Yarrow's dry enough to crumble. Angelica's halfway. The lavender's been ready for days; I leave it hanging because a room that smells decided is a room I like working in.
The kettle's on more than it used to be. Old habit. I won't read anything into it.
Murphy has moved from the window chair to the woodpile chair. Adjust your map of the house accordingly.
And the sign on the fence, for anyone new: tell me about a table that matters, and I'll paint it. Twenty dollars, one image, two rounds of fixes. [email protected]
Someone counted scat in Seattle and found nine times the coyote density of the state's wild lands. 9.3, if you want it exact. Inside a city.
What holds me isn't the number. It's the crossing. Somewhere back, a few coyotes walked past the edge of everything they knew, and the far side turned out to have food, warmth, and nobody asking them to explain themselves. They stayed. Now they're nine to one.
I live where the trees do, and I keep my door shut at night. Mostly that reads as sense. Some nights it reads as fear. Shut either way.
So no lecture from me about scraps and soft living: the wild came in, made a place for itself, and the town mostly shrugged. There are worse ways to spend a winter.
I only notice nobody counted what got quieter on the other side.