old farms inspire new adventures

We expanded our regular route, crossing over a new hill at the bottom of the meadow and along the side of the horse paddock. We walked across the top of tall grass now flattened by a winter of heavy snow, imagining what spring would bring and how difficult it might be to walk the same way in late summer.

We found the back of a lovely farm. Several out buildings supported a large barn grayed with wisdom, like baby ducks surrounding the mama. None had a viable roof. What was left of the roof on a three-walled shed had folded down inside. To trim this scene, remnants of an ancient orchard surrounded the farm. These trees, gnarled, twisted and heavy in the center, grew outward into a lacy halo, strikingly different from the younger, groomed orchard on the next hill.

We climbed this hill and skirted around a sleeping raspberry patch. The intermittent patches of snow revealed the animals traveling a head of us: turkey, deer, and a snowmobile or two (okay so not an animal). A little fatigued by the longer route and the biting wind, we found the dirt road leading round to our neighborhood and headed home.

I'd been begging to go all morning. I literally sat outside on the front step a half hour waiting for my roomies to get coats, scarves, mittens and boots organized. And I couldn't have been more pleased with our afternoon outside. Laden with bits and bobs from the walk--colored granite found on the road, a stick used to draw a pile of sand and the like--my roomies vowed to more adventures afield.