A mockingbird on top of the hill has no time for them and chivvies them mercilessly to and fro, proud of himself and telling us all about it. Cheek! Chinnnkk! His efforts are plumb futile; as one flock moves on to the neighbor's woods, another flows in from the old pasture lot behind him. There are hundreds of them and only one of him.
A flicker flicks from tree to tree, ruby rose hips hang, all crystal shiny, each with its own rain drop. (Love/hate going on with those darned multiflora roses. In June the whole valley smells like a shady lady's boudoir when they come in bloom. The rest of the year they drag down fences, tangle unwary feet and take over pastures like they owned them. I'll bet we cut a thousand of them today and there are a thousand more waiting for tomorrow.)
The rain was soft; the grass made me think of movies I have seen that featured Ireland...what was that four-hour-long job from years ago? Oh, yeah, Barry Lyndon. Saw that in a theater in 1975 and never forgot the lush, green, green, green of Ireland. The movie was kind of boring, but I just watched the sets and sighed at the beauty....That is how the fields looked today. The clouds were high, despite the rain, so you could see the mists rising from mountains that are usually hidden by them.
Asparagus berry, filling in for a rose hip...didn't take the camera out in all that rain
We spent several hours out there fixing up what the deer had done, cutting roses and raspberries and getting way past wet.
I was glad I went though.
There was a lot to see and hear and so much going on out back behind the hill.
Ran out of day before we ran out of fence though so the cows will have to stay in tonight.
They won't mind.
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10 comments:
Sounds so beautiful, even with the rain comin' down.
Great words and photos.
It finally rained here after a totally dry october.
Poetry in your writing, music in your photograghs...lovely.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
What Linda said!! Great writing and the pic's that go with it are awe inspiring.
You have such a way with words! You can come up with things like I never could!
Very vivid description, and that asparagus berry: exquisite!
Thanks, Dani, it was very pretty for such a dark day. The robins were all gone yesterday when we finished up...probably heading down to visit you
FC, thanks, glad you got some rain. You can have all of ours for five or six weeks or so. The mud is insane!
Linda, thanks so much
Linda P, thank you very much.
Lisa, thanks...hope you guys have a great weekend
WW, thanks! It hangs right outside the back door on a volunteer asparagus that my late mother-in-law nurtured. It is always handy when I need a rain shot and don't want to get the camera wet. lol
Gorgeous writing,TC.
Particularly that passage about the multifora rose.
" ...a shady lady's boudoir..."
The way you transition from powerful description to wry humorous observation . . .
Such a pleasure to meander with your words as they gather up the landscape of seasons, your farm and your heart.
(BTW - I'm just sitting a few miles from Malabar farm where Louis Bromfield made his huge push for the mulitflora rose. The farmers still haven't forgiven him:0)
Cathy, THANK YOU! I was trying all week to remember his name! I want to write a column...another column that is, as I wrote a bit about it this week...about the folly of introducing stuff like that. If I had remembered his name his ears would have been ringing, albeit posthumously, all week as we chopped, and chopped, and chopped. I had been wondering where my biceps had gone...well I found them. And thanks for your kind words. The job was made a pleasure in some aspects by thinking of how I would write it while I did it. lol
Your welcome, TC! Glad to be able to help fill in the blanks :0)
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