My Experience in the Wilderness

Today I was bored and home alone so I decided to exercise (yeah I know. Me, exercise. Ha ha) by going for a walk with Scottie. Scottie had been sleeping pretty much all day but was overexcited at the prospect of going for a walk with his master (ie, me). It really amazed me how excited he was. I mean, he's lived here for six years, and yet the prospect of going for a walk in his own backyard is cause for jubilation. He became so jubilant, in fact, that he had to empty his bodily wastes. The funny part was, he didn't want to miss anything, so he kind of crapped on the go. Like, he was actually in transit while going number 2. It was hilarious to watch. So we walked on this path that goes through this weird forest where we had a fire when I was about ten. And just let me say, if anyone was thinking about filming a movie involving an evil forest, that would be the perfect location. It is the freakiest forest ever. The trees have no leaves because of the fire and they're all gnarled. And it is dead quiet. No sound whatsoever, except for the BLACK FLIES but that comes later.
The grass has really grown up since we got rid of the goats. As we were walking I spotted a mother pile of goat crap, which made me nostalgic and slightly sad. For the first time since we got rid of them in the fall I miss them. Actually, now I want a llama, one like Louis that I can throw plums at (long story. Not really, but its probably only funny to me and Katherine. And Katherine, if you're reading this, I just thought about when you tried to ride a pig and it went nuts and it was sooooooo funny) So ANYWAY, back to my story. Lucy had followed us from the house, which was really weird because usually she just sleeps on the steps. We kept walking, and then stopped at a clearing with a lot of dead logs. The cat promptly started napping on one, and Scottie started rolling around in the dirt. I sat down for a while, and then decided to go to this patch of forest in the middle of the field to see if I could see any deer. That's when the black flies attacked. They were so bad I just decided to head back, when I caught movement of some kind of animal in my peripheral vision. I thought, "oh dear Jesus, a coyote!" but it was only Dallas, lumbering toward us, reproachful that she had been left out of the fun. Actually, she was probably only lumbering because it was so hot and she has lots of fur. So just when she came I decided to go back. I put my hood up and tightened it to protect my neck from flies and mosquitoes. We started walking, and then I got scared that I was on the wrong path. Yes I know, I got lost in my own yard. But I had never been there before, and the trees were confusing. But then I saw the dump, and it seems I was not, in fact, lost, but just had a very bad short term memory. And throughout the whole coyote scare and subsequent fear of getting lost scare, Scottie was just prancing around happily, collecting burrs (guess who's going to be picking them out tonight?)
Then I got back on track and started walking back with renewed confidence, Scottie prancing ahead and sniffing in random holes, Dallas shuffling in one gear behind me, getting steadily more behind, and Lucy still napping on a log (she never caught up, so I don't know what she's doing now. I had called her but she was sleeping. More likely she was deliberately defying me in that way that cats do.)
When I got back I discovered dad had gotten home in my absence. And also that he thought I had gotten kidnapped by convicted and recently jailed pedophile Peter Joseph Whitmore (Joseph Peter Whitmore?) and had phoned a bunch of people, worried about my safety. Baba had driven out to find out what was happening. The admonished me for not writing a note saying that I was going for a walk in the yard. Sound odd to anyone else?
I had been gone for a total of half an hour.