Heartwarming Nature Crap*

Well, I got through the second day of my new job without breaking any plates.

Everybody's been really nice, really welcoming. But I'm tired from the move, so I knocked off a little after four today, went to the bank, and stopped off to explore an abandoned horse farm just down the road from the office.

It's about 85 acres, and For Sale. Which, presumably, means it will be developed ruined before too much longer. I didn't want to miss a chance to photograph it before it's gone forever. I figured it would be good for an old barn or two, but the barn is gone. There's nothing left but quiet. It's weird: You can see cars on the roads, but you can't hear them. There's nothing here but trees, birds, grasses blowing softly in the wind, and blessed quiet.


It was too early in the evening for the light to be good, and so all my highlights are blown. And for some reason--I guess my eye is as blurred as my brain, today--I couldn't get anything in focus.

After the driveway ends where I guess the house used to be, there's a faint track you can follow (provided you have four-wheel drive: Gawd, I love my little truck!) around the pastures. I saw a big, black snake, have no idea what kind, Mourning Dove, Northern Mockingbirds, White-breasted Nuthatches, an Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jays, Northern Cardinals, and wildflowers. None of the birds would stand still long enough for a photograph; but on the whole, the flowers were pretty cooperative.




And this bug. Ain't he a handsome divil? He kept waggling his antennae at me. I thought maybe he was flirting until he flew over to the next thistle and started up with another bug.


I was on my way out when I found the chair. It was the only human thing left out here. There was not even a stick of lumber left of the house or barns, then this chair.

I could not help but wonder what the person who left it there was watching. Or thinking about. There's a whole story in that, I'm sure. But I'm too tired to write it right now.

*with a tip o' the hat to Twisty Faster, late of this planet.