Fencing in the Rain

Drowned turkey feather, empty acorn cup. Last dandelion, crushed by passing hooves. Ten dozen hungry robins flying by from Canada, females pale as Creamsicles. Their calls ring oddly across the rolling grass, just a tad different from our New York version....enough to sound like non-robins though.

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.