“Are you faffing about again?” my British friend, Ana asked, as she came towards my car.

“Why, yes I am,” remembering the term she applied to me last year. I had totally forgotten the phrase, but am still an expert faffer!? (My word)

We hadn’t seen each other since last summer, when we developed a hiking habit. Her place is about 20 minutes from my cabin and she has dogs. We’d meet at the Sam Campbell Trail and walk them to “V” lake and back. This little ritual required her to bring the dogs, collars, leashes and her phone. My ritual, apparently, was more meandering.

I am usually up by 6:00 a.m. for the 9:00 a.m. rendezvous. This three-hour window might include a weather change spanning two seasons. I replace my pajamas with a long-sleeved shirt and pants, maybe to protect from mosquitoes as much as cold. I am hungry first thing, so I head to the kitchen, noticing that my phone isn’t plugged in, so I put it on the charger. Good. No messages, but I begin to scroll through the news. Then, maybe a Facebook joke or a photo from five years ago comes to the screen. I sit… a minute.

Yikes, that minute expanded exponentially. I continue to the refrigerator and scrounge out the milk, the egg carton and loaf of bread. I click on the radio next to the water pail. I notice it’s nearly empty. This vintage cabin has no plumbing. I did say: Water pail. I pour the remainder into the big kettle. I’d turn on the gas burner, but if I go outside to the pump, I might forget and burn the cabin down, so I “fetch” the water first.

A red-wing blackbird is at the feeder. As I pump, he is joined by a red-breasted grossbeak, then a chickadee. A hummingbird zooms past. I can’t eat if they don’t have food, I reason. I pump a dipper full of water to put in the hummer’s ant trap, take the pail into the porch and grab the coffee can full of seeds, fill the feeder and survey the flock. Now, I can go back to my breakfast!