When I lived in the city, a walk around the block after dinner on summer nights was the norm. Good for digestion... good for greeting neighbors... good for enjoying gardens. Back then, the walkabout took maybe 10 minutes.
Out here in the country, the "block" is 4 miles around, so it is a real commitment to take a walk around the block after dinner! Since my Mr. Wonderful is out of town this week, I decided it would a perfect time to resurrect the walking tradition.
My block is a mix of wild patches, cultivated fields of corn or soybeans, cow/goat pastures, apple orchards, logging operations, and suburban type large lawns. The evening was PERFECT... sunny, breezy, warm with a cool edge, brilliant blue sky with a few puff-white clouds. The trees and grasses were alive in the winds, dancing...
I started out to the west past my young neighbor who loves to move dirt around. He is a big machine operator who will soon be building his own house. We envy his new pole barn which acts as a wood shop as well as garden and tractor storage. He plans to build all his own cabinets and moldings. Mr. Wonderful is VERY impressed with his woodworking tool collection. My neighbor is impressed with the movable chicken coops Mr. W. created. He has lost numerous chickens to the wilds of nature. We have lost none. A lovely relationship of mutual admiration is growing there.
On past the cow pasture. It is one of the things I love about where I live now. Watching cows and goats grazing is "instant calm". Their owner has rigged up beautiful new fencing and moves them frequently, so the green grasses grow up around their feet...they always seem to be floating, and with the dancing grasses last night, the effect was a magical.
Wild daylilies lined the next section of the walk on both sides. Bright delicate orange stalks swaying, swaying. Suburban type lawns, great BIG lawns, marked the area beyond the flowers on the west (not much of interest there). But, a fallow field lay on the right, and there is always the possibility of a fox or a coyote or a deer to spot there where the fields meet the woods, so my eyes searched the line. No luck tonight.
Every once in a while a car or motorcycle would pass me. In the pleasure of the moment, with each one, my hand raised (hi! isn't this a glorious night we are both enjoying?!). The delight came when the passerby caught my greeting and returned their own (yeah! this is an awesome night we are sharing! hi, right back at you!). Not everyone even noticed me, but my heart took a little leap each time the greeting was exchanged. It was a little bit of peace building right there on the country road... something beyond politics, beyond the many things that could divide us.
It was a surprise that getting a quarter way around the block was good enough for my legs at the end of a long day. If I had kept going I would have been treated to apple orchards with their fruits beginning to form, a suburban mansion with pastures for sheep, two small logging operations, several more BIG lawn type homes, and more wild fields. It is in the wild fields that I find most of my pleasure, watching for birds, listening to the rustling of trees. But last night, I didn't have the time or energy to keep going. I will need to work up to a full walk around the block.
Perhaps tonight, I'll start out going east.
No comments:
Post a Comment