Autumn Farm Walk

Walking up to the field is a sensory banquet. I don't smell the cows, but I am sure you would if you walked along.. It is not an offensive odor, just warm and earthy. I do catch the sweet odor of the sorghum silage, which smells sugary just like fermenting corn. It is a nice scent and comforts me with the knowledge that the men are putting up feed to keep the cows secure through the winter.

A flaming candle of ash

I don't know what possessed me to take a hike up back this afternoon. I had to go to the barn to check on Scooter who is not doing so well again. His extreme prematurity has compromised so many of his systems that if it isn't one thing it is another. Anyhow for some reason I just took off hiking after I looked in on him...maybe the need to get some red and green photos for Sunday Stills...maybe the knowledge that bad weather impends and there may not be many more warm fall days like this one. If you walk the farm roads you can smell poplar trees, a passing skunk, the fruity bouquet of river grapes and the lush green scent of crushed grass as you walk along.

Grasshoppers will rattle against your boots and butterflies, question marks (thanks Dani) sulfurs, cabbage whites and a little blue one I think is a Melissa flutter around your feet. Bees buzz. Dragon flies hum as they hunt. Of course there are always a few overly friendly flies and hungry mosquitoes too.



The grass is such a brilliant green that you would think it was August. However, scarves of yellow river bank grape flung with abandon across leafless trees give lie to that theory, as does the purple-red Virginia creeper festooning the hedgerows everywhere.



I stopped to pish a little brown bird out of the hedgerow between the 30 and 60-acre lots. It came right out to show me its stripey-spotted breast.... a song sparrow. A white-throated sparrow was singing lazily just down the way when I caught a slight movement to my left. There, right next to me, was a cat bird, peering to see what was making that funny noise. Too slow with the camera, but I will cherish the memory of his bright, inquisitive eye and lush grey plumage.




I thought to go up and visit the boss where he was chopping but he had changed fields and I was too lazy to hike the rest of the way up there. Just as well because by the time I got back down the hill he was right behind me. With high wind advisories for tomorrow, I am grateful for this one warm, sweet fall day.



There were tracks everywhere, of deer, raccoons, and possibly the fisher again.

Fisher track? (if its a raccoon it is a HUGE one!)

Deer slots with my boot for comparison