Nothing Quite as Nice as an Evening in the Country

While I always enjoy Slim Randles’ humor, there’s something special about his essays, in which he takes reflective look at live in a poetic way. This one about country evenings is a keeper. Enjoy…

But first a treat. I don’t think it’s too soon for testing the pumpkin pies many of us will be serving in a few weeks. Gotta make sure they’re good enough, right? I’m having mine with a cup of coffee, but you can have yours with whatever beverage you might like. Help yourself, I have plenty.

Now here’s Slim’s essay.

There’s something to be said for the brightness of day, of course, when the energies of the world improve our lot in life. But for a special time, give me the night. Give me the soft, velvety quiet of a country evening and its own sounds and flavors and scents.

It’s good to hear the night shift take over the part of our world we call home. The coyote yaps off in the brush, calling his family to the hunt, the quail have a soft cluck and rustle down by the creek. The crickets set up the background music for all this in a spooky kind of harmony.

It’s a resting time for most, but for those who will postpone sleep, there is the secret of another world, where we slow down a little and take a bit more time with our lives. This is a time when we can hear the world heal a little before it goes back into daily battle again. A time when we can smile and sit and just say thanks for bringing us to another evening like this. If we like, we can do a little mental planning for the next day. Or not.

A country evening is what we get for being good all day.

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Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at his Goodreads Page and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.

All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I’m always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.

Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy, dog musher, and an all-around good guy. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books and the host of two podcasts and a television program.