Month: July 2022

Midsummer

It’s a beautiful day and about as midsummerish as it can get, so I hopped on the bicycle for a little tour down some country roads. I thought I’d pedal to the river, just beyond the neighbor’s farm.

I’m a retired miner, not a farmer, so I don’t even know what crop this is. Maybe canola? All I know is that these fields are much easier on the eyes now than when they were covered in snow drifts.

At the river, I took a little breather as I had pedaled about 5 miles, and I’m no spring chicken. It’s very beautiful there, and someone had carved out a nice little campsite in the trees.

There aren’t any farms by the woods, so I didn’t know if these guinea hens were wild, or if they just wandered a long way from home. It looks like God spent so much time on those star-spangled feathers, he just squeezed a head on them and left it at that.

As I was getting back on the bike to ride home, I almost stepped on what Emily Dickinson referred to as a “narrow fellow in the grass”. He put a little damper on my midsummer bike ride; I truly do not like snakes!

I stood there awhile, taking it all in: the smells, the sights, and sounds; it was paradise, for sure, but it brought to mind a quote by Iris Watts that summed up the moment:

“The trouble with paradise

Is that there’s always

A snake in the grass.”

–Photos by me

Blue Eyes Update

I’m out here at my friend’s farm today to check up on Lil Blue Eyes, the orphaned fawn. Shes seems to be doing quite well indeed, and it’s sweet, the way she follows Stephanie around like she’s her mom. She gives her little smooches in appreciation, and I can’t help but think of the words Jesus spoke:

“…I was hungry, and you gave me food;

I was thirsty, and you gave me drink;

I was a stranger, and you took me in;

I was sick, and you cared for me…”

I must admit that those words seem so far away from our nation’s current direction. They’re fading away, becoming abstract, unreal. But at least, here, right now, they’re real.

–Photo by me

On the Road Again

We may never know why the chicken crossed the road, but here’s a few possible motives for some other animals:

The bear barrels across it to find better berries.

The deer flies across the road to escape the deer flies.

The snake slithers across the road to shed its skin.

The hare hops across the road to habitate more holes.

Though they each cross the road for different reasons and with different modes of locomotion, they all have one common goal in mind: to get to the other side without encountering man. Could that go for chickens, too?

–Photos by aaron and me