It’s three weeks ago, now, that the surprise summer windstorm had knocked a decaying hemlock tree onto her cabin, breaking off part of the eaves and putting a bough clean through her kitchen window. Removing the dead trunk was trivial enough, as it wasn’t all that thick and she’d been able to chainsaw it into small enough pieces, but repairing the building had proven a matter for which she was insufficiently equipped.
So, she’d called the NPS regional office, and eventually harangued them into sending a subcontractor to fix the roof and replace the window. The weather, at least, was warm enough that the draft didn’t bother her, though rain still got in around the garbage bags that she’d duct-taped over the window frame. She laid down towels to sop up the water and resigned herself to living with half a kitchen for the immediate future.
Presently, she’s supposed to be reviewing a report on glacial recession in the nearby mountain peaks, but knowing she’s finally going to have her counter space back is making it difficult to sit still. She makes a pot of tea, takes the dog out for a dash around the property and a few rounds of tug-of-war, and pours some of her impatient energy into weeding the overgrown flower bed, until Iloren barks once--a deep, carrying alert.
A second later, she hears the sound of gravel under tires from the one-lane service road that winds past her house.
“Settle down, you beast,” she sighs; the big brindled mastiff looks back at her apologetically, with a slow wag of his long tail. “I know, they’re coming to fix the window. Come on.”
She stands up amidst a small mountain of dandelion and bittercress, brushing the soil off of her hands as the vehicle rolls up to the lot. Her forearms are stained here and there with dirt below rolled-up flannel sleeves, but it’s not like she’s going to be serving any Michelin-starred meals, so she wipes them on her jeans and waits.
