Runs With Wolf

It's been a busy week here in Pure Florida. School began Monday, so I'm back at work, the days are hectic and flow quickly from start to finish ... no dead time in teaching. That is something about teaching that I've liked from the start, over 20 years ago. Swine Flu is spreading through our school like ripples in a pond, so Mrs. FC is incredibly busy since she is in charge of saving the county from epidemics like this one. We had one confirmed case on the first day and each day since has seen more kiddies going home with the symptoms.

It's been a rainy week too, with daily downpours off the Gulf of Florida. Wonderful sheets of rain beginning like clock work at quittin' time. Since I get off work first, (Jr has football practice till 6pm), I am usually the one to dash home and rescue Bear ... and cook supper.
Two chores I love doing, by the way.

Yesterday, I left a little earlier than usual, which means I didn't stay and work a few hours after quitting time. On the way home, in a driving rain, I looped into Devil's Hammock to see if I could grab you guys a photo of some critter moving in the rain.

Turns out it was raining a little too hard for that to happen, but use your imagination and picture a big 6 point buck in velvet bursting out of the willows and running in front of the JEEP for a few seconds before bursting back into the willows.
Yup, I missed that picture.

I didn't stay long, because Bear was home with his legs crossed by now, wondering if he should chew up the couch or wait a few more minutes for his relief to come home.

Arriving at the house in a driving rain, it was clear that I was going to get soaked just walking from JEEP to porch. On top of that, Bear needed his walk, so a good soaking was unavoidable.
For the briefest of moments, I grumbled to myself about this fact, ... poor me. I'm gonna have to stand around in the rain while he sniffs every blade of grass and urinates on 9 out of 10 trees we pass.

By now I was on the porch, dripping wet as I had predicted. As I put the key in the lock, with Bear barking frantically from the other side of the door, I had an epiphany.

Opening the door, I walked past the frantic, barking, leaping Labrador and straight into my room. I shed my clothes, tossing on only a pair of shorts and some old sneakers, and then Mr. Frantic and I went out into the rain.

I was already wet, gonna get wetter, so I might as well enjoy it.

So we ran.
In the rain.
Not just any rain, heavy, tropical, sheets of rain.
We ran off the porch leaping past the steps.
We ran down the driveway ... he only stopped once to pee!
We ran through the woods to the pond, around and around the growing pond, through the water, up the slope and into the woods again.
We ran through spider webs (eeeek!).
Jumped over logs and lept across meteor craters (wink!).
I should have been tired and winded ... was it the rain?
Was I growling? Yes, I think I was, now that I look back on it.
We spooked the cottontail ... and gave chase in the rain.
It ducked into a gopher burrow. Good thing... I think if we had caught it we would have killed and eaten it on the spot.
We were a pack.
Finally he felt nature calling in a different way and stopped to take care of business. (No, I did not)
Standing there, waiting for Bear to finish, I noticed that the rain had weighed down the wild grape vines so that what was usually out of reach was now reachable.
I stuffed whole handfuls of rain washed grapes in my mouth and then we were off again.
Running.
Running with a wolf.
Running like a wolf.
Feeling pretty damn primal.
Today, I'll be in my classroom in professionally nerdy clothes... acting pretty civilized, but yesterday ...

... yesterday I was a wolf in the rain.