Speaking of yard work, we tackled a carragana bush one afternoon this week. It was oriented outside our living room windows, in the middle of the yard. The tree and bush plantings of the previous owners have been a little baffling to us and we've been happily anticipating some reworking. We won the battle, chipping away at shoots and roots with hoe and shovel and pitchfork. Our tools took a heavy toll - we snapped a shovel handle and broke a pitchfork tine, and hurt a back and both of us went away rather sore from it. But the ground is level and the rocks removed and the view much better.
Quite by accident we've also been rediscovering the joys of exploring, taking alternate routes home and stopping at broken old buildings (no shortage of those around here) and pretty spots. The fields have all changed their tones - everything is dryer; the bright yellows are gone in favour of paler, grassier hues. The farmers have started their harvesting and taking the wrong road can mean parking at the edge of a field to let a parade of combines and trucks go by. We stopped one evening to explore what we thought was an empty old house. The lighting was perfect and I was kicking myself for not having my good camera. The house looked pretty structurally sound although the back room was falling apart both from below and above. There was an old stove in what was the kitchen and some funny flooring designed to look like a rug in one of the other rooms. Every room was a different colour, and every window was at least partially broken. We were surprised to discover a stairway upstairs since the place didn't look big enough to have a second story. We went to explore but were quickly and effectively chased into retreat by a hissing animal, which in retrospect we suspect was a raccoon. Someday our curiosity may get the best of us and we may go back and check. The barn was also in a lovely state of decay, full of equipment and machinery and peek holes to spy on them.
That's not the only wildlife we've run across these days. Drives home in the soft light of evening have found us discovering a moose browsing through some treed-in marsh, and some elk standing half hidden in a field of green. One evening on the acreage Jeff pulled me outside and we stood in awe as an owl silently glided around us, alternately stopping high on a branch and then taking a wide arch. We had been talking about wanting owls around for a while, not just because we want to encourage all creatures who eat mice to come for long visits, but because they are also magnificent. It's these moments of awe-filled discovery that make living out here really rewarding and beautiful.
These days the kinds of birds that we see around here have shifted. we still have the swallows, but it's generally quieter, and we see (or hear) birds I expect are just passing through on their way south, like the geese every morning now consistently squawking by in their telltale V's. There's starting to be leaves on the ground, and today I found a tree that's not just a tinge lighter but fully yellow. You can feel the season begin to change, and the shift of fall coming.
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