Relative Something

The month of October encompasses the anniversary of our arrival at this property in Wisconsin. The actual date is a little blurry because the closing ended up being delayed until a few days after we had already moved all our stuff in. We have reached the completion of our 14th year here. At the end of the month, it will be our 15th Halloween in Beldenville.

I had an entirely creepy experience at 2 a.m. yesterday. My bladder had already woken me, and to kill some time before falling back to sleep, I was solving a puzzle on my smartphone when I felt something moving on my forearm. Turning the phone around to illuminate the spot, through blurry eyes, I could see a tiny dot moving. If it were any other innocuous bug, I’d probably have flicked it away into the darkness and forgotten about it, but I had a suspicion that forced me to get back out of bed and return to the bathroom for some hands-free light.

Sure enough, it was a tick. So small that I suspect it was probably a deer tick.

At least it wasn’t attached to me yet. It had rained all day on Thursday, and I spent very little time outside. Did it come in off the dog? Did it get on me while feeding the horses? Why did it show up on me in the middle of the night while I was snuggled in bed? Since I hadn’t done anything strenuous on the rainy day, I hadn’t showered, a decision I now regretted, although there is no certainty it would have made a difference.

Not knowing where I picked it up and why it was crawling around on me in the middle of the night in the place that used to feel safe (ignoring tales of spiders visiting people while they sleep) has infringed on my feelings of joy over burrowing under the covers and propping pillows for hours of sweet dreams.

This morning, we signed a contract to have our roof redone. It always feels creepy to commit 5-digit dollar amounts to home maintenance projects. May this instance play out with no unpleasant surprises and minimal collateral damage. Now I need to call the other bidders to tell them never mind, adding to my creepy feeling.

One thing I don’t feel creepy about is having water in Paddock Lake again.

It looks good with leaves floating on the surface. The color makes it look like there’s a lot of iron in the water, but I think that’s an illusion. It’s probably a combination of lime screenings dust and manure more than anything else.

We had our first real frost this morning, setting the edge on the end of growing for most plants, but the forecast looks warm and sunny again for the next 10 days. I’ll take it. That’s not creepy at all.

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