This morning like most days I got up and took a walk outside to watch the sunrise and nature in general. Today I surprisingly didn't see any deer, woodchucks, Muskrat Sally's, hawks, peacocks, supermodels or road kill.
A school bus did stop near me at about 6:15 which I thought was a little early for kids to go to school. I think when I went to school it started at about 8:00 but we didn't really have any clocks in my one room school house so I am not sure.
As I walked, the first thing I came across was this "Deer Crossing" sign and I rushed past that because I didn't want to get hit by any deer at that time in the morning.
There also wasn't any mist hanging over the grass like there usually is. It was quieter than normal and totally beautiful. I was wishing my wife could have come along but then in all that quiet she would have said something like:
"You know today you should really paint the front door, figure out what we are doing with the spare bedroom, go buy the paint for the hall way, call the car dealer because I want a new car as soon as they come out, see if our accountant can come over for dinner, ask our Daughter what the plans are for Thanksgiving etc.".
And that would be the end of the peacefullness.
I knew I was getting near the end of the road from the smell of wet horse. This is an affluent neighborhood and you can tell if you look close and pay attention. One thing that stood out is that the horses wear designer boots.
So I walked about a mile and a half to the end of the country road where it ends at a larger road. At that junction there is this windmill. It’s a silly place for a windmill and I am sure it was someplace else a hundred and fifty years ago. The thing is there because there is a catering hall nearby and brides go there to take pictures. They have to be quick because as you can see it is totally falling apart and if any actual wind hit it, it would collapse into a large pile of termite infested sticks.
I don't see the attraction of taking a wedding picture in front of a defunct, dilapidated excuse for a windmill unless maybe the Happy couple want to try to convince people they had a destination wedding in Holland.
I am sure Holland has much better windmills so the people there most likely take pictures in font of Starbucks.
Behind the windmill is a dirt road which I have never been on so I went that way. It led to this "shed" which seems to have been built at the same time as the windmill by Columbus. I went in being careful the roof didn't collapse and I listened closely to make sure Otis the town drunk wasn't living in it.
The only things in it were ancient lawn mowers in varying degrees of rusting into the ground. I looked around for something to use for a steam punk project with no luck so I left as the place was making me itchy.
I bet not long ago someone went in there and something scared him out of his underwear. No, really! I saw someone's underwear stuck in a tree and for that to happen, you really have to be running pretty fast.
I don't know what scared him but I wouldn’t know how to describe how my underwear ended up in a tree so I got away from there.
About two thirds of my way home, there was dense brush on both sides of me. To dense for anyone or anything to get through. But a sort of clearing opened up where I could see back into the thicket.
I didn’t want to get too close as the sun wasn’t really up yet and I didn’t notice any underwear in the trees but all of a sudden, out of the quietness I heard this very low, very close rumbling. Exactly like a lion sounds just before he pounces on the gazelle on the African Savanna, ripping it to pieces before swallowing it alive, not that I have ever been on the African savanna or saw a gazelle being eaten alive but I do watch David Attenbury describe it on National Geographic TV.
A thousand thoughts went through my head like how many lions are on Long Island New York? Not many I thought and the nearest lion was probably in the Bronx Zoo 100 miles away.
But maybe it was a pet that got away. Maybe it escaped from the Bronx Zoo and walked the hundred miles along the expressway undetected.
I wasn’t sure what it was but it sure sounded like the low rumble of a lion. A very big, very hungry lion.
I heard it again and I started walking faster, much faster. Almost running now and at my age, running doesn’t mean going so fast that bugs get caught in my teeth.
Then, all of a sudden, I heard the unmistakable sound of a tractor trailer horn. It was the diesel engine of the truck echoing through the brush and I assume the driver had it in the wrong gear.
OMG was I relieved.
