My parents’ farm in South Carolina in the spring.

[This post is part of my new Travel Tales series. The format was inspired by the literary travel magazine Off Assignment’s Witching Hour series—” Ambient literary portraits and transportive illustrations pay homage to the singular alchemy between place and time.”]

7:15 a.m. in South Carolina

7:15 a.m. in rural South Carolina is the crunch of dirt beneath my rubber boots and a sympathy of birds welcoming the patches of bright blue sky through the clouds.

My dad marches ahead through the wet grass grasping a leash attached to Otis, a stray mutt who appeared at the backdoor last summer. I follow at his heels while Mo straggles behind as usual—his grey tabby belly swaying side to side. His tail stretches straight up in the air like a flag pole. This one-mile walk around the fence line of my parent’s farm has become a cherished ritual. Every morning and night, dad walks with the animals, and I join on every visit home.

A narrow path, worn by our footsteps, hugs the fence. Dad stops occasionally to inspect a pole or adjust the barbed wire. He and my grandfather built the fence using telephone poles and railroad ties as posts when they bought the farm in 1968, a decade after immigrating from Europe. The fence is one of his biggest sources of pride, and I never tire of hearing the stories about the farm, his childhood and coming to America.

The leaves are the deep green of late summer—a feast for the cows who’ve trimmed every tree to the height of their mouths. Mo stops to sharpen his claws on one of the many tree limbs that litter the ground, residue from a recent storm. Despite weighing nearly 20 pounds, he stays close to us as we pass the cows for protection, shooting suspicious looks at the calves who like to chase him.

The clouds move aside like stage curtains for the sun. Our long shadows span the entire length of the field—my legs appear endless while Mo’s tail towers even further over his body.

A car hums in the distance as we turn the last corner and walk back toward the house. Mo sprints to the front of the group, like a racehorse coming from behind at the finish line, to lead us home.

My dad, Joe Mazurek, and his BFF (best furry friend) Mo. The photo on the right is from when Mo was a baby and dad found him in his shop in town. (He had to bottle feed Mo at first!) The photo on the left is full-grown Mo, who dad still calls his “baby boy” and Otis, Mo’s arch nemesis.