I spend some days alone at our place, twelve acres of heat and humidity and chiggers and ticks and a rooster that won’t shut up.  The animals don’t talk so much as scream at a person – feed me, get away from me, look at me, don’t chase me, where have you been all day…

When I wake up I have to clear my throat to get words to come out, words like “hey piggles, you wake up too!”  or “get off the bed you lazy animals”.

I am ignored as the cat just twitches an ear, irritated but with a full belly and another eighteen hours of sleep to look forward to.

It feels like I just wander around on those alone days, tinkering around on slightly neglected projects, working from a list that has no written equivalent.  It isn’t until everyone returns that I realize I have accomplished anything, making me realize that I do have a function even if no one is around to prove it to themselves or to report it to others.  It is simply me moving through the life I have chosen.

It is those alone days that I know concretely that I have chosen well, that all five of us non-human animals have chosen well, that we are some of the luckiest people to ever sign a land title.

Watch out, we are just getting started.