Over the past couple of weeks, a bald-faced hornet’s nest has steadily grown in an eave of my house. Its location problematic for a few reasons: my daughter likes opening her window and putting in a screen in the spring and summer months to let fresh air in. With the nest only about five feet away, it concerned me that one or more of the hornets would be alerted to the sound of her opening the window and dart straight into her bedroom.

If you know me, you know I don’t play when it comes to hornets or wasps. And by don’t play, what I’m really saying is: if a winged marauder with the ability to sting repeatedly is anywhere nearby, I get the hell out of dodge, run inside my house, and lock myself in the bathroom while shaking uncontrollably and murmuring under my breath, “Please don’t find me. Please don’t find me.”

And so, while you may not know my daughter or her reaction, imagine that then add frantic vocalizations reaching Mariah Carey level pitches.

The hornet’s nest is also constructed not far from our driveway basketball hoop. And while my son would love for every shot he shoots to be silent or just the sound of a slight swoosh of nothing but net, that’s not the reality. So I was a worried the clang of the rim on a missed shot or the thud of the backboard might eventually cause a swarm of not-so-happy bald-faced hornets to emerge and go medieval on him.

Researching how to safely remove a bald-faced hornet nest

Bald-faced hornets are extremely aggressive I’ve learned. Quite a bit of research has been conducted on my part in an attempt to narrow down exactly how to handle this growing situation without ending up with welts all over my body — and the whole not ending up with welts all over my body wasn’t looking too promising the more I researched.

Here’s what I learned:

• Bald-faced hornets fiercely protect their nest
• Their smooth stinger allows them to sting repeatedly
• They can spray venom from said stinger
• This venom can cause temporary blindness
• Oh, and their stings hurt like a motherlover

According to Terro, bald-faced hornet nests can grow up to 14 inches wide by 23 inches tall (the size of a basketball). No thanks. I like my basketballs full of air and bouncy, not a papery housing for 100-700 worker hornets with an endless supply of stinging at their disposal in their rear ends.

With all that said, I’m not one to go hells bells on nature and buy every sort of chemical repellant known to mankind to destroy another living being, which yes, even includes the dreaded hornet. A few years back, when I was reading one Buddhism book after the next and thinking long and hard about the interconnectedness of all living creatures within our universe, I even saved a handful of hornets’ lives when they mistakenly entered my residence and couldn’t find a way to escape. I managed this all while not being stung by using a sheet of paper to help them fly out free into the world again. One such hornet, who’d exhausted himself in my window, almost seemed appreciative by my gentle act. This is mind boggling to me perhaps more now than it was then.

But I did want to take care of this new nest that started off relatively small and seemed to be growing a couple inches in length each day. Its location posed at least a minor threat to my children’s wellbeing. If the hornets want to build a nest, cool. Do your thing. You’re part of nature, too. But you can’t do it right next to a bedroom window or a basketball hoop.

So I walked around the side of my house, turned on the water spigot, grabbed the hose, and tried to shoot it down. The water pressure wasn’t strong enough so all I managed to do was piss off the bald-faced hornets who started to wonder what or who was raining on their new housing construction. After feeling like I made eye contact with one, I quickly made my way bolted back into the house, locked the door, and then urinated in the entryway all over my shoes like a new puppy happy to see its owner at the end of a long day.

I texted my wife Allison at work:

I may need to call someone about this bald-faced hornet nest. It’s growing by the day. I can probably knock it down myself. It’s more of what happens shortly after is my concern.

Note the after.

Allison texted back immediately with, and I quote:

Let’s try knocking it down first. We can do it together.

This tells me one thing for sure: that Allison had a momentary lapse in her judgment and memory and seems to have forgotten that she has been poking fun at me and her brother David for years years I tell you because of how ridiculously terrified we both are of hornets and wasps.

Grown men the two of us? Eh, yeah. Terrified of hornets? Exactamundo.

We have a motto in her house called TEAM PILLOW. Since we live so far away from family, we took on this motto years ago as a way to be self-sufficient knowing that there’s really no one around us who can jump in and assist at a moment’s notice. It’s on us to help each other out.

Allison was taking this a bit too literally when it came to the hornet’s nest when she followed up the “We can do it together” with “Can you use a ladder?”

Don’t use a ladder

I’d already thought of a ladder, which seemed like a not so good terrible idea. As someone with anxiety, my brain immediately always always goes to the worst possible outcome and that, for me in this moment thinking about combatting a hornet’s nest while standing on a ladder was, “What if I knock down the nest and it falls right on top of me?”

A reasonable question.

And a flashback to Thomas J of My Girl fame, a movie forever banned in our home.

Plus, I’d already done a variety of research on hornets and dropped in questions like, “How do you knock down a hornet’s nest that’s high in the air?” And the response on every website I visited pretty much always started with, “Don’t get on a ladder.”

But, and this is something you can do right now yourself, if you do a Google search of “If a bald-faced hornet’s nest is up high, should you use a ladder?,” the initial result specifically states that a ladder is “extremely risky” and “generally not recommended due to potential for aggressive attacks.” Also, when they start stinging your dumbass, although the advice doesn’t explicitly say “dumbass,” though perhaps it should, you can fall and further injure yourself, all while continuously being stung by a swarm of angry hornets hellbent on offing you and protecting the queen and her lair at all costs.

This advice is followed by a video on YouTube by the Wasp Hunter with the title: “How not to treat a hornet nest. Attacked by hornets.”

With advice littering the Internet at my disposal, I texted Allison back: A ladder would be a bad idea.

Nature’s very own pest control at your service

Thankfully, there’s nature’s pest control services that’ll visit your home free of charge. And the way I see it, if nature commits the murder, I’m not liable, right?

On the Internet and even real life, you’ll often hear blue jays referred to as “a$$holes” or “backyard bullies.” I once held that opinion myself. But over the last five or six years, that shifted with the arrival of my blue jay pal Gizmo and his significant other. Every spring the couple take up residence in the woods behind my house, build a nest, and knock boots.

Boots, as in tail feathers.

Are blue jays loud as hell? Yeah.

Do they mimic hawks for the sole purpose of scaring away all the other birds and squirrels so they can gorge alone at the bird feeder? Yeah, usually.

Do the bastards sound like they are laughing at you at all other times when you walk by them unknowingly? You damn right.

But they are a ridiculously intelligent bird. Despite lacking minimal black feathers in their beautiful blue plumage, blue jays are a member of the corvid family along with crows, ravens, and magpies. The corvid family is among the most intelligent species on the planet rivaling that of a full grown great ape, and according to our current political climate, smarter than a significant portion of voting Americans.

And that hawk mimicry blue jays are so well known for isn’t all for trickery. Aside from the “backyard bully” label, blue jays are also known as the “sentinels of the woods,” alerting every animal, winged or not, within earshot, of hawks and other predators.

And lo and behold, while I’m sitting here looking up at this growing bald-faced hornet’s nest in the eave of my house, so, too, is a blue jay, only he or she is sitting on a tree branch at eye level with it unbeknownst to me.

Six years ago, we had a major yellow jacket problem to the right of our front door. Unlike bald-faced hornets, subterranean yellow jackets prefer building their nest underground. I think the reasoning behind this is so they can sting the ever-loving shit out of you while you’re in your front yard cutting grass or weed-eating and them BAM! out of nowhere comes a dozen or more of the bastards from an abandoned mole hole stinging you repeatedly while you run back inside the house only that doesn’t really matter to them because they’ll stick to your shirt like glue and sting you inside your home then you have to figure out a way to get the damn things and their corresponding anger out of your house all while searing pain grips your body from head to toe.

That’s my theory at least.

I don’t know how many yellow jackets were in the below ground nest off our front patio but my guess is hundreds. It was a bit nightmarish trying to get from the front door to the car each day. It was like playing a real life game of HOT LAVA. My kids were much younger then as well so that concerned me.

I tried a few DIY methods to no avail.

At the same time this was all going on, our resident mama skunk had taken up shack under my workshop as she did each year come spring to birth a new litter of little stinkers. My office was set up in my workshop and it smelled like holy hell every year when she’d arrive like clockwork. Not to mention my dog Motzie RIP managed to get sprayed at least once per year by mama skunk. Oh, the deodorizer you will buy to get that smell off a dog’s coat… only you never really do despite the “guaranteed” slogans on each and every bottle.

I say this all because seeing what the blue jays would eventually do to the bald-faced hornet’s nest in my eave reminded me of what mama skunk did as soon as I began contemplating pest control for the yellow jacket nest.

No need.

One morning it was all gone.

Completely dug up.

All of it.

Horizontal combs shredded left and right.

Smelled like skunk big time in the area where hundreds of yellow jackets once emerged.

Come to find out, skunks are major predators of yellow jackets. They eat ‘em up: larvae, pupae, adults and all. Raccoons are the same. They sniff the jokers out at night and go nuclear on a nest. High in protein from what I read.

The anti-climactic showdown: blue jay vs bald-faced hornet

Yesterday, as I was trying to have a conversation with a juvenile squirrel in my driveway, a squirrel I may add that didn’t seem interested in casual conversation with a hoo-man and in turn scurried off to hide in the wheel well of my car, I heard a flutter of wings followed by the classic blue jay call. If you visit the link and scroll down, it’s listed under “Calls,” specifically the one recorded by Randolph Little in Florida on March 30, 1962.

As they were attacking the bald-faced hornet’s nest, I’d apparently spooked the blue jays. It was also then I noticed quite a few angry hornets circling fifteen feet above my head. Out of instinct, not to mention fear and self-preservation, I quickly made my way back into the safety of my house.

I texted Allison:

Welp, don’t need to worry about the bald faced hornet nest. Unfortunately I interrupted the blue jays while they were going after it. Had to run back inside since the hornets started to swarm. I was wondering if/when the blue jays would find it and go after the larvae. I watched a cool documentary about blue jays two years ago that said they do that with hornets and wasps and yellow jackets.

A few minutes later, the blue jays were back with a vengeance and the bald-faced hornet’s nest no more as I witnessed the papery entrance of the nest drop down into the bushes from my view at the bay window (still safely inside my house).

I texted Allison a photo of the severed hornet’s nest entrance with the caption:

Looks like they finished it off. Here’s the former entrance. Good job Gizmo!

Allison replied:

Wow! Thanks nature!

Then I replied:

Nature you crazy.

Then she replied with a meme from the movie Old School starring Seann William Scott (aka Stiffler) as Peppers and Will Ferrell as Frank “The Tank” when Frank accidentally shoots himself in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. Her text read:

I like you, but you’re crazy.

For anyone wondering what’s one of the greatest scenes in comedy film history, that scene I linked from Old School is Top 5, all day.

As for the documentary I referenced above, it comes from Lesley the Bird Nerd’s YouTube channel. The thumbnail of the video has a blue jay munching on a wasp nest comb with text overlaid that reads: The Wasp Slayer.

Much like the skunk and raccoon, blue jays enjoy a high-protein meal consisting of larvae, pupae, and even the queen within a wasp and hornet’s nest. Based on the video, juvenile blue jays, perhaps because they don’t yet know any better, will even catch and eat worker wasps mid-air while they are trying to protect the hive. Kids will be kids.

So, for anyone who thinks blue jays are a$$holes or backyard bullies, remember what all they bring to the table if you ever see a destroyed wasp or hornet’s nest near your home. It’s more than likely the result of a blue jay, although woodpeckers and wrens will have a go at a hornet’s nest as well.

And sure, blue jays have got attitude A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E and lots of it. Yeah, they are quite the tricksters. They’re corvids. It’s in their DNA makeup. But when it comes to wasps and hornets hanging out in eaves or soffit or even in a tree branch nearby, blue jays are nature’s ultimate pest control service at no charge.

They saved me potentially a hundred dollars or more or whatever it is those guys charge nowadays. Because of the various wildlife occupying the woods behind my home, I haven’t needed their services for a very long time.

Nature, you crazy. But I like you.

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I have this thought often of how not doing the thing is always easier than doing the thing when it comes to running or lifting weights or basically anything that involves exercise, not because I don’t enjoy exercising — I do — it’s just that I don’t enjoy starting the process of exercising. Once I’m in it, once I’m a mile-and-a-half down the road, I don’t hate running. But I do, admittedly, dread the first few steps of doing the thing.

The first mile-and-a-half of every run, my inner thoughts are going at me a hundred miles an hour saying things like f—k this I feel so old my achilles are on fire why are you doing this to yourself and so on and so forth until I’m too tired to think those thoughts and those thoughts just melt away and now thankfully yes I can just focus on my breathing and the next steps in front of me one after the other.

It’s been a month since I started back running and the honeymoon period where I was deep in love with the activity of running has worn off and now I’m back where a lot of people find themselves when they’re on the verge of quitting but not quite there at least not yet and so I have to tell myself, have to write it out like I’m doing now, that regardless of how hard or dreadful I find the beginning of the activity, I know that once I’m immersed in the activity and even after I’ve completed the activity, I never once think to myself, “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that.”

I’ve never once, well, I take that back: there was one time involving a microburst, that I’ve ever finished a run and said, “Whoa boy. Wish I’d have just stayed home today and eaten potato chips.”

Between the time I started writing this and the time it is now, I took a five mile run. It’s the most I’ve run since starting back and the longest since my hiatus going back to October. Once I got back to the house, I texted my wife, “Five miles! I did it.”

Depending on your level of physical activity, you’ll either think a five mile run is impressive or five miles is nothing because maybe you’re training for a marathon or something and I get it, I do, because five miles to me a few years ago was what I basically considered a light run day. But I’m inching closer to fifty years old than forty years old now and my beard is graying and I’ve got these gnarly knots growing on my knuckles because I’m of prime starting arthritis age so five miles for me is an achievement, especially so since I just started back running almost exactly a month ago today and I’ll take it. I will take my solo five mile run and build on it for next week when I shoot for a six mile run and who knows, maybe in a few weeks I’ll nab an eight mile run like the old days but maybe that’s just wishful thinking because when I was on mile four today I remember thinking, “Holy sh!t, I used to run twice this far pretty much every day once upon a time” and I can’t even fathom doing that distance now.

No matter what the future holds, the now is that:

I did the damn thing I didn’t necessarily want to do and I feel immensely better physically and mentally but especially mentally for having done it.

So I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that if something is worth doing, in particular if that thing involves your physical health, then you should do it and not let that inner lazy bum inside you try to talk you out of it. You’ll feel better for having done the thing than not doing the thing. Doing the thing is naturally harder than not doing it. It’s supposed to be man. That makes it worth doing in the first place. Not doing it is always always the easy way out.

And when you do the damn thing it’s also a solid way of giving yourself guilt-free permission to now go lay on your behind and watch a movie and eat an entire pizza by yourself which is what I’m going to do right now even thought I really really really need to take a shower because man do I stink. Straight up stank in here.

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Wednesday

Today, one day later, despite my legs screaming in sheer agony and soreness and a rather comical inability to walk properly down a flight of stairs without saying, “Oh that hurts. Ah. Ouch” and so on and so forth until I reach the landing, I chose to run yet another two miles.

A masochist endeavor really. “Would you like more pain?” “Yes, I’ll have another. Please and thank you.”

Reforming a running habit

I know that by doing what I’m doing I’m subconsciously or maybe this is a conscious effort, after all, I’m telling my body, “Body, this is a habit. You will form this habit. You will run despite not wanting to run because by running you are signaling to your body this is something you want to etch into the slender little grooves in your gray matter that of a daily habit and this is what must be done. Because you know yourself all too well and if you take a day off this early then you’ll take another day off because why not you know what’s another day?”

And your brain is feeling all the soreness in your body my body its body and is thinking, because it’s a brain and thinking is what brains do, “But your body my body our body, it’s so sore. It aches so very much.”

Because man am I sore.

I mean damn. I knew I wasn’t in running shape but I didn’t know I was this far removed from even what one could define as mediocre running shape. That I had this many muscles in my legs that had fallen idle and basically non-existent from physical activity since September even though I do walk and shoot basketball in my driveway everyday. But all in all, it’s really quite pitiful how bad my legs feel. In a way it’s a good feeling. Hurts so good because I’m not being a bum sitting around doing absolutely nothing which is a waste of life when living is meant for living and not sitting around twiddling your fingers or sitting on your behind wasting away precious bone mass by the minute.

Thursday

Another day has passed and the today from before is now yesterday and the new today is another day I will run again and I’m not entirely sure how far I will run today, but one mile is the minimum. I may shoot for two miles again. I’ll make the decision on my run because I’ll listen to my body and my body will tell me what is and what isn’t possible.

I set a goal this week of running 10 miles which may have been a touch too pie in the sky considering that I ran zero miles the week before and zero miles in the past six months before it. Had I started running again on a Monday and not a Tuesday, maybe the 10 miles would be feasible, but I got a late start on this whole I’m-a-runner-again situation and the week ends, according to my running app, at 11:59 PM on Saturday which means in order to pull off 10 miles, I must, at a minimum, run exactly two miles every single day:

2 miles: Tuesday
2 miles: Wednesday
2 miles: Thursday
2 miles: Friday
2 miles: Saturday

If I run less than two miles today, it means if I’m going to hit the 10 mile mark, I’ll have to pick up more mileage on another day; so if today is only one mile, if that’s what my body tells me is all I can muster, then either Friday or Saturday I’ll have to hit three miles and considering how very sore I continue to be, I’m not sure three miles is feasible. Three miles would’ve seemed like nothing a year ago but now it’s quite the mountain to climb and would, tendonitis awaiting, make more sense for next week when I’ve got some mileage under my belt and this doesn’t feel like a brand spanking new undertaking.

It’s also worth noting here the geography where I reside. It’s not flat. And while it’s not Colorado elevation by any stretch, I do live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mapping a route that is mostly level, aside from inclines on certain stretches, is doable. But then there’s that whole I’d like to inflict pain on myself mentality rearing its head again. I love running hills and steep inclines. For me, it doesn’t feel like a run unless my route is littered with hills and steep inclines. Something that pushes me and makes me think to myself while I’m doing it, “Holy crap. I can’t wait to reach the top.” Mostly level = yawn.

Setting realistic running goals

My running goal this week is 10 miles, but what about next week: do I repeat the same goal and then on the third week bump it up a notch to 12 or 15 miles? Right now, I’m taking a wait-and-see approach. I don’t want to overdo it and injure myself, even though 10 miles this week may be pushing it as is. In the past, I’ve said mileage isn’t important. I still agree with that. I think, by and large, the most important thing you can do is just run, even if it’s only a mile.

But I’m also acutely aware there is a sweet spot in terms of mileage for me to feel certain benefits that I’m after: namely, stress reduction. Killing the jerk as I call it. One mile doesn’t really kill the jerk. Two miles doesn’t either. That amount of mileage may tame the jerk for a few hours, but it doesn’t outright bludgeon to death the jerk living inside me. Killing the jerk usually takes a 5K distance (3.11 miles). If I run over three miles in a day, it’s pretty hard to rattle me emotionally or mentally. The ice cube has been melted. I repeat: the ice cube has been melted. The jerk living deep inside me is dead and all the world is better for it.

Anything above three miles is icing on the cake. If I hit five or six miles I’m basically high all day. Mellowed out. My favorite distance to run for about a decade was eight miles. You just hit a different level of consciousness once you get that high up in mileage. I’m sure a marathoner or ultramarathoner may think eight miles is nothing in the grand scheme of mileage and I don’t pretend to know what 20 miles or more, much less 26.2 or 100 miles, feels like. I can’t even fathom running that far, but aside from the unexpected bathroom breaks and what it does to your body physically over that distance, I would guess mentally or psychologically or whatever you want to call it, you’re just on another planet. Some Mork from Ork wavelength.

Nanu nanu.

They say the definition of “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And if I’m being honest with myself, and why not be honest with yourself, what I’ve doing over the past six months was meeting that definition head on. I knew I needed to get in better shape than I was but I was basically not doing enough of any one thing to make that happen. Too much idle time. Too much sitting around. Too much mindless leisure. Sure, I walk. Yes, I play basketball. I lift weights but nothing crazy. I’ve been beating on my punching bag Bob during the day more than usual. But I wasn’t doing one specific thing that achieves what running provides and that is a very good sweat and a very good sweat is something we all need to get the stress and the toxins and all the lingering bullspit out of our system.

I don’t want to lead a shoulda woulda coulda life at any stage of my life. How boring. I don’t even like sitting still. I need to move my body because if I don’t move my body all these different parts of my body start to ache — not from moving too much but from not moving enough at all. There is a correlation there. God wouldn’t have given us arms and legs if he didn’t want us to move them in all sorts of different directions so why even be sedentary other than to sleep? If I could afford one, I’d buy a treadmill or cycling desk for work and look like a complete maniac on Zoom calls wearing a tank top, 5” shorts, and a flipped up lid on a five-panel cap.

I ended up running two miles today.

Took off out the door on my lunch break. About ten steps in I realized how much I seriously underestimated the soreness in my legs, less so my hamstrings but my calves and achilles area. But I still rallied my aching limbs to run 2.3 miles. About a mile in, my neighbor from down the street goes flying by me as if I’m at a standstill. In fairness, he’s about ten inches shorter than me with quick little legs. He also didn’t stop running for six months like me and… and… he was shooting from behind me coming downhill (so: momentum) whereas I had just run up the ridiculously steep incline off the basketball court hill and was begging for mercy to just make it to the top and then once I made it to the top could barely put one leg in front of the other.

But I don’t care about speed.

My pride may take a hit for about a minute, and it definitely did (“I’m so slow now”), but then it’s over. I may be lumbering out there right now, and even in the weeks or months to come, but I’m still moving forward, one foot in front of the other.

About a half-mile later, I see another guy who I’m pretty sure runs every day and hasn’t taken a day off in years. He’s a slow runner. Very slow. Snail’s pace slow. He runs slower than any human being I’ve ever seen. Tiny steps, one in front of the next. Sinewy build. Not a spec of fat on his body. He’s older than me. I don’t know by how much, but I’d put him at 50 years old. It’s possible he’s even older. He used to run barefoot everywhere. He no longer does. But it reminds me to be more like him. To slow my pace even more than it already is. Because unlike a speed demon who is going to burn out at some point, this guy keeps going and going and going like the Energizer bunny.

Back when I used to run for three hours at a time, I’d meet him when I set off for my destination and on my way back far flung from the civilization that is our community setting. It was like an unspoken camaraderie between the two of us, even though I’ve never once heard this guy speak. We’d just wave or nod at one another, both of us completely caked in dried sweat layering itself on our faces and necks and legs

“I see you brother.”

Friday

I ran just over three miles today which means to complete my first week’s goal of 10 miles, I need a measly .4 miles on Saturday. The soreness in my upper legs is mostly gone. The right calf area is still achy and is basically saying “take a day off man,” but I’m so close to my goal that I’m going to push it for about a mile on Saturday because I’m not getting this close to my goal and then throwing in the towel.

I will, however, take off Sunday. Not that my right calf area will magically heal with one day’s rest, but at least it’ll get a break. Then on Monday, I’ll do my best to force myself to run one solitary mile, enough to keep my habit in check moving into the second week but not enough to exacerbate the pain too much.

One of the side effects of running I’d forgotten about is that it makes you more regular. Not that I wasn’t already regular before, but I’d forgotten how much faster it moves along that process inside your body. I was sitting at my desk at work and thinking, “But I’ve already gone to the bathroom today. What the hell did I eat?” Then it hit me: oh yeah, running.

Saturday

It’s Saturday now and yet another 80 degrees on the books. I have to admit: I didn’t intentionally choose a week with a string of good weather to start running again; but I couldn’t have picked a better week to lace up the running shoes. My goal today is one mile. That’ll push me over the 10 mile mark.

I did it. Ran a lone mile today. Swallowed my first bug of the year in the process. Extra protein. Not sure which type of bug. It had wings and it flew into the back of my throat while running up a trail near the woods. I hacked. I coughed. I tried everything to free the bug because I didn’t know if it had a stinger or not, the answer: thankfully not, but to no avail did it exit my mouth. It’s in my stomach somewhere now.

Regardless, this week marked the transformation.

I’m officially a runner again.

I set a goal, I held myself accountable, and I achieved the goal. I’ve burned, on average, 350 calories running every day based on my height and body weight, and my stress levels have dropped significantly.

It feels good to be back.

For the sake of keeping my accountability going, I plan to use this specific post to document my progress over the next six months. I won’t be writing each day about it, but I plan to do a progress update each week ideally. If this is of interest to you, or helps motivate you in some way, bookmark this page.

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It’s been five years since Gary passed away. He was my first cousin and good friend; then, later in life, he became my brother-in-law. The brother-in-law thing is not as weird as it sounds. Allow me to explain: we married the Watkins’ sisters. He married Emily. I married Allison. He had three kids. I had two. Does that make our children first and second cousins? I guess so, maybe. How does that work? Sounds even stranger writing it out.

But me falling in love with Allison and him falling in love with Emily wasn’t exactly planned out, and again, not as weird as it actually sounds. No crossing of bloodlines. Becoming brothers-in-law meant, even as we moved from childhood to adulthood, I was fortunate enough to get to spend extra time with him in my life that, as it tends to go in adulthood, trails off as we age. That wasn’t the case for us.

I often think of Gary in my day-to-day life. He had a way of injecting well-timed humor in ordinary days or in days when I was feeling down and out. Then, without him even knowing it, sitting at home or at work hundreds of miles away, I’d get a ridiculous text from him and my mood would shift upward.

There used to be a group text with the two of us, plus Cal and Robbie. In some ways, the text thread was a constant state of one-upmanship. Who would find the dumbest or funniest thing online (“Glass muffins!” “Ma! Protein shake!”) and send it to the group text first? Who would pull off the day’s ultimate Photoshop that included the face and/or body of someone else in the group text?

Gary once sent a video of my head and Robbie’s on the bodies of Lloyd Christmas (me) and Harry Dunne (Robbie) from Dumb and Dumber. There was the Austin Power’s video with my head on Verne Troyer’s tiny body dancing to “It’s a Hard Knock Life” by Jay-Z. I returned fire with Robbie as Indiana Jones cutting the rope on Gary who I’d photoshopped into the evil high priest Mola Ram from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

When Gary went with Butch and family to the beach, and uploaded a photo to Facebook of the two of them in a hot tub smiling, I dropped in a red bikini-clad supermodel between them both. My uncle Butch asked me to take it down and I said, “I’m sorry Butch. I can’t. It’s Photoshop War. Gary can explain.”

For Christmas one year, I transformed Gary into Santa Claus and Cal into an Elf on the Shelf making angel wings in the baking flour, surrounded by sugar cookies and a rolling pin.

In spring, in a scene that transpired in the middle of a lake, I photoshopped Gary driving a jet ski with Cal sitting in his lap and Robbie in the background swimming with Jaws emerging from the water behind him with his giant mouth wide open exposing rows of razor sharp teeth.

This kind of thing went on for years. I’d go as far to argue this is the best use of technology, smartphones, social media, and the Internet in combination. It certainly made my day, plenty of days. I remember Allison urging me to please get in the car because we were going somewhere and we were going to be late if I didn’t hurry the hell up, and I said to her, “Give me three minutes. Gary just hit me with a Photoshop bomb and I need to respond. I’m almost done.”

Then, once I got in the car, I shared Gary’s latest with Allison and the kids.

Allison: That’s pretty good. Not sure you can beat that one.
Kids: Is that really you and Robbie?
Me: No, that’s not really us. That’s Lloyd Christmas and Harry at a bar in Colorado.
Me: Here’s my return fire.
Allison: Yeah, he got you.
Me: I may have lost the battle, but I will not lose this war.

For fifteen years, from 2006 until early 2021 when Gary was hospitalized during COVID, the battle raged on. It was One Battle After Another long before Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-winning theatrical release of the same name.

I can no longer remember what my last text to Gary said. I can’t remember if it included a joke or humor of any kind in an attempt to make him feel slightly better about the situation he was in or if I was completely serious in my text. I feel like it was the latter. Pretty sure it was the latter. That I said something along the lines of “Thinking of you” or “Praying for you” but much more longwinded or “You’ll be back to yourself in no time. Just hang in there.” That I told him I wish we were allowed in the hospital to visit, which sadly we weren’t because of restrictions then.

Memories are a good thing. Maybe not always but most of the time. And that’s what I’ve still got five years after Gary’s death. Memory after memory after memory. Some have started to fade. But the big ones are still as vibrant as ever: the shenanigans and near arrests when hanging out with him in public somewhere and alcohol was involved. The fights we stopped or helped Robbie avoid because for whatever reason Robbie was a magnet for getting punched in the face when we were younger.

Gary’s wheezing laughter whenever I broke out food from a coat pocket at 2 AM in the morning: “Are those country ham biscuits in your pocket? Did you just pull out country ham biscuits?”

Listening to Neil Young’s “My, My, Hey, Hey” and Willie and Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings at too loud a volume and smoking way too many cigarettes and him telling me he wanted to ask Emily out but wasn’t sure if she’d be interested in him or not and I was like, “Oh, no. She’s definitely interested. She said you were looking good the other night. Her words. I swear.”

Riding bikes up and down Proctor Street and to our grandparents’ old big white house in Drakes Branch and Papa chasing the two of us through his garden with the grubbing hoe when we were, I don’t know, maybe five and seven years old, perhaps younger, because we’d stepped all over his vegetables and Papa didn’t play when it came to his garden. Him and me and Tiffany and Jennifer and Susan cautiously walking down the driveway to the witch’s house behind the Tastee Freez, who, of course, wasn’t an actual witch; and then when she’d open the door, we’d haul freight up the driveway, kicking up dirt beneath our feet, back to the white house hearts racing a thousand miles an hour until we caught our breaths in the kitchen and filled up glasses of lemonade and our grandmother walking in and asking what we kids were up to, not having any idea we’d just escaped from being yanked into the witch’s lair.

I’ve still got those memories and I hope as I age I never lose them because they’re a part of me, who I am who I was who I became, and Gary is an integral part of that becoming. I mean listen I’m in my mid-40s and I can still smell the sweat and taste the caked-in chunks of white deodorant from his armpit hair all these years later from when he put me in a massive headlock at our grandparents’ house, the little blue one they moved to after leaving the big white house. He wouldn’t let go. Then he picked me up and pile drove me, a tactic he’d learned from watching professional wrestling for far too many years, onto the bed but at least hey thankfully it wasn’t the floor. There was some give to the mattress, some springs, cushion, to bounce off of and not the thud of the lightly carpeted floor below.

I think about that moment whenever I put on deodorant and when my son reached the age to buy his first stick of deodorant I told him the story too in the grocery store aisle, probably for the tenth time in his life, of when I was his age what his uncle Gary had once done. I think about how happy Gary was to be getting married to Emily and how absolutely nervous and shaky and sweaty he was on the day of his wedding and him wiping his forehead with a handkerchief while we waited in back and how proud he was of his first born Sidney, his daughter; and then Hyde and then Rutherfoord, his two sons.

They of course have different memories than I do. They have the memories of a dad, of a husband. Someone who was always there for them and then suddenly wasn’t and my heart ached for them on the day he passed and still after and for Butch and Julie and Tiffany because no matter my connection to Gary, no matter the titles bestowed upon us like friend or cousin or in-law (again, not as weird as it sounds), the loss they experienced was a far different and even greater loss than I experienced. They lost a dad, a husband, a son, a brother.

But I still miss Gary regardless. He was just a good dude. Someone attached to so many of my memories from infancy to teenager to young adult to closing in on middle age when we started talking to each other about back pain at the beach one summer when we shared a rental together in Topsail. Someone who like Jeremiah or Brian or Scott left this world entirely too early for all of us. All good people who made me laugh until my cheeks couldn’t take the pain anymore, that made the world a better place simply because they were in it, a part of it.

And despite their young deaths are all still here because of memories.

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Wound up being nothing major, thankfully. A condition known as exercise-induced hematuria. In a nutshell, exercising had caused me to piss blood for the simple fact that I emptied my bladder right before I tore off up the road on a brutally hot September day when I should’ve been, probably, sitting inside in the A/C in the first place. I have a history of forcing myself to urinate before I go running, even if I don’t really need to urinate, because I also have a history of telling myself I’m going to run for two or three miles and then ten miles later, I’m still running and by that time, yes, yes, I do need to pee but where do I pee?

I wrote about it briefly in the blog I posted on my birthday.

As I look back now, after having run for the first time in what feels like forever, I realize that’s when I went from runner to not-a-runner. I just stopped running. Completely. Honestly, I thought this all took place longer ago than six months. I figured it’d been a year. Nope. Six months or maybe it’s seven. I’m bad at math.

I run, therefore I am (not sitting on my behind)

But today I reclaimed my identity as a runner. Instead of thinking about going for a run or telling myself that I’m going to start running again soon, which is basically what I’ve been saying for the past, I don’t know, month, I got my behind up out from behind my desk, grabbed a pair of running shorts, a sleeveless Path Projects t-shirt and accompanying hat, which, for the record: is the best, hands down, running apparel money can buy, and laced up my Saucony Peregrine 12s.

My Peregrines are bright yellow. You can’t miss me if you see even a glimpse of me. These shoes are bright ass yellow. Like put on your sunglasses bright yellow. I didn’t know they were going to be that bright when I ordered them online. When they were released, Saucony classified this colorway as gold, not yellow, but these are not gold. I know what color gold is. This is yellow.

Either way, I thought the colorway would be a little muted. Maybe it was my computer monitor. Nada. No mute button on these trail runners. Not even a volume control button. I got them, despite being yellow, because they were on sale for more than half off the original price. I’m always on the lookout for a sale on something like shoes which I consider to be, almost always, way too expensive in the first place.

So I ran today in my bright yellow Saucony Peregrines. I didn’t almost run. I ran. And once I hit the two mile mark, which is about ten miles less than I would’ve run even five years ago, I stopped. Two miles was good enough considering that my initial plan was one mile and one mile alone. It had been a while. No need to overdo it.

As I walked back home, my legs felt like complete Jell-O, as if they’d collapse right out from underneath me. Despite this, it felt good. I felt good. My stress levels have been going in the opposite direction as I’d like of late so I called on the tried and true: running. Nothing quite squashes stress like lacing up a pair of running shoes and getting your heart rate up and the sweat pouring down.

I don’t know if you’d call what I did running. It felt more like jogging. Remember jogging which Rocky Balboa popularized? Why’d we ever move away from that word in the first place? That’s what I did today.

I jogged.

And it felt right.

I think I’ll go again tomorrow.

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I haven’t been blogging much in the last few months. A big reason for this is because I’ve been doing everything in my power to hang on by the fingernails to my very old computer: a late 2013 model MacBook Pro. A laptop so old that many websites no longer even opened properly on it, including components on the backend of, yes, even my own website.

Truth is, this has been going on for a while. To quote Philadelphia’s own Boyz II Men, “It’s so hard to say goodbye to [your MacBook Pro]” or something of that nature.

My MacBook Pro has been with me since the year my son was born. Lots of miles on that machine. And many more words and stories saved inside it.

The front end of my website is fine — what you see. But behind the scenes, I couldn’t even access my own files. The editor where I write my posts was glitchy and becoming a thorn in my side. In my last post, “The dog and the squirrel,” my media library was inaccessible. I could upload new photos but I couldn’t see any of my older photos. I wanted to embed a picture of my dog stored in the media library. Couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t load.

It wasn’t my computer’s fault. It was the lack of browser support for a computer as ancient as mine. A computer birthed during a time when we had a sane, intelligent human being in the highest office in the land. How time flies and sanity plummets.

Old computers and the latest tech don’t play well together

Something that bugs me about technology in general: you can own something that still looks nice and is functionally okay, but companies decide, you know what? We’re not offering any OS updates on your archaic device anymore nor will our fancy new code and processes on our website play nicely with the code and processes your system can handle.

Technically speaking, Apple does do a good job of supporting old machines for a very long window of time. Official support for Big Sur continued until late 2022, which is pretty damn nuts if you think about it. On the one hand, one might say I should’ve sucked it up and bought a new computer then, or at least in 2023 when the fits began.

But mine still worked, mostly, so why buy another computer? The issue tends to land outside of Apple’s ecosystem. Fire up an old computer and see how many modern websites load. There aren’t many. Wikipedia is great about backwards compatibility and from a browser standpoint Mozilla’s Firefox clearly cares.

Most everyone else?

Not so much.

And sure, I could switch operating systems or do a legacy patch; but that carries risks I’m not comfortable with on my old machine and my limited know-how in that area. I felt like there was too much to lose. Too many files. Too many photos. Too many stories I’ve written.

An ode to my MacBook Pro and hello to MacBook Neo

I still have my MacBook Pro. I’m not getting rid of it. I love that beautiful machine. It’s broken in like an old baseball glove. More than likely, I will repurpose it to be my fiction writing machine, a place where all of my short stories get their start and find their end. It’ll be, in its own way, like a (somewhat) modern typewriter.

But I did finally muster up enough courage, telling myself that delaying forking out dough, at this point, is kind of pointless, and so I bought a new computer this week: the MacBook Neo, which launched March 4, 2026.

I’m typing on it right now. Some would call it a significant downgrade that I went from a MacBook Pro to the newly released MacBook Neo, Apple’s most budget-friendly laptop which recently entered the market that should, if the universe makes any sense, put a hell of a dent in Windows PCs and Chromebook sales. My wife and kids both use Chromebooks for school and work. Holy hell, are those laptops bad on the eyes due to suboptimal brightness and garbage resolution.

Before buying the Neo, I watched way too many reviews about it on YouTube. I do this sort of thing for largely anything I purchase. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to choose a new pair of boots. Now, after using it for almost a day, would I say it’s a downgrade? My MacBook Pro was old as molasses. So, downgrade? Nope. Not for how I plan to use it.

MacBook Neo is not meant to be an Air or Pro or iPad

To go back to the YouTube reviews, many of which are positive but some that take the unfair comparison route, let’s pause on that for a moment. The comparisons between the Neo and the Air is apples to oranges, just as comparing the Air to the Pro is pointless — much less the Neo to the Pro. Same goes for the Neo being a replacement for the iPad. They are all designed with different audiences in mind. They all serve different needs. One is not better or worse than the other.

The question should be, “How do I intend to use it?” Everyone may think they’d love to own and drive a Ferrari, but it’s possible you just need a Subaru Forester, a Toyota Camry, or a used pick-up truck. What good is a Ferrari when I need to make a run for gardening supplies at Lowe’s?

This is how I’d categorize the respective audience for each.

MacBook Neo (starts at $599)
RAM: 8GB only

For the budget conscious who mainly use their computers to browse the Internet, pay bills, check email, and other light, less resource-intensive work. Excellent for writers, high schoolers, college students, most professionals, and a solid 85% of the general population.

MacBook Air (starts at $1,099)
RAM: 16GB, 24GB, 32GB options

Light to medium design workloads, including creative projects, photo editing, and coding. Excellent for creative hobbyists or junior designers who need a little oomph but nothing overkill.

MacBook Pro (starts at $1,699)
RAM: 16GB, 32GB, 64 GB+ options

For heavier design work and high resolution video editing. Excellent for photographers, developers, and designers who need the extra juice. It’s the premium machine that can handle anything you throw at it… unless we’re talking about water. Don’t throw water at it.

With all that said, you can get a MacBook Pro that’s far less powerful than a MacBook Air if you don’t know anything about RAM. The opposite is also true. And, honestly, most people don’t know diddly squat about RAM, which is why the Neo, which has, by far, the least amount of RAM available (8GB), makes the most sense for most people.

Why I bought a MacBook Neo instead of another MacBook Pro

When I bought my MacBook Pro in 2013, I didn’t buy it for the same reasons I purchased the Neo. In 2013, design work and all the apps that come along with that type of work were top priority. I needed a machine that could handle those programs and not freeze up with the simplest of edits or catch fire while saving and InDesign or Illustrator file. It was the first Mac I ever bought.

As they say, “Once you go Mac, you never go back.”

But I rarely do anything design-related on my personal computer nowadays. I use it to write more than anything and the Neo meets this criteria. I do a little bit of design and coding at work. For that, I use my work-issued computer, a 15″ MacBook Air (M3 chip).

If you’re wondering why buy a personal computer when I have a work computer that happens to be a MacBook Air, the answer is simple. It’s not allowed because of security protocol. Nor, to be quite honest, do I want to mix personal documents on the same machine as work documents. If my company decides to can me one day, they shut down my access immediately. I don’t want to lose anything.

Plus, work/life boundaries. If I were writing in my spare time on my work computer, I’d probably end up working when I’m off work. And when I’m off work, and I don’t know about you but, I’m not trying to work.

Pros and cons of MacBook Neo one day in

Pros

Small size, lightweight, ultra-portable, fast performance, Touch ID, fanless design, access to built-in apps I couldn’t access on my old machine, excellent battery life.

Cons

No backlit keyboard, keyboard itself isn’t as responsive as my old MacBook Pro, puny charger, trackpad touch is more noticeable, it’s brand spanking new — and I like old things.

I’m sitting in the dark now typing this with a lamp on dim; and I must admit, I do miss having a backlit keyboard. I should probably be asleep now anyways and not sitting here past midnight typing something most people couldn’t give two fudge pops about. With that said, I haven’t been able to sit in bed and type in I can’t tell you how long. My MacBook Pro basically can’t hold a charge off AC power for more than 15 minutes so if/when I wanted to write, I had to sit at my desk with my laptop plugged in. Otherwise, the battery would dwindle down to nothing in no time flat.

And then there was the fan which wasn’t always an annoyance, but has been since, I don’t know, maybe late 2022 or 2023. If I even attempted to open a website that had any level of complexity to it, the fan would hum to life and the whole machine would get hot in my lap.

But what a machine it was in its heyday. The testament to the late 2013 MacBook Pro’s durability is, well, the fact that it’s 2026 and I just now bought a new laptop.

I like to hold onto things if you can’t tell. I still have a t-shirt from 1999 Summer League Basketball. I wear it all the time. Kinda smells when I sweat. The arm pits are a bit tougher material than the rest. But it’s still going strong 27 years later. They really don’t make things like they used to.

I’m hoping, however, that’s not the case with my new MacBook Neo because it’s a fun little machine. I have faith that Apple will not and did not put out an inferior computing machine. My experience using Apple products since 2013 tells me I don’t need to worry. They just get things right.

I’m looking forward to punching out hundreds of thousands of words on my MacBook Neo just as I did with my late 2013 MacBook Pro.

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When my dog Motzie was younger, she believed squirrels were a solvable problem. They lived in the oak trees beyond the fence and moved through our yard like they owned it. Seasoned trespassers scurrying about our backyard with unchecked confidence. Motzie didn’t like this. She treated every appearance as a personal affront.

Whenever the back door would slide open, she’d launch herself onto the patio like a black-and-white projectile, her long ears flapping in the wind, nails scraping for traction. Today would be the day the rightful order of our backyard was restored.

But today was never the day and as the next day came and went, the chaotic order of our backyard continued.

On more than one occasion, a squirrel got the best of her. Nipped her in the ear and left a small split at the edge. Another day, despite her win of capturing a squirrel, it managed, in its final breath, to bite her in the face.

It was a clean chunk, one that bled more than necessary. I took her to her vet at Georgetown Veterinary. Dr. Peppard cleaned her up and dabbed some ointment on her snout and sent us home with the remainder in the tube. Through all her remaining years, the small patch of fur on her nose never returned in full. Over time, the wound would heal into the unmistakable shape of a small heart. Pink for months, then to light gray then dark.

Once home from the vet, Motzie returned to her post at the back sliding glass door. She stared out at her purported enemy who she believed to be sitting on the fence rail in the distance. It’s hard to say with squirrels if you have the right one. But my dog seemed convinced, even though the particular squirrel who’d sent her to the vet had died in the skirmish. She nevertheless stared at the squirrel on our fence railing with vengeance in her eyes as if she was counting every whisker on its face and every hair on its bushy tail.

Even as she healed, she didn’t reconsider her position in the war. She maintained surveillance. Her muscles coiled and ready. The squirrels, having lost one of their own, adjusted. They were more leery than before. But then one day, the squirrels returned to their normal trespassing ways. They came closer. Too close. They started walking right up to the back patio glass, as if studying her return. Their tails flicked. Then calm. They peered right into her eyes as she growled under her breath inside. The hair on her back bristled right up the spine.

The brazen bastards.

In the early years, our backyard felt like a battlefield with clear borders. Motzie owned what little grass managed to grow out there. She owned the hillside and the bottom. The squirrels owned the branches and the limbs and the fence railing. The line between was marked. Don’t set foot below.

But as years passed, time dulled the edges.

Her chases grew shorter. What had once been a mad dash across the yard transitioned into a short, quick burst with a dignified slowdown. The squirrels began to calculate this. They would bolt when she did, but not with the same urgency. Sometimes they would stop halfway up the fence and look back. Sometimes they didn’t even bother climbing the tree.

I remember the first noticeable shift in the ongoing battle of our backyard. A squirrel launched from our fence post onto a chair on the patio. My dog was asleep on the patio until she wasn’t. The squirrel froze as Motzie rose from her afternoon nap onto her paws. She held her stance, chest puffed out, her back straight as an arrow. Her docked tail lifted.

After a few seconds, long enough to register that neither was making the first move, my dog bent back down to the ground and plopped on her side. Her eyes closed. Her belly pushed in and out as her ribcage drew up and down. She began snoring immediately. She even whistled.

The squirrel tore off up a tree.

There was no defeat in the moment for my dog. She was snoozing. Always a win. All those years of war and territory had led to this moment.

The same scene played out again and again. Motzie would lie on the patio in the sun, chin down between her paws. Sometimes she was asleep. Sometimes she was sneakily awake. When awake, she’d just watch them now. The squirrels would move through the yard, no longer frantic and anxiety-ridden.

One squirrel even stretched out its limbs on top of the picnic table one afternoon and fell asleep while soaking up the sun’s rays. Motzie was five feet away snoozing on the cool slab of the concrete patio.

They had reached an understanding.
A truce had arrived. Fourteen years in the making.

By her fifteenth year, it became like a harmless game between my dog and the squirrels. She still gave chase occasionally, more out of habit than conviction. But it was more ceremonial than anything. A brief run. A pause. A mutual acknowledgment that no one was catching anyone anymore.

The squirrels grew bolder during this time. Was the aging predator still a predator to them or something else? They’d look for food a few feet from where she slept. They’d peek their heads up occasionally as they searched for their cache or buried a nut in the soil. The dirt covered their noses.

The squirrels moved through the yard now as if she were a landmark rather than a threat.

In the last year of her life, our backyard was no longer contested territory. It was a shared space. Motzie would nap in the shade while a squirrel dozed on the picnic table or the fence post. They existed in parallel. Two species that had spent years testing each other now backyard companions. The squirrels, it could even be said, liked her presence. When she was outside, they didn’t have to worry about a hawk swooping down for a squirrel lunch.

When my dog passed away the day after Thanksgiving in 2024, the yard felt eerily quiet and calm. It was as if the backyard itself didn’t recognize the loss at first. Its sentinel would no longer stand guard… or fall asleep on the patio.

I also learned just how many squirrels were up in the trees behind our home in Charlottesville. It wasn’t the three or four I’d normally see. There were dozens, including babies and juveniles who’d never once stepped foot in our backyard.

As the days of grief pushed forward, the squirrels kept coming. They explored a different yard than the one that had existed for the past 16 years. For weeks, they approached the patio with the same measured boldness they always had, pausing near the sliding glass door as if waiting for it to slide open and the jaws of death to exit. One sat on the stoop and stared at the glass.

Where is she?

Another dug in the same patch of dirt she used to patrol.

I caught myself watching them, half expecting the familiar burst of a black and white English springer spaniel from behind me.

Better watch out, squirrel.

But it never came.

She was gone.

After about a month, the squirrels went about their ways with a more reckless abandon. They moved differently. Less cautious. Less like they could be eaten alive at any moment. The backyard, in turn, rearranged itself around my dog’s absence. The oak tree was still there. The fence still marked the border. But the war was long over. And so now was the truce.

Nowadays the squirrels simply hang out.

There’s one I call Split Ear, a small Eastern gray squirrel with a notch torn clean through the middle of her right ear. She has claimed a chair on the patio as if it were assigned seating.

When I sit outside in the evenings, she’ll hop onto the opposite chair from me and settle there, tail like a blanket over her backside. We regard each other from a polite distance.

Does she remember my dog? Does she know her name?

Motzie.

I like to think Split Ear remembers my dog or that she carries some faint imprint of those long afternoons of watchful coexistence in her bones. This is probably projection. Still, there’s something familiar in the way she sits, alert but unhurried, as if guarding against nothing in particular.

Sometimes Split Ear will stretch out along the warm wood of the picnic table in the sun, the same way her predecessors did in Motzie’s final year of life.

The backyard is quiet.

The sliding glass door reflects only my own outline now.

For the better part of her life, my dog believed the squirrels were a problem to be solved. In the end, they became neighbors. Maybe even friends for all I know, in the limited vocabulary available to both.

They shared sun and space and a slow acceptance of coexistence.

The heart-shaped scar on her nose may have faded as she aged, the pink blending more softly into the gray and white around her muzzle. But it always remained. A reminder of a single battle in the long-running backyard war. A war neither side ultimately won.

But perhaps they did. Perhaps the truce was the victory.

I hope Motzie would feel the same way. Otherwise, she may really be annoyed about all these squirrels hanging about our patio every day.

I think she’d like Split Ear at least.

Thanks for reading. This short story was inspired by Corey Ford’s “The Road to Tinkhamtown” which was recently republished in Vol. 130, No. 2 of Field & Stream magazine. It was also inspired by a touch of sadness I’ve experienced lately missing my old pup and, as always, the plethora of squirrels in my backyard at any given moment.

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I grew up in a small town called Phenix in rural Virginia. Phenix is part of Charlotte County in the Commonwealth’s Southside region. It wasn’t uncommon for us to lose power for a week or more during my childhood. Homemade pizza on a kerosene heater was a seasonal delicacy. It was a routine part of being born and raised in rural America where power lines are largely above ground, not buried.

I had family (my uncle Rodney) and neighbors (Billy Mann) who worked for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). The worse the weather, the more they worked. When Dominion Power built a plant in Clover in the late 90s, I had friends and relatives who got a job there (Gary, others).

I even worked there one summer myself. Not in the same capacity as anyone I knew. I cut grass for eight hours a day on a tractor. If you’ve never seen a rat the size of your calf muscle jump five feet in the air, it’s a sight to see. Even more interesting: the snakes chasing after the rats as a tractor runs alongside them. I thought the rats were going to jump in the cab with me.

But my point in writing this isn’t about my experience cutting grass one summer in 2000 at a power plant. It’s something we take for granted during bad weather. The ones who have to go out when the rest of us stay in.

When the power goes out, it doesn’t magically turn back on. It’s someone doing extremely dangerous work to make it happen for me, you, and anyone you love.

When the roads are covered in snow and ice or obstructed by downed trees, it’s someone’s job to help clear them for safer travel. That way if there’s an emergency, the fire department, rescue squad, and police can get to where they need to go to help someone.

No one likes having their power out in the coldest of cold. We all want it back sooner rather than later. No one wants to be stuck inside for days at a time and not able to move around freely on the roads.

But for any of that to happen, there has to be someone, many people, who signed up to do the work that many of us take for granted day in and day out.

Tip your hat to those people during the winter storm and after: the linemen, the fire department, rescue squad, the police. Report power outages and blocked roadways, yes. But take it easy complaining about any of it online. Someone’s parent or spouse, most likely their dad, is out there doing the dangerous work at midnight or even later.

It may be cold and dark inside your home, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what they are experiencing in the freezing cold outside.

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That makes me uneasy.

“They’re wild animals. They’ll figure it out.”

If you’re thinking, “Hey Jeff, they’re wild animals. They’ll figure it out.” I know. I know.

But I love animals. F—king love them. I talk to my backyard animals like they can comprehend English. So, I’m nervous for them. Concerned how they will be impacted by a potential snowstorm the likes of which they’ve never experienced.

Heavy snow and ice hits forested yards differently

Our house is surrounded by trees on all sides. A small forest runs behind our backyard. During the last major snow event in Charlottesville, back in 2009, I lived in a bottom-level apartment with zero trees around me.

But this? Heavy snow plus ice changes the equation. Large branches snap. Trees uproot. And that has me on edge.

Meet the backyard wildlife I’m worried about

It’s not an abstract concern. I’ve grown close to my non-domesticated visitors. The squirrels and the crows especially. The ones I see every day. The ones I’ve gotten attached to. The ones I can easily identify, I name.

Split Ear, my squirrel homie

Split Ear is my homie. She’s an Eastern gray squirrel who visits me every single day. Shortly after my dog Motzie died last year, Split Ear showed up. I like to think she’s a reincarnation.

When she sees me, she comes hauling freight down a tree to greet me. I can sit in a chair on our back patio and she’ll sit right next to me.

Mr. Jones, Mangled Foot, and Oscar the Friendly Genius

I have three crows who’ve adopted me as one of their own. A flightless member of their mob. If I go for a walk, my three feathered friends follow. Same with my wife. They even see my kids off to school and let me know when they’re due to arrive home, no matter where they’ve wandered off.

Their names are Mr. Jones, Mangled Foot (aka The Runt), and Oscar.

Oscar is the latest addition, born this spring. Mr. Jones and Mangled Foot raised Oscar. Mangled Foot is from the previous year’s brood and was raised by Mr. Jones who took her under his wing despite her smaller stature and a noticeable handicap. Her right talon is snapped sideways, leaving her with only one usable talon — but she manages just fine. She’s never left Mr. Jones’ side. She’s his shadow amongst the trees.

Crows are naturally smart, but Oscar is next level intelligent — and he’s hilarious. How will Oscar, who’s getting his first taste of winter, fare in this upcoming weather? What about Mr. Jones and Mangled Foot? What about Split Ear who, unlike the other squirrels, doesn’t bullrush the crows when food is around?

What winter storms actually do to squirrels

During major winter storms, the mortality rate for squirrels can reach 30-40%, this all despite their ability to survive temperatures as low as -30 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, for every ten squirrels, three to four will perish.

For younger squirrels, the odds are worse. Even in normal winters, up to 75% won’t make it and one in four don’t survive their first full year. Fifty percent don’t make it through two winters.

Nature is resilient, but it’s not gentle.

Doing my part to help my backyard wildlife before the snow hits

I keep piles of leaves in my backyard each winter as is. It’s good for animals and insects. It’s good for the soil. Squirrels use the leaves to re-insulate their nests during the most unforgiving cold stretches of winter. In the next day or two, I expect to see them gathering dried leaves into their paws and scrambling up trees for impromptu rebuilds and emergency patch jobs.

I’m also stocking up on bird seed to give both birds and squirrels solid calories once the snow covers the ground. Squirrels won’t be able to reach their caches then, nor will many of my smaller birds be able to access grit, seeds, or insects in the leaf matter on the forest floor of my backyard.

I’m covered when it comes to shelled peanuts. My wife gave me a gigantic bag for Christmas, along with corn on the cob.

It’s not much. But it’s something.

I wish there was more I could do.

Waiting out the winter storm

Once the snow starts falling, there’s nothing left to do but wait. To watch the trees. To look and listen for movement. To hope that that small lives tucked into branches and hollows and leaf piles and brush make it through the day and the long nights ahead when the temperature will drop not only below freezing, but below zero.

Some won’t. I read The Wild Robot. That’s the reality at hand. But many will. And when the sun pushes its way out and the thaw comes, I’ll be in my backyard waiting to say their names:

Split Ear.
Mr. Jones.
Mangled Foot.
Oscar.

And all the other little guys and gals who call my backyard, and the trees surrounding it, home.

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I don’t put much weight into weather forecasts more than a few days out. Why worry about a prediction that may change by the time I look again in an hour? Anything past three days, I’m like, “We’ll see.” However, as I was sitting in the living room yesterday evening, my wife Allison let out a gasp.

“Woah!” she said, kind of like Joey Lawrence from his Blossom days.

Speaking of Joey Lawrence, my sister once met him at AJ Skateworld in Appomattox. He touched her hand.

Correction: In checking with my source, it was not AJ Skateworld. It was Fun Quest in Lynchburg. Yvonne Costello took her, Kathleen, Tracey Carwile, Claire Dixon, and Misty Smith.

My sister said if it wasn’t Yvonne that took them, it was Augusta. If Tracey is reading this, and you spell your name Tracy without the -e, that’s on my sister. I tried to confirm the existence or lack thereof the -e. She said Tracey with an -e so I went with it.

Anyway, back to the present.

“Look at the weather for Saturday and Sunday,” my wife said. “That’s insane.”

I opened my weather app and scrolled to the weekend. There were some snowflakes in the image. I clicked on Saturday.

“Check out Sunday,” Allison said. I click on Sunday.

“That’s going to be like 2009,” Allison said.

Snowpocalypse: The Original (2009)

For anyone who doesn’t recall the original Snowpocalypse, we got smacked with 23 inches of snow where I lived at the time (Pantops Mountain) in Charlottesville. I wasn’t working remotely back then, but I did for a solid 10 days because I couldn’t get out of my driveway, much less up the hillside leading to the main road.

They didn’t scrape the hillside road at my old apartment for 10 days. Not enough plows. Everything was buried. More important fish to fry. Eh, roads to clear.

Crazy story: one of my co-workers had to be rescued from his car by VDOT the night it began because he’d been caught on the roads when it started. He was returning home from an out-of-town work event when it became too difficult to drive. He pulled over. The snow kept falling. He thought he was going to die. Then VDOT almost took out his sedan on the side of the road while plowing. He smashed all the lights down on his car so they’d see him.

He lived.

Once the snow melted and we all returned to work two weeks later, we took it upon ourselves to pluck off all the keys on his keyboard and reorder them. A good time was had by all (except him).

Anyway, how much snow are they calling for where you live?

Are you about to get wham, bam, thank you mammed like we are? Or will these forecasts be oh so very wrong? I’m crossing my fingers they’re wrong. I’m not trying to be stuck inside for days. Not trying to shovel two feet plus of snow from my driveway. My kids are all talking about making igloos.

Nah, bro.

Lastly, I leave you with a series of text messages I once sent my buddy Andy back in 2015. I feel it’s relevant here with the whole Snowpocalypse potential a possibility and all. Man, I hope not though. A possibility of 33″ of snow. Dang.

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