Daylight Savings Is Ending and My Dog Is a Murderer

On less daylight, more sky, and the mixed-bag nature of life

As I was recently amending soil and putting some of the raised garden beds to sleep for the coming cold season, my dog was killing a small, sleek black rodent in another part of the yard. I was focused on using the dying leaves of autumn to give next year’s vegetable garden more life. Katy was focused on death.

To be fair, she can’t help herself when it comes to fixating on small animals, even though she too is a small animal. Part chihuahua, part dachshund, her brain is a chaotic swirl of instincts compelling her to watch for intruders, warn her people, and hunt down all that skitters about. Though, this is the first time I have known her to actually catch and kill anything she has chased.

As I had earbuds in, I was only alerted to the scuffle by a yelp loud enough to pierce through my playlist. I crossed the yard to find her dancing around a depression of scattered mulch, in the middle of which lay the unfortunate creature that had attracted her attention. I put her in the house with a reprimand, aware at the same time that she wouldn’t understand why I was unhappy with her, and disposed of the body in the trees behind out property.

When I finished my gardening tasks and went inside, we made up. And ever since that day, the sound of her breathing is different. I’m pretty sure the yelp I heard was her and that her prey had at least left its mark on her before passing from this life. Nearest I can figure, it must have pierced her nose and air is passing through the hole.

When I left for an impromptu trip to Kansas City with my sister-in-law last week, there were still lots of yellow leaves on the trees that now watch over the body of that dead animal (I think it was a shrew). When I returned Sunday, only the towering oaks still held any leaves. The back yard, which had been an unbroken carpet of green when I left, is half brown now with more leaves I will blow, mow, and add to the remaining raised beds in the coming week.

With the leaves off the trees, we can see the highway that stretches along a north-south axis behind our property, and the noise from the cars and trucks is no longer deadened by foliage. I have tree planting plans for next year that include evergreens and spring-flowering trees and maples that will blaze orange in some future autumn. For now, we have the highway.

But we also have more sky during a time when we need it most. As Daylight Savings time ends next week and those of us in northern climes are plunged into the long, dark nights of winter, more sky means more light, more hope, more colorful sunsets that are not blocked by the trees.

Life and death, light and dark, they seem to twist together this time of year. On our flight home, I was telling my sister-in-law about how our former rhythms of living in a college town have been replaced by the rhythms of being surrounded by farmland. I am observing new patterns of plowing, planting, growing, harvesting, cutting down, turning over. Instead of U-hauls and pickups full of furniture and mattresses I follow behind tractors and combines and pickups full of hay and straw. Instead of frat boys playing drinking games or girls lined up and shivering outside a club (why don’t they just wear a jacket?) the roadsides are home to self-serve, honor-system fresh cut flowers and vegetable stands.

Last week most of the farmers surrounding our little town began cutting down the dried cornstalks and the horizon opened up again along the country roads we take in order to avoid the expressways, all of which have been under significant construction for over a year with no end in sight. Never mind. I prefer the company of cows, sheep, horses, and sandhill cranes along roads named for the town you will eventually reach if you drive long enough in that direction.

You will always reach something if you go long enough in one direction, won’t you? As the year gets darker and colder and we hunker down indoors, the direction I am headed is another finished novel manuscript. I made some significant progress while I was in Kansas City, tapping away at my keyboard while my sister-in-law was attending conference workshops for social work educators. Despite being back home and back at work, I intend to dedicate time each day to continuing that progress. Because while my dog’s instincts compel her to kill, mine compel me to create.

Who knows but that when the light and the leaves return and the farmers are sowing next year’s crops, I may have a finished novel to shop around?

I hope so.