Call it intuition. Fate. Manifesting gone amok. Regardless of the word or phrase, all I know is, when I set out on my daily walk Monday morning, I thought to myself, I’m overdue for something exciting to happen.
There have been spooky eyes in the forest. Close encounters with brave baby fawns. But nothing too thrilling lately, unless you consider sloshing through shin-deep water scintillating.
(I just call it wet.)
I was walking down a path, minding my own business, when suddenly there was a terrible commotion as something very large erupted from the trees immediately in front of me. I was so taken aback, I screamed out loud. Which is kind of embarrassing to admit, but it’s not like I had any control over the matter! You try keeping calm, cool, and collected when startled by an apex predator.
OK, maybe apex predator is too strong a word…
…but it took my brain several seconds to register what I was seeing. Anything could have been coming at me from the brush. A bear maybe. Or a mountain lion. The fact that it was a bird (stop laughing at me!) doesn’t absolve me from being scared out of my mind for a few tense seconds there.
Besides, if you’ve ever seen a sandhill crane up close, you know how ginormous they are. This sucker looked like a pterodactyl! Guys, I have seen Jurassic Park. I won’t pretend to understand all the pseudo-science, but the idea of cloning an extinct species from DNA trapped inside amber seems plausible enough. We all thought The Terminator was pure escapism wrapped up in a two-hour summer blockbuster, but just look at what’s happening with AI nowadays.
In any case, this crane was pissed. She kept pacing back and forth while shrieking at me. Sandhills aren’t just big; they’re loud, too! I can only assume she had a nest nearby and I’d wandered a little too close for comfort. Not long ago, I’d read that when threatened, a sandhill crane will stab with its bill and kick. Its beak is so sharp, it can pierce the skull of a coyote. Needless to say, I have her a wide berth (though, as you can tell from the photo, maybe not as wide a berth as it should have been).
As planned, we got the last of the raised beds placed in the garden over the weekend. Most of the taxing physical labor is now complete!
That does not mean we have no work left to do. If you’ve read me for any length of time, you know of our struggles with poison ivy. Because it’s so pervasive on our property, Tara thought we should mark it with flags to avoid inadvertently stumbling into a patch. I thought this was a brilliant idea. She bought 50 pink marking flags, which sounds like a lot, but after placing them around the yard, there’s only a handful left. I call them the pink flags of doom.
So, tackling the devil’s weed will be another fun project. One that will take a few years, because if you don’t get every bit of the long taproot when digging it up, it’s likely to come back the following year. This has happened in several spots I “cleared” last fall.
I no longer fear poison ivy like I did, though; one recent rainy Saturday, I was standing in the middle of an overgrown patch, yanking it up by (gloved) hand. And yes, a couple of times I’ve ended up with a minor rash in a random spot or two, but nothing as bad as what I suffered through last spring.
I swear, I feel like I’m in a constant fight against nature. Squirrels. Deer. Poison ivy. Mosquitoes. Invasive plants like garlic mustard. Keeping the upper hand is tough.
But I know it’s all worthwhile, because during Tara’s sister Maggie’s recent visit, we received validation. Maggie and her now-husband Israel stayed with us in Rapid City for a week in June 2022, immediately before our trip to Madison in which we planned to decide whether or not to take the plunge and move. We had filled them in on our little secret, and they basically thought we were nuts. It was their first visit to the Black Hills, and they were enamored. They loved our house. Were charmed by Rapid City. Couldn’t understand why we would ever contemplate giving it all up.
“Now I understand why you did it,” Maggie told Tara on the drive to the airport. This had nothing to do with the 30 lbs. of cheese she had crammed into her carry-on bag (true story).
OK, maybe part of it had to do with the cheese. But mostly, like us, she fell in love with this little slice of paradise we call home. It’s not like we needed that validation, but hearing it still felt good. You don’t want people thinking you’re completely crazy!
Though in my case, that ship may have sailed…
Thankfully, he knew better than to try to burn it out. 
Mark My Words 
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