All walks begin at home. Here he is heading out on the 1.95-mile walk, carrying his water bottle and the little thingy he listens to music on. I will soon leap in the car in the background and drive to the half-way point. 
The driveway has certain distractions. One never knows what one might see. A turtle. A rabbit. A snake. A couple of days ago we saw two fawns that still had their spots. 
Stopping a minute to smell the flowers.... 
Ummmm... perhaps just looking is a better idea. These are a magnet for bees and butterflies.
This is the channel where the wet weather spring flows when it rains. After a hard rain it will overflow the driveway and create a river...
...that flows down the driveway and around the corner. And since water doesn't normally flow up hill, it cuts across the driveway, here to left, and then joins the other watersheds from this area that are part of the Eleven Point River system. A lot of water flows across our land after a hard rain.
And at the side of the driveway is a wild plum tree. This is the first time I have ever noticed fruit on it. I guess the seed got washed here once upon a time during a flood, and it took root.
One heads on up the driveway in the cool shade toward the road...
and then emerges onto the harsh reality of Willow Road. This is the street where we live. We are the only house on the street. The green lawn on the right belongs to the church. One of the town water towers, which is a beautiful shade of teal or maybe cerulean, looms in the distance. Something of a landmark when we give directions. 
Richard walks the line. Our nearest neighbor used to be an old couple with a small farm. Where he is walking was probably their living room. Now, aside from the church, only other address on the road belongs to a tire shop at the corner with Highway 76.
And here is a perfect circle of green stuff in the road. Immediately after this road was completed, somebody came along and took core samples in various spots. Most of the round holes were patched, but not this one. It gradually filled with silt, and stuff started growing. It never gets very high, I guess because it gets run over periodically, but it flourishes nevertheless. It reminds me in a strange sort of way of a Chia Pet.
The journey continues across Highway 76 onto Bolerjack Road, where it passes a small farm that sits down in a hollow. 
The man who owns it is the minister of the Church of Christ. He donated part of his land to build a new church, which was completed a couple of years ago. Here we make a right turn and walk the driveway of the church, which passes his pasture and makes a loop through the parking lot. We like walking by this place, because they have things to see. He is a horse trader, so a variety of horses, mules, and donkeys come and go. 
He also has a few cattle. Some cows, a bull, a steer. 
And calves. I thought I was taking a picture of this calf, but instead I flicked the wrong switch on the camera and I took a video instead. (click on the link if you really want to see the baby cow but the embedded video doesn't appear in your browser). What I did not take a picture of is what we thought was a dead calf. It was on the ground. It did not look like it was breathing. It was not moving or twitching. We stood and watched it for a while. We were sure it was dead.
Which brings me to this sorry excuse for a picture (I am still trying to figure out how to use the camera). This will probably be the last picture of Richard that appears here for a while. He does not like to have his picture taken. Not at all. And he has been a good sport about it, but yesterday when I wanted to take yet another picture of him doing something, he told me, “You have enough pictures of me on your blog.” A wise woman knows when to back off. He thought it might be a good idea to walk down to the farmer’s house to tell them about the calf. The blurry dog next to him is Molly. When we walk by the house, she often will come charging up the hill, barking ferociously. And it does give one pause for thought when a ferociously barking German shepherd comes running up a hill as one passes by. However, I have seen enough of Dog Whisperer to know that she really doesn’t mean it, and indeed, she is a pussy cat. At any rate, the calf was not dead. It was just asleep.
1 comment:
I could walk along with you and just smell the grass and the flowers and the wild plum. When you reached the horses and calves I could hear them neighing and chewing!! In my imagination!
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