moments:Sitting around the bonfire, telling dirty Scotsman jokes and singing silly camp songs. C says, sssh, everyone, listen. The breeze stirred the treetops scraping the sky full of low, bright stars, and brought the sound of voices. Coyotes, probably twenty or so of them, yelping and howling at the moon that was just rising.
We sat in silence, listening to a song more ancient than all of us, calling back our primal heritage, those first hunger-gatherers listening to the howls of the wolf pack. It stirs something in the blood, this song, and it is the first time I have ever heard a pack on the hunt in person.
I look around the bonfire. Everyone is listening, lost in thought.
It's salmonberry season. I walk along the path down to the pasture, picking berries off the bushes and eating them. They taste something like raspberries, but not as sweet.
Finally getting a chance to swing on the tire swing.
It's just as much fun as I thought it would be. Up, down, up, down. The frayed nyon rope stings my hands but I don't care.
Helping six other people roll a water tank up the hill. It was 8 feet across and 16 feet tall and weighed 800 pounds. If you put your mouth up to the opening in it and whooped, your voice came back to you changed, louder and higher, like outer space.
Took us half an hour to get the thing up the hill and upright. "If it starts falling, run."
"Aye aye, cap'n."
"I've been seeing you run around all day with just those overalls on, wondering if you were going to fall out of them. I was thinking, oh, for a sharp sideways motion...."
Chewing on vegetables. Thinking about going home.It's my night. I have no idea what I'm about to do.
