Friday, September 18, 2015

Friday

There is a bit of a rush to this day, in part because I want a weekend with no rush at all.

Still, as I walk to let the cheepers out, I think -- the farmette never allows for complete madness. No matter what the day holds, there are always moments of calm and serenity.

This morning, the tranquility is in the landscape. Beyond the fields cultivated by truck farmers, we have the usual corn and soy. Whatever negative feelings I may have about monolithic crop production, on the upside, I surely have to acknowledge that soy in early autumn is quite beautiful.


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Equally beautiful is the wetness in the fields around me. I go out to pick the last of the goldenrod for the kitchen table and I find the wild asparagus that grows in our "prairie" to be absolutely stunning after yesterday's rains.


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The storms last night were terrifically strong. I smile now at how unruffled I am by them, so long as I am indoors. Not even a dozen years ago, I'd be the first to hide under the pillow when the crashing reached the highest crescendo. These days, it all seems so tame. When you've been on a mountaintop at a time of great lightening, or in a forest, or on a lake (and Ed and I have been caught by storms in all those places), any indoor shelter seems so terribly luxurious. And so it stormed last night. Yawn.


Two more photos of calm: a lingering day lily...


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And then, of course, breakfast (the pic today highlights Ed's masterful steps; as I bragged earlier, they were made of accumulated plywood scraps and the odd brick found at the farmette.)


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But if this morning should have been cooler, gentler, more autumnal after all that rain -- well, that didn't happen. By the time I came back from weekly grocery shopping, I found the air to be humid and too warm, with a perceptible threat of more storms ahead of us.

Never mind -- my afternoon and evening are with Snowdrop. Not on a mountaintop, not on a lake, but first in her home...


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... and then later at the farmhouse.


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The little girl and I spend a wonderful spell of time in the young orchard, just by the willow tree.


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And the cheepers follow us and she is just in love with these two hens.



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It is a wonderful moment.


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I'll end with this photo of the girls -- one waving, the other two hovering. That's our farmette life right now: tall grasses, roaming hens, spent goldenrod, the coming of fall. And Snowdrop, taking it all in.


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