the kitties, all of it. Thanks for sharing!
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)