Sun’s earlier rise welcomed, winter’s hold loosening, turkeys perched in the surrounding oaks rustle; arm cocked, elbow high to trigger the dark rich flow of caffeine; the wooden deck pops loudly under steady weight, expansion natural when warming; across a deep frozen but narrow river, a crackle is noticed westerly, assumed to be morning foraging deer, meditations of early settlers bank-side easy, until a muted metallic snap pierces the cold dry air;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
leafless and sagging tree branches span much of the snowy intersection, some 100 meters of undulation after a steep descent from where I now squat; two red laser dots reflect shakedly on the half open glass door behind; as aims are refined, gasses stir in my stomach, heart rhythms shaken, enemy is no longer an illusion;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
surrender pointless, I contort and slither across the doors threshold into protection and collect my weapons of defense which include inconspicuousness; fortunately partner and three of four pets heeded wise calls for a southern exodus; for this hinterland homeland, a sustained unimagined attack is as real as the blue steel greed that caustically erodes long friendships, divides a fearful faltering nation, scraping away more than a half century of enlightenment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sun’s earlier rise welcomed, winter’s hold loosening, turkeys perched in the surrounding oaks rustle; arm cocked, elbow high to trigger the dark rich flow of caffeine; the wooden deck pops loudly under steady weight, expansion natural when warming; across a deep frozen but narrow river, a crackle is noticed westerly, assumed to be morning foraging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphor","category-observation","category-opinion","category-seasons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1070,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddemuth.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}