Betwixt

Some of our big trees for Merri. On the right a Colorado Blue Spruce
On the left the Honey Locust The tower on the house is seventy some feet high....

It's not hard to get out and about before the sun comes up these days...in fact it is harder to wait for sunrise to walk the busy doggies. It comes up so darned late and so far to the south now.

Honey Locust. Lots of pods this fall

This morning, although a few crickets buzzed and whined of winter soon to come, no birds were awake yet, not even the crows or robins. (It is odd this warm, weird autumn, to stand in thickly humid weather and hear White-throated Sparrows whistling up Old Sam Peabody out in the bushes.)

As I put Finn on his short term tie...he barks if I leave him in the house while I take Mack out to his.....I heard, down in the neighbor's brushy jungle, a coyote pup singing a short and thready song. Hmmm....might be a good idea to leave the yard lights on this morning. Mack needs time to run on the cable or he goes all Jack Russell terrier in the house, which is never a good thing. I just as soon he didn't turn up on their menu though.

I heard more howls from the east faint but not far, while the roosters began to crow in the old heifer barn to the west.The guinea fowl were calling buckwheat long before the sun came up. I stood a long time under the Winesap apple tree, just listening to what was happening so early in the morning.

It was as wild and countrified a wake up as anyone might desire.

And yet.....to the east where the coyote pups were trying out for chorus, some implement of man's work was beeping a warning as it backed up to something somewhere.

I had to listen hard and sharp to even hear those coyotes calling....trucks grumbled one behind the other up and down the Thruway. Trains squalled warnings at every crossing to the north of us and there are very many trains. Only to the south was it quiet. Only there did the sound of commerce going at it hammer and tongs not quite drown out the dawn.

We are so betwixt here in the valley....surrounded by all things natural and comforting...besieged by all things metal and mercenary...and needing both to survive the days.

I would shrivel away to nothing without the wild and the gardens and creatures.

And I would get awful hungry without food, and cold without clothing, and tired of not traveling without fuel, and really, really miss all the other goods and services carried by the trains and cars and trucks that roll past in an unending river of stuff.

Guess we are required to have it both ways in the modern world.....oh, well, we need never get bored, that's for sure