Peeling Potatoes

Sitting on the front stoop peeling potatoes on a Thursday afternoon in mid-October.  The clouds are shifting and blue sky is emerging. The air is still damp after two days of rain. Kodi sniffs the air.

Kodi likes to be outside so I am outside too, to keep an eye on him. He likes to wander. The fresh breeze feels nice on my face. A pair of pileated woodpeckers works the top of a dead black cherry nearby. They don't seem to mind us so close. They are having a meal, while I prepare a meal for later.

The hazelnut bush in our yard to my right is in full fall color. A few peepers call from trees in the backyard. I wonder why they peep now, not a chorus from the wetland as during breeding season in spring, but soft isolated peeping. I look at the vegetable garden and wonder about the painted turtle eggs that were laid back in June. The hatchlings have yet to emerge; sometimes they overwinter in their nest. That seems like a long time to wait.

Kodi is on the move, he caught a whiff of something. No doubt he's headed to the woods in the back, where wild animals wander at night. Perhaps he smells the fox that calls from the woods many nights or the pack of 3 or more coyotes that howled and yipped all night long two nights ago. I assume it is a fellow canine that intrigues him or unnerves him or just makes him curious.

The potatoes are peeled and the woodpeckers have moved off to another tree, I hear one call to the other. Kodi, quiet as a mouse, is nosing about a tree stump in the woods. I call him in for his dinner. The potatoes await my next move.