A walk can change the mood. It can restore, it can reinvigorate. It can add steps to your tally! It can do so much and... it's free!
When it gets really cold, I feel accomplished just running over to the barn and back. But today, on a sunny and warm morning, I follow a farmette circuit that I've grown to really love. We've mowed a path that traces it perfectly. It may not look stunning here, on Ocean, but for me, it's a beautiful way to start the day.
To the pine grove...
Back of the barn...
To the new orchard...
And home again.
Followed by breakfast. On the porch. With some flowers brought in from a closing-up-shop garden. Sweet peas, dahlias.
There was farmette work then: I needed to dig up more hydrangea bushes and Ed had to take down some more branches of that tree slated for a chop down. Hard work!
And then comes the reward of a meetup with Snowdrop.
It's not perfect. Very warm weather brings with it pesky little flies and crazy flights of speckled Japanese beetles. The little girl can't last on that blanket for long. We need a change of pace.
How about a walk?
It's a first for us: a distanced, masked walk. No hand holding, no shoulder to shoulder chats. She wants to walk behind, I stay ahead.
Something can be not perfect (I'd love to reach for her small hand), yet still it can be grand. Snowdrop took this moment to describe to me the mystery story
she is writing in her head. I sang us a song we used to belt out on
school neighborhood walks. And we took pleasure in the colors of Fall.
Afterwards, we were ready for more blanket time. Restored. Reading, drawing. Favorite things become favorite once more.
A walk. Maybe several walks in the course of the day. I so recommend them. Totally.
