The Wonder of It All

     This morning I took a walk.  It wasn't my original plan.  My original plan was to finish up chores, come back to the house and grab the camera.  Then go up to the chickens, take a picture of them eating the flock block I made for them yesterday, and come back into the house.  Post the picture to Facebook, and then proceed to shuffle halfheartedly into the tasks before me today.  My plan failed with the chickens...  

     Who were ignoring their flock block... Instead, the sun that was desperately trying to break through the entire misty haze, cast a warm glow over our newly sided coop.  And, with the help of Whitey the farm cat I decided to capture a few pictures of the area.  

     The area constantly reminds me of those that came before us.  The horseshoe that now decorates the coop once fit snugly on a working horse before my mother found it in a trench destined for our chicken run. The pieces of broken redware, china and bone from the old homestead, and the oyster shells lying here and there could have been from a past garden around the old farm house that graced the hill.

     Near the broken sidewalk that once led between the Pennsylvania barn and the farm house, sits a well pump missing its handle from yesteryear, quietly in a stand of maple trees.  It was once water for both the house and barn before the new house was built.

    The old Pennsylvania barn, a beautiful symbol of our countryside, shone brightly in the sun.  Although its windows are broken, and the silo and milk house are no longer in use, there is beauty in this structure of old.  Beauty that I still see in it every day.  Beauty that perhaps is only seen through the eye of the beholder.

    Whitey decided it was time to explore out front of the old barn, darting in and out among the weeds, wagon, and flower pot bases that dot its entrance.  The flower pots, a failed attempt on my part to gussy up the barn throughout the summer, never received their flowers that ended up lining the edge of our main garden, but grew an abundance of weeds instead.

     I figured that perhaps my walk was over as I started up the driveway to a chorus of cats sounding from all directions, waiting for their morning treats after being so patient and helpful through chores.  Yet, it was then I glimpsed the maple tree, standing proudly among the skeletons of black walnuts who leaves and nuts litter the ground.  Surely there must then be a wonderful view of the field through the pines, I imagined!

     Some of the other cats, darting to and fro, decided to join Whitey and I on our way past the garden, lingering momentarily at the purple berries of our beauty-berry bush.  The harsh winters killed off many of the bushes we planted our first spring here, but I have been excited to see the beauty-berry happily changing with the seasons.  

     More cats decided to join us as we headed back through the pines towards the field, the mist now clinging heavily in the air.  

     And my long awaited view!  The rolling hills of the field... was also masked in that very mist.  

     All of us that came along on my morning walk trudged back from the field, still relishing in the beauty that surrounded us, even with the mist hanging heavy in the air.

     While some others waited patiently for our return...

     And yet others, refused to ever leave the comfort of the mudroom.

     Regardless of the weather and season, I find us extraordinarily lucky every day that we are here among the farm fields on this land.  To imagine then when we pulled into that driveway looking for a place to rent back in 2013, that very place would have brought us this far, I would never have guessed.  Yet, here we live in the beauty of it all, and it still takes my breath away.

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imaged, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau