As I was sitting on the back porch this afternoon, reading Anne of Avonlea in an edition with such tiny print that I had to look up often and force my eyes to refocus, I saw the ground moving about three feet in front of me. It wasn't more than a twitch, but I grabbed my shovel and hovered.

Realistically, I don't think I would have had the nerve to brain the little sucker. But I'm more than a bit frustrated, since every time I flood him out of one hole he digs up through another one that's even closer to the house. It's not as if we're talking about a fairway-smooth lawn here, though. It's all wild grasses and weeds and dead cuttings of same.

What? Oh, a gopher. I thought you knew.

After it became clear to me that he wasn't going to pop up and say "hit me," I drew the weeds apart in that spot and shoved the hose down the hole. It won't work, but it makes me feel better than doing nothing.

Besides, every night lately, I've been hearing something thump against the side of the house. Just once, and then I turn on the porch light and peer through the blinds and see nothing. But I'm sure it's the gopher, taunting me. At those moments, I think maybe I could bring the shovel down on his furry little head.

Right now, I'm in the place where I want to be. I can't imagine voluntarily leaving this house. It has the two things I was looking for when I moved (twice) last year — isolation and tranquility. Plus, it has something I never knew I wanted but would now not care to live without — a sense of being part of the natural world.

I can think of a couple of ways I might be forced to move, though. If I lost my job for some reason, I have no confidence that I'd find another that would let me stay. My age is one factor against me, and the fact that I'm a terrible interviewee is another. I'm not prepared for this to happen, because I don't want to think about it.

My age itself is another reason I might not be able to stay here. I don't know how long I'll be able to run up and down the stairs. More to the point, there's a lot of acreage here that I can't even take care of now. What will I be able to do in ten... fifteen... twenty years?

Yes, I know I'm borrowing trouble. That's how my mind works. The direst possibilities are always the first to come to mind. It takes a determined effort to stop and enjoy what I have now. It's even harder to look into the future with rosy confidence.