A few hours ago, when I pulled this old reading chair out on to the deck, a family of deer was grazing just down the hill in the donkey pasture. They looked up sharply when I came out, froze for a moment of tense judgement, then turned cautiously back to their dinner. Emboldened by their boldness, I returned with a side table, books and a couple fingers of Balvenie before settling in myself. The deer took this all in stride – couldn’t have cared less.

Presently a long line of turkeys ventured haltingly from the tree line and in to the tall grass, taking care to give the deer a wide berth. Looking up, I watched the few wispy clouds above us transition from white to orange to a vivid fuschia. Trees began to silhouette against a dull powder blue. All was quiet for a while, and then an owl spoke up in the near distance, prompting the male turkey to begin a kind of shouted call-and-response across the field. Country quiet is never all that quiet. Down the hill, where the road flattens out and the swamp bristles with cattails and pine, the peepers began their chorus just as the bullfrogs were stepping off stage. The occasional cars that rumbled by, way down by the old house, began driving by with their headlights on.

Now, after hours of watching, evening has settled in. A couple rounded ice cubes are floating at the bottom of my whiskey glass, and dinner should have started an hour ago. The deer moved on, down the hill and to the west and the turkeys, having ascended to their respective roosts (each with a great percussive explosion of effort) have quieted down for the night. To my right, the glow of a waning moon peeks through the lattice of our old maple and to my left the first few stars of the night are revealing themselves in a pattern that I’m sad to realize that I can’t identify. Down past the peepers, the low puttering of Dave’s tractor finally sputters to a halt, and now I can just make out the echo of a voice I know to be his.

Earlier today, inside and online, I tried to describe this place to Kate. She paused a moment after I’d finished, then said “safety is a word that comes to mind.” It hadn’t come to my mind, or it hadn’t yet, but sitting here, the sun fully down and mom puttering around in the kitchen, I admit she’s on to something. Safety in the familiar. Safety in a landscape shot through with what made you. Safety in a nest of knowing that you belong.