Due South
Dispatches from Down Home
Excerpt
Numbered Days
In the chill of January, she numbers her days.
She stands there at her back door—her gaze alternating between a view of the
rear pasture through frosty storm windows on the back porch and one of those
freebie wall calendars emblazoned with the Bank of Evergreen logo. On that
calendar, with a felt-tip pen, steady of hand, she records the events of her
life—those sublimely quotidian activities and images that mark her existence.
She's been doing this for as long as my wife, her granddaughter, can recall.
There's always been that calendar hanging by the back door, its squares filled
with things that, to her, are worth noting: what she sees through those windows,
for example.
January 3 Rained, 2 deer in the pasture
January 18 Snow, 1 or 2 inches; feed birds
January 25 First day out since Saturday, saw 2 fox
February 17 Tulips break ground, windy, 60°
March 29 Snake on back step
In addition to her fastidious reports of peripheral flora and fauna and the
day's weathe ... read full excerpt from: Due South ebook
