Dark Shadows

There were no bogeymen in the pasture this morning. Yesterday some unknown had Kiwi launching her high-pitched "gotta be something there" bark into the cool morning air. I had just flipped on the light switch at the end of the lane and had begun the descent from the top of the hill across Ponderosa Pasture.

I take that walk nearly every morning now, hoofing it to the fence next to the woods and heading back up again. It gives me some extra early-morning exercise, and it gives the horses ample time to munch down their grain. Also, the big light bulb on the pole has time to brighten up so the horses can see where they're going when I lead them down the lane to go out to pasture.

Yesterday I managed about 30 steps before that urgent bark started piercing the silence. Kiwi was sure that something was out there. If Kiwi was sure, then I wasn't going to doubt her. I did an about-face, walked to the gateway and, for a moment, had a scared collie between my legs.

Kiwi's like that. She's a coward. Bill found her hiding behind his legs just seconds after the two of them scared up a moose one day in the woods.

We wasted no time making our way back to the barn, and then I wasted a little time to allow the mysterious critter in the dark to get on its way before leading Lefty out there as first horse to brave his way into the pasture.

Darkness will be playing a big role in our lives for the next few months, and, lord knows how many unknown critters will send both my dogs and me on a dead run to safety before it all ends and we once again begin to see the light.

This morning I made it to the woods fence and back up the hill with no scary moments. With horses out to pasture, I headed through the gauntlet of yard lights to the paperbox.

No Spokesman!

It doesn't take a lot of light to figure that out. It's the already light paper feeling that much lighter that gives way to the realization that paper reading today will be much shorter.

I also knew as I walked inside trying to piece out front-page headlines on that Daily Bee that blog writing will occur in the darkness where no reports of weather conditions are possible because it's still black on the other side of that sliding glass door provides me a window to the outside world during blogging time.

This was supposed to be a three-paper day, with two to read in the morning and the second edition of the Cedar Post to peruse in the afternoon. Yup, Willie and his staff have been coming out of the darkness of the unknown these past few weeks, and things are getting easier.

He told me something I already knew the other night after putting the second paper of the year to bed and arriving home at 8 p.m.

"It's frustrating," he said. "You want it to be perfect but then it has to go." I know that because I've been there before on dozens of Cedar Post bedtimes.

But that is the true greatness and satisfaction of having such a teaching assignment. The product can always be better, the bar can go higher, and, with luck, the kids will work to reach for another increment on their way to perfection.

So, with the second Cedar Post coming out today, we will have another paper to read this afternoon---in the darkness.

Lots of dark shadows to come, lots of bogeymen to overcome in lots of ways. Another season of life is upon us, and it's gonna last a long time.

Where IS that Spokesman anyway? Maybe the bogeyman was out at the paperbox this morning instead of lurking in the pasture.