“I love the Flying Squirrel Road, just sitting here. Once upon a time the woods were full of flying squirrels and other beings that move through the night. The house is close to the road but hardly any cars go by. I used to worry about the distant relations who lived on the Brow of Mountain Road overlooking the Valley, that they’d come visiting. There was a wicked young cousin who was a danger. I put a hex on this road to keep her away. I’m just pulling your leg. They left a number of years back and moved to Mercy Lake. If it’s some tourist driving by, it just means they lost their way, but if I wave they seem to speed up. Maybe if I put some paint on the house. It peeled off years ago.

One guy who stopped come right up on the verandah when I was inside taking a shit. I could hear someone out there so I finished up my business and come out. Didn’t he go off screaming. ‘I thought this was an abandoned house,’ he yelled as he went running off to his car. I sat in this here big rocker I’m in right now and watched the bastard tear off, dust flying off the dirt road. Then I looked down and saw I had left my gun out. I was just cleaning it. Always like to have it in working order, you know. It’s not always loaded so don’t you worry your pretty head.

“Some folks roam the world in search of wondrous sites, but living here there’s no need. Wonder is all about. Sometimes when it’s this hot I sit out on the verandah all day long and look out across that field to the blue bay. When I was little we still used horses for hay but then we got a few tractors. I still take a ride in the wagon sometimes. The old tractors are rusting in the fields. See them? Back there behind the barn. You’re looking the wrong way. There’s nothing in those old sheds and behind them — it ain’t nothing but woods in the direction where you’re looking. It’s pretty in there, but you have to be careful what time you go in so you don’t get short on light. No one wants to be in the woods when darkness falls.

“So look over at them fields. See the birch trees running alongside? And the line of poplars on the other? Listen to the wind chiming in those leaves. That old strawberry field is fallow now but it used to be one of the best strawberry fields we had. Sweet sun-warmed berries. The old tire swing still works. The tree branch up there went and grew all around the rusty chain it’s hanging from. You can give it a try anytime you want. Sometimes when I’m up in my bed there’s squeaky sounds. Don’t go looking so scared. That’s nothing more than the wind blowing.