Category Archives: Adventure

Playing Housewife (or, I’d Rather Be Camping)

Posted by dkrashb on
We walked along an all-but-deserted road along Bald River around sunset last Wednesday.
A bright but blighted leaf hanging on a tree as we hiked along Bald River
About what the sky looked like to the naked eye at our campsite in Cherokee National Forest
The movement of the stars (well, the earth) causes stars to form trails if you leave the shutter open long enough (about 30 min in this case).
10-stop ND filter warms scene and requires a LONG exposure, making water silky.
If you take the hiking trail just past Bald River Falls, you discover another set of falls.
Tight shot of tiny part of falls, stop-action, B&W
Stop-action shot of white water
Playing with leaves on the stream both in shooting and post-processing
Playing with leaves on the stream both in shooting and post-processing
Playing with leaves on the stream both in shooting and post-processing
Playing with leaves on the stream both in shooting and post-processing
10-stop ND filter.
More 10-stop ND filter work on Bald River
Another 10-stop ND filter shot.
This was taken from the side of the river, not from inside a cave, but I felt like it looked like that.
A 10-stop ND filter creates what some people refer to as the “postcard effect”.
No mystery as to where the rest of the leaf went
A bright yellow leaf lying alongside Bald River

If “zen” is used (casually) to refer to a state of mind where you experience life as it is vs through the thoughts you have about your experiences, I have to wonder if being a housewife/husband is the fastest path to achieving a state of zen.

After all, I’ve heard stories of how zen masters teach achieving enlightenment by doing repetitive, unappreciated tasks that will only be undone and need to be done again.

One of the things I have been working on intensely is learning to leave behind my Type-A habits, be fully present, and really experience my life instead of missing what’s happening because I’m busy worrying about an imagined past or future.

I have run head-on into the most stubborn part of my Type-A traits recently. Having extended my leave of absence from my day job for another 6 months, there are some new developments in our lives:
We must re-learn how to carefully evaluate our spending decisions if we’re going to stick to the financial plan we made when I started my leave (personal leave comes with no pay).
This means one or both of us must cook more.
My husband is working long hours on his feet all day, so the cooking is falling to me.

Any of you who have read my blog for any length of time or who know me personally are probably aware of just how much I like to cook.

This is the crux of what I dislike about cooking (or any household chore): it’s a lot of effort for something that gets completely undone in only moments and then must be done all over again only to be undone once more. You are never done. You can never check it off your to-do list.

The incredible inefficiency of going in a continual circle makes me batty–it’s going backwards. I have an obsession with efficient, forward progression. It is my most Type-A tendency. Almost paradoxically, I would rather sit on the couch doing nothing than invest time and energy in a task that will have to be repeated–I become a Type-B when contemplating such a task!

There is nothing I struggle with more than going backwards.

So far, I have tried to counter this feeling by cooking in bulk. By making large quantities of soup, I have the satisfaction of seeing neat containers in the freezer and fridge waiting for us for days.

But as the supply dwindles, I find my old resentment bubbling up again. I question whether we would be better off just going back to eating out–couldn’t that time cooking be better spent growing the business than saving a few dollars?

I would love to hear from someone who genuinely enjoys cooking for their loved ones and how they get satisfaction from such a task. I’ve heard there are such people in the world, but I suspect it’s one of those legends like Big Foot.

Quicksand

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A Red-tailed hawk stopped for a visit, but missed having company by 1 balcony
Flexible legs make this an interesting moment when the hawk was about to turn around
I was not the only spectator fascinated by this fairly bold red-tailed hawk
This red-tail hawk has been hanging out in the ‘hood for the past couple of weeks
This enormous ship had a little trouble squeezing into the port
A floating museum from WWII stopped in Chattanooga for a few days

Last Monday, my course veered undetectably by me. Until the moment my body slammed to the ground–rudely snapped against a boardwalk much like a rag doll without consideration of human bones, ligaments, tendons, organs, and blood–I thought I was simply out riding my bike.

A simple swerve to the right–or was it to the left?–over mist-covered algae growing on a wood boardwalk changed the course of my wheels, my day, and perhaps even my life. The loss of traction was immediate. There was no skid, no slow motion fall, no time to realize I was under attack by the forces of physics that remain as undeniable as death and taxes. I found myself on the ground, shocked.

A tiny version of myself stepped outside my body and tried to make a video of all it could see, but my tiny self’s view was obstructed by the giant helmet on my banged-up head, the bars and shafts that made up my bicycle, my Gulliver-sized legs, and the shadows cast by all. Yet my tiny self was amazed to watch my big self rise up to a seated position and do its best to be sociable with a woman who had stopped to help.

Smiling, making a joke even, denying any serious injury. Above all else, protecting self by refusing to admit any vulnerability to a stranger–even a lone mother walking her infant in a stroller.

All pain was pushed aside. The knot of confusion was barely hinted at in the statement, “I hit my head.” I stood. I walked. She rolled my bike along. I sat on a bench, she parked my bike next to me, assured me she would be back shortly to check on me and disappeared both visually and in my memory until hours later when I suspected I’d dreamt her. Then, later still, the video my tiny self made was unlocked from some deep archive and returned to my big self for viewing.

Yet, I remembered I had a phone. I remembered where it was. I remembered the password to unlock it. I remembered how to call my husband. I asked him to come and get me. My tiny self was fully back onboard with my big self at this point–there was no video for me to return to later.

I still cannot recall the conversation with my husband. Nor can I recall the quarter-mile walk I undertook to meet him at the nearest street–I had fallen on a pedestrian-only portion of the Tennessee Riverwalk.

What I do recall is a moment of utter panic. Of being uncertain that I was going in the right direction, uncertain of where I was, uncertain as to what was happening. I choked down an urge to sob. I gave up crying long ago, after my mother’s funeral. My mother was the only person I ever knew with a healthy respect for a stranger’s tears–the only person I knew who was comfortable to just allow them. For everyone else, they are at least a source of discomfort if not disgust.

I keep mine close. Occasionally, I allow moisture in deep empathy for someone else’s pain. But if you see a tear for my own pain, it’s either a once in a decade occurrence or you’re someone I trust with my life.

To be standing on a street corner lost and confused and blubbering would be the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt in my life. Standing on a street corner lost and confused was close enough. I swallowed hard, choked once, blinked away any tear that had dared to form, and recalled my phone.

I scoured my muddled mind for a memory of having spoken to my husband recently. A vague impression of having had a conversation formed much like a shape bubbling up briefly from under quicksand, then sinking and disappearing again. I wanted to reach for the memory, but feared grabbing it would mire me in muck so deep I might not surface again. I let it go.

I dialed my husband again. The words that came were, “Are you coming to get me? I’m so confused.” And I choked back a sob for a second time.

He talked to me from that moment until he arrived to pick me up. His voice my lifeline through the quicksand of my mind. Then, he scooped me safely into our van where a wet muzzle reached from behind my seat to check on me, reminding me my boys will protect me and care for me when I will let them. It’s the letting them that’s always the hardest part.

In the ER, I learned I had a concussion. Nothing dangerous or permanent, just scary. I was sent home to heal with instructions not to watch TV, use any electronic devices with a screen, or read any non-fiction. Thankfully, I was allowed to sleep.

I thought I would be fine in 2 days. I was not. The more I learn, the more I realize this isn’t something you recover from at the same rate as the 24-hour flu.

I’ve also learned that bike helmets don’t offer much protection against concussions. I’ve found one that promises a novel design technology called MIPS that’s supposed to have slightly better protection than traditional bike helmets against concussions. At $219, it seems pricey. When I get the ER bill, it will seem like a bargain if it works.

I will heal and I will ride again. But the experience of temporary dementia haunts me. I find myself wondering if more than my tires veered.

A Bear Story

Posted by dkrashb on

I did something I’ve never done before: I went hiking alone in Grizzly country.

I took my camera and, with no other hikers pushing me onward, my hike was pretty much doomed. Rather than hiking the 5 miles I’d planned, I spent about 3 hours loosing myself to photography without covering much ground.

At one point, I found myself panning with a flower that was whipping around in the wind, shooting a fly acting shockingly like a bee. I suddenly realized I’d been sitting there for more than 45 minutes.

That’s when I decided I needed to make some tracks. No sooner than I’d gotten some momentum going, I ran into a man hiking the opposite direction who told me he’d seen a grizzly about 10 minutes back on the trail (or 2 hours in photographer time).

I was both excited and worried. I was alone and had no bear spray. Neither condition is recommended in grizzly country. But, the man said the bear was far from the trail and distracted by the huckleberries that were in peak season.

I went on. Minutes later, I encountered a couple singing loudly. A sure sign of a bear sighting! Sure enough, they too had seen a grizzly a few minutes back. The moment they shared this information, I looked up and said, “Oh, look, there’s one now!” A grizzly had just crested the ridge above us and was headed in our general direction, although still 200 yards away.

I immediately did what any photographer does and grabbed the camera with my longest lens on it and started firing. Except, I was so excited I failed to read my meter and had to readjust and shoot again. As I fired off 3 more shots at good exposure (but with a heck of a lot more motion shake than usual), the bear started running towards us.
“And now he’s running towards us,” I said to the couple. The woman immediately asked her husband if the safety was off their bear spray can. I suggested we start backing up slowly.

The bear was closing the distance at a pace fast enough to scare the life out of anyone experiencing a grizzly running towards them for the first time.

We moved slowly for a few steps, and then more quickly, soon walking at a fast clip while glancing over our shoulders and talking loudly. When we passed trees that were between us and him, we lost sight of him (which was almost scarier).

We never saw him again. I suspect he was running towards a huckleberry bush that happened to be in our direction. However, it was scary enough that I decided to hike out with the couple and call it a day.

It took us 20 minutes to cover the distance that took me 3 hours on the way in.

My only regret is that I didn’t stay long enough to get a better shot.

Getting Out

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Walking in my usual haunt, these two fledgling Eastern Kingbirds suprised me–they were still in the nest the previous day.
Returning to Blythe Ferry in the evening (vs Morning) netted some very nicely lit shots of the 2 remaining babies
Momma returning to the nest at sunset
The female adult Osprey skimming the surface of the lake at dusk
The lilies on Amincola Marsh looked as beautiful to the bees as the did to me
Two Belted Kingfishers streaked across Amnicola Marsh
This Eastern Kingbird at Curtain Pole Marsh snagged a dragonfly
Green Heron at Curtain Pole looking very hip with his fluffy do
The Tree Swallows had plenty of good trees to nest in at Curtain Pole
Tree Swallow adult returning to the nest
Do you think this frog believes it’s hidden under this tiny plant?
Tisen photo-bombing me at Joyce Kilmer
A female Red-Winged Blackbird with a tasty insect at Amnicola Marsh
A water lily about to unfurl
A couple of cone flowers at Renaissance Park

With my husband out of town for the week, I was left to my own devices.  I took the opportunity to get out and shoot a bit further from home than usual.

First there was a road trip to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, tucked in the Cherokee National Forest. To get there, I had to first see to the completion of the repair of our second car, which was in the shop after not having been driven for over a year.

I quickly realized how spoiled I am–my husband normally attends to car maintenance and repair. First I had to arrange with the shop for them to pick me up when the car was “done.” Then I had to take the car to another shop to get the battery replaced, which undid all the settings, including the computer that controls the idle speed, which resulted in the car revving the engine every time I stopped. I’m surprised no one attempted to race me off the starting line at traffic lights!

Then there was the little complication that the fan wasn’t running and I was advised not to go less than 35 mph to avoid overheating. I had visions of driving on sidewalks to avoid red lights. That took a second trip to the shop when the part arrived so I could drive to the mountains without having to take the sidewalks.

By the time I got out of the shop Saturday afternoon and drove to Joyce Kilmer, which turned out to be a 3 hour drive, I had only a half an hour to battle the mosquitos and grab a few shots before Tisen and I had to get back on the road to head home.

On Monday I pulled out my bicycle and stopped at Amnicola Marsh to discover what might have been a Great Egret. Of course, I did not have my camera with me, so back I went the next morning, when, of course, the bird did not appear.

Since the car’s idle speed didn’t reset over the weekend, I returned to the mechanic on Monday. Fortunately, they were able to greatly improve things.

Next I made the drive to the Blythe Ferry Osprey nest with a couple from the photography club who allowed me to drive, in spite of Tisen crowding the lucky passenger who got to sit in back with him. But on the way home, the coolant light came on and we discovered I was losing coolant. Fortunately, we made it home without a problem, but that put an end to my driving career (at least for a few days).

I stuck to my bicycle and made one more trip to Amnicola and Curtain Pole Road Marshes. No Great Egret, but I did meet another photographer and stayed far longer than I intended shooting at Curtain Pole–it’s amazing how much more you see when there are two of you looking.

All in all, I’d say I’m pretty good at entertaining myself.

Taking Stock

Posted by dkrashb on
Cliffside outcroppings at Stone Door
The boys and the dogs
My bestie looking mighty brave on a rock ledge
Looking down the stone door
View from an overlook at Stone Door on a hike
My friends in a crevice at Rock City
Taking time off with friends over Memorial Day weekend at Lovers Leap-Rock City

It’s officially been 2 months since my leave of absence began. I thought it would be a good time to enumerate both the new lessons I’ve learned and the old lessons that have  resurfaced as particularly relevant to this major shift in my life.

  1. Your time will fill. No matter how much you have to do or how long you think you have to do it, time will pass more quickly than you expected and you will get less done than you planned.
  2. It doesn’t matter how much of an out-of-the-box thinker you are; if there is no box, you can’t think outside of it.
  3. When you have a mile-long list of things to do and believe you have only a fraction of the time you need to get them done, you manage your time far more judiciously than when you have a short list of things to do and believe you have all day. (See #1.)
  4. There is always more opportunity than capacity.
  5. When one thing has been your biggest time investment for a long time, when you pull it out of your schedule, everything that surrounded it collapses on top of each other and you have to scratch and claw your way through the crap to shove in something new and get all the little stuff safely held at bay.
  6. Staying busy is not the hard part. It’s staying busy doing the important things instead of the distracting things that’s hard. (See #1.)
  7. Just because something must be done urgently doesn’t mean it should be done at all.
  8. I really mind a dirty house less than I mind cleaning it.
  9. We treat people we have an intimate personal relationship with like someone we have an intimate personal relationship with even when the topics are professional–it takes effort not to hear “I don’t love you” when you disagree.
  10. Working with your spouse is an opportunity to better your overall relationship. Creating artificial lines between your personal and professional relationship is only lying to yourself. The two roles are inseparable and must feed one another, driving both a closer, more intimate relationship and more creative energy from the feeling of being on the same team working towards the same goals.
  11. Sleep helps. This is theoretical. I used reverse logic: lack of sleep makes everything harder. Therefore, I believe that if I someday get enough sleep, it will make everything easier.
  12. Every day we have the opportunity to be more focused, more productive, more playful, more creative, more effective, more attuned to our health, and to get more sleep. We probably won’t do all of these things in the same day, however.
  13. At the end of the day, it’s you. There is only you and what you did and didn’t get done, whether what you did made a difference, and whether that difference is the difference you intended. Ultimately, there is not, and really never has been, anyone else to blame.

Night Moves

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The Hunter Museum’s modern addition and the switchbacks of the riverwalk
Picking my camera up during a long exposure netted this fun set of swirls
This one almost looks planned
Playing some more with urban structures and sky
Playing with sky and the underside of an overpass
Between two bridges
More traditional point of view of the water cannons at Coolidge Landing
A different point of view on the water cannons at Coolidge Landing
Sculpture lit with a flashlight
The modern end of the Hunter Museum
Zooming during a long exposure
The heartbeat of the historical section of the Hunter Museum
Ghost of me taken by Stephen Sweat–supposedly there actually is a ghost at the Hunter Museum.

Friday evening I was running late. I needed to finish photographing some guitars for Coop Guitars before I could head out the door. Isn’t that great? “Oh, I’m sorry I’m late. I had to finish up some shooting before I could call it quits tonight.” (I wonder if someone who’s been a full-time pro photographer for a couple of decades would find it amusing to have this as an excuse for tardiness: “Oh, I’m sorry I’m late, I had to finish up a conference call.”)

Even better, what I was running late for was another shoot! A group of adults got together on the riverfront to play with their very expensive toys–or, as I like to think of them, our boxes of crayons.

We met at 7:45 and shot through sunset and twilight and then really went nuts after dark.

Do you remember summer nights when you were a kid when all the neighborhood kids would get together and play hide-and-seek when it finally got dark? We would swear we’d only been playing for a few minutes when parents would suddenly appear out of the dark saying things like “Where have you been that you couldn’t hear me calling you for the past 10 minutes?”

Friday night, no parents showed up to tell us it was getting late. By the time people started realizing they needed to leave, it was after 10PM. Several of us shot on. “Just one more shot” we said to our internal parents reminding us we had other responsibilities.

We swapped tips on getting night time effects. We threw around words like “high-speed sync,” “hyper-focal distance,” “aberrations,” and “stopping down” and we understood each other. We zoomed our lenses at bright bridge lights during long exposures and giggled at the results. We got out flashlights and created ghosts and swirls just for the fun of it.

Suddenly, without warning, it was 11:30PM. I realized I was cold, I’d had no dinner, I’d had nothing to drink for at least 5 hours, and I’d told my husband I’d get home before 11PM. Yet, I still had to convince myself that those were strong enough reasons to pack it up for the night–there were so many more ideas I wanted to try!

Oh, there was also the fact that I needed to get up at 6AM the next morning to teach a workshop.

But feeling that creative spark and losing myself to it for a few hours was a great reminder of what I love best about photography–and life. Getting out and shooting with a bunch of people had the added benefits of both learning from each other and getting to socialize with people with a similar vocabulary.

Equinox

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I wrote a really long, rambling post of over 800 words and decided it would be easier to just start over.
Here are the pertinent points: my staycation is ending. My 6-month leave is starting. So is my new role of working on my husband’s business and balancing that with my other pursuits like photography and getting myself from adequately healthy to ridiculously healthy.

I immediately feel the need to go on a rant about how long I’ve had a job, been self-supporting, yada yada yada. Basically, the need to justify slowing down, even if only temporarily, as if I have to prove I am deserving of this time.

I have suggested to friends that we should all stop cleaning our houses when we’re visiting each other. Then, we would all just be accepted as we are, clean house or dirty, and we wouldn’t drive each other to keep wasting time pretending that we’re neat nuts for people who are supposed to care more about us than about the cleanliness of our homes.

I suggest we do the same when it comes to using over-work as a way of saying we’re important. Let’s just drop the judgmental tones and patronizing comments about people doing things for fun. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there’s plenty of research that suggests people who play more are also more creative problem solvers and more effective and efficient at work (and healthier). So, let’s start bragging about making play a priority instead.

The next time someone says, “Oh, I don’t have time to do x,” let’s remind one another that we all have time to do what we choose. Sometimes we’re willing to make the choices to prioritize that time and sometimes we’re not.

In the end, we only get one lifetime (at least in this form, depending on what you believe) to create meaning. A universal truth I keep reminding myself of is that people never regret not spending more time at work at the end of their lives. People regret not laughing more, crying more, playing more, connecting with loved ones more.

So, here I go into the next stage of my journey. Perfectly timed with the spring equinox. What better metaphor than spring to begin anew? I might have liked having 13 weeks of winter to rest and recuperate from the past 30 years, but I suspect not. After all, it can be hard work getting rest.

Staycation

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Week one of rest and recovery is already behind me. It’s an interesting thing to tell yourself you have two weeks to do only what you feel like doing. There’s a certain restlessness that ensues. Voices in my head tell me I’m supposed to be doing something productive. This has led to signing up for a couple of online classes–one for my future work and the other for enjoying life.

But which class have I spent time on? Well, it’s not the one on enjoyment. Ironically, the topic I’ve been procrastinating is separating self-worth from exhaustion and productivity.

I suspect the idea of not exhausting myself through productivity is scary.

After all, what’s one of the first questions we ask one another when we meet in a social setting? “What do you do?” How many times have we asked that question? How many times have we answered it? How often do we answer with our jobs?

“What do you do?” has all kinds of implications. We don’t ask “What’s important to you?” or “What do you like the most about yourself?’ or “What do you most want to be remembered for?” Can you imagine someone asking you something like that upon first meeting? It would feel far too personal. Instead, we ease our way into finding out what really matters to a person by asking them about their career.

Yet, what do we actually learn about a person by asking about what they do? I think about the mothers and fathers I’ve known who have chosen to stay home with their children in favor of a paid career and their discomfort with this question. Whenever I have blundered into asking a stay-a-home parent what they do, they have usually answered with a self-conscious, “Well, I don’t work. I stay home with the kids.” To which I have inevitably replied, “Well that’s certainly work! There’s nothing easy about your job,” in my attempt to make them feel valued.

Yet even this response points to our cultural expectation that hard work is what makes a person valuable. Acknowledging that parenting is hard work may be accurate, but it still values work first. Imagine if someone said, “I try to do very little. I spend most of my day just being.” Wouldn’t we immediately want to know how to “do” being? What does that even look like?

I have spent the past week spending more time relaxing, but this tends to mean a combination of being more active and then vegetating. I’ve ridden my bike more, walked more, hiked more, done more yoga, done more shooting, and laid on the couch more. I’ve also played a lot of euchre (it’s a card game) on my iPad and napped.

The paradox of letting go of my career identity seems to be that I find other things to do instead. Is this progress? Or am I just distracting myself from deeper truths that can only be revealed in stillness?

Socks and Sandals

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IMG_4772

I’ve allocated for myself two weeks of vacation before I start working on Coop Guitars. I have decided to spend this time taking care of myself by doing only what I feel like doing.
Today, I felt like riding my bike to a yoga class a 20 minute ride away. So, I rode my bike 20 minutes across town and took that yoga class at 10:30 in the morning–a time I’ve never been free to go to yoga class before.
I breathed through the class with the presence of mind I always want in yoga class but rarely achieve.
As I rode my bike back across town, climbing a hill into a head wind on surprisingly fatigued legs, I wanted the traffic light mid-way up the hill to turn green. I was determined it was going to change. And it did! But it changed to a left turn arrow and I was going straight.
Had I trusted the strength of my will to control traffic lights less, I might have unclipped a shoe from my pedals. Instead, I crashed to the ground in one of those humiliating moments I have become all too accustomed to. On the plus side, I have gotten pretty skilled at falling. I managed to fall slowly enough to only scrape one knee slightly.
This just goes to prove you can’t always get what you want. Not even when you’re on a vacation to do only what you please.
I popped up quickly, hoping to avoid alarming any drivers who were probably wondering how on earth I managed to fall in the first place. I pedaled home surprisingly non-plussed. After all, it was a moment and it was gone.
I returned home to a quiet dog who had been home alone for 2 full hours. This is a new record. My husband returned for lunch at the same time. We sat on the floor with our ecstatic dog running in circles, flopping himself over periodically on top of us, and giving us stinky dog kisses whenever we didn’t move fast enough. We laughed at his antics and sheer joy that we had returned safely.
Then, I felt like walking the dog. I slipped my Chacos over my socks. I felt like wearing socks with my sandals. I walked around the park for the 2nd time today feeling my feet in my socks, warm and comfy. I listened to the frogs singing of spring. I looked for the Flicker calling loudly in a dead tree. I watched a turtle swimming slowly through the wetland. I saw a friend and chatted with her about the joy of walking in socks and sandals.
Then, I made myself a smoothie. Full of goodness–local honey, whey protein, frozen organic berries, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Then, I decided I felt like writing a post on a day when I don’t write posts anymore.
It’s funny what can feel like an adventure.

Free Range

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The girls on their way to greet us

Free Range is defined by dictionary.com as:
1. (of livestock and domestic poultry) permitted to graze or forage for grain, etc., rather than being confined to a feedlot or a small enclosure: a free-range pig.
2. of, pertaining to, or produced by free-range animals: free-range eggs.

Last Sunday, Pat and I delivered bags of sawdust from Pat’s workshop to Pastured Penney’s Free Range Eggs. They have about 500 chicks that love my husband’s sawdust. In a few weeks they will be joining about 400 other hens already enjoying life on a farm where they can forage for food in the grass, the scrub, and the woods.

When we walked out to meet the adult hens, I expected them to, at best, ignore us and, at worst, run from us. I did not expect the greeting we got.

Instead of running from us, the ran to us. They
surrounded us, fascinated with our shoes, pecking at our legs and were intent on untying Pat’s shoelaces. It was hard to walk with hundreds of happy hens hanging at our feet.

There is something magical about seeing well-cared for animals contentedly pecking at the soles of your shoes. I cannot explain it–it is just a sense of rightness with the world that these hens should run across a field, compelled by curiosity, nearly frantic to be the first to discover just what kind of shoes their visitors are wearing.

Having just done something rather extraordinary for me–I decided to take a 6-month leave of absence from work–the sheer joy of these hens instantly became symbolic. Unconfined, unconstrained, free to travel wherever their two feet and wings will take them, they flourish.

I found myself thinking of the difference between corporate hens stuck in tiny cubicles they can barely turn around in and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones to keep them alive and producing eggs in horrible living conditions versus these hens, full of joie de vivre.

I could not help but think of my own range having expanded from the virtual cubicle to the pasture, the woods, and and the world. I have been asked several times now how I feel knowing I do not have to boot up the corporate computer on Monday morning. I’m not sure how I feel yet. But Monday morning . . . well, Monday morning will be the test. That will be the day that everything feels different.

What do I feel? Well, there is the fear of being replaceable, interchangeable, just another laying hen. There is the joy of suddenly owning my own time for the first time in about . . . my lifetime. There is the simultaneous wonder and terror that anything is possible. Free ranging means both endless possibility and endless responsibility. I own my future–at least for 6 months. I am left with no excuses, no hindrances, no scapegoat. I wonder how a corporate hen would feel being let out of her cage for the first time?