The steady breeze is causing the trees to sway. It murmurs and whispers continuously through leaves and needles. When it freshens to a particularly strong gust, leaves are released in tumbling torrents. They catch the sun and flicker like oversized sparkling glitter. It is so lovely that for a moment I imagine that I am in a giant "snow globe." It is so picturesque that I think briefly of a sickeningly sweet, bucolic, mass marketed Thomas Kinkade painting. This is more perfect, more idyllic, more real.
But this is no silent still life frozen in time behind walls of containing crystal. A pileated woodpecker is calling intermittently. The distant rooster is screeching his muted warnings to the world. The crows that continually haunt the homestead are crying raucously. Blue Jays are screaming in the distance. A plane is humming overhead. And my children's varied voices are blending into this calming cacophony.

Now the leaves of maples along the fencerow are intensely illuminated like new stained glass by the last reach of the lowering sun. And I sigh as I hear my husband's truck roar up the gravel lane. Soon it comes into sight, trailing eddies of fallen leaves and billows of gravel dust.
Perhaps I am imagining snow globes and paintings because these moments are so few, these moments when I can sit and be and think and absorb, when my children are busy and satisfied, when the world is beautiful and observable. I could use a pause button of sorts. I could bottle this up to release on those difficult, dark days. But then maybe I'd just have an insipid instant to see instead of this serene scene which I savor.
What a beautiful afternoon. I
ReplyDeletewish I could have been there. Thanks for allowing me in. Dad
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWill you please post a link to your Blog at The Hobby Farming Community? Our members will love it.
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Thanks for your encouragement. I'm afraid that I'm not interested in registering with your community in order to promote my blog. I have no objections to your posting links to my blog at any time, however. Perhaps your members might enjoy an informative post of mine about hay making and lore: http://livingwaterhobbyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/05/hay-101.html
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