Happy At Home

My dream has finally come true! No one in the country is allowed any modern convenience for a week. No one is allowed to go to work. We are forced to stay at home. We do not have even electricity. This is heaven! It has to be.

I walk up the hill from the outhouse, a “convenience” we never got rid of when we bought the property. Yes, it’s a jaunt from where the house is now, but for the guys who once used this property solely for deer hunting, that didn’t matter. It does little to darken my mood, either. I meet Paul at the entrance to the shed. He is pumping up the tires of our old bicycles with a hand pump.

“Ready to catch some fish?” he asks, handing me a pole and my tackle box.

“Of course!” I race down the driveway and onto the highway without fear of being run over by semi trucks or drivers on cell phones.

The lake is only two miles away, but the ride makes me realize how much I miss biking – the strain on my muscles as I climb a hill, the exhilaration as I pick up speed to something impossible from my own legs as I descend the other side. I take particular note of the osprey nest on the left at the bottom of the hill. Looks like she’s had two little ones this year.


We catch enough bluegill for a tasty lunch, and maybe even dinner, and resume our biking trip back home, taking another route, around the lake this time. We throw the fish into a cooler in the shed. We have known for two weeks that this “Stay at home week”, was coming, so we have ice blocks stocked up under layers of wood chips from where we cleared the underbrush and small trees from the back of our acreage in early spring.

I can’t wait to start the larger logs ablaze in the fire pit. We never light large fires, but the dead birch and poplar trees have provided us with a healthy stack of wood waiting to be burned. The stacked wood on the edge of the lawn alone will give us fires to cook on and to keep away any night chill for three to four weeks. I think to myself that I may even convince Paul to sleep out here… only feet from our own bed. I think he will gladly leave the creature comforts behind, as I will.

Charlie, our terrier, greats us at the door to the house as we enter to gather the few things we will need to create our wonderful meal. He knows something is different, but not what. Happy to see us and get a chance to be outside for the day, he romps in the long grass of the field. I lay on the soft lawn near the house, smelling the wood fire and letting the June sun soak into my soul. This is what I need more than any other vacation I’ve even taken.

“What’s your pleasure?” Paul calls from the deck. “Canterbury Tales or Stephen King?”

I roll over, laughing at the choice. It’s been years since we’ve read to one another, but I quickly understand that this is Paul’s plan. I point to the book in his right hand, not knowing which I have chosen, or whether I will be the reader or the listener.

“I don’t know what I picked,” I jest. “But, if it’s King, then you owe me a game of Scrabble!”

Paul sheepishly looks at the book in his right hand and smirks, “I’ll grab the board!”

Word Count: 611