Thick

 It has been very quiet Out There the past couple weeks. I like it that way, and so it seems does the local life. There has been no one but me to scare up the especially large community of finches (it that's what they are) that seems to thrive in one particular area. No one to set the quail off on their comical straight upright run that they do; i half expect to see them pumping their wings as if they were arms, keeping pace with those speedy little legs. No one else to startle the rabbits into their run, rabbit run. Most unusual though, was when i pulled up to the big meadow overlook, across from the old Tin Can Alley where there, quickly scrambling away, were two deer and one coyote - not quite sure what that little gathering was all about. Those doves still sitting on the fence looking west, always west; sometimes the little finches join them.

All the growing things that claw at your legs are beginning to come into full form now, while other things that were green just a short while ago are turning dry and brittle, and never fail to leave their mark in torn skin. Those deer and that coyote, running unfazed through all that dry, their skin much thicker than mine.