Here and Now

This is the view seen when looking past the computer screen when I'm "working."  It is what I see from the bench on the deck where I read.  Bessie Anne accessorized herself with forsythia blossoms yesterday morning and I tried to get a photo, but she couldn't decide which was her best side and kept turning around until the flowers fell off; opportunity lost.  It won't be long until the forsythia and anemones will be a memory, their place taken by the tulips and ranunculus that are already pushing up.


For the last week, coming back up from the goat pen I've noticed a lone ground squirrel sitting upright and motionless at the edge of the old burn pile (nothing but a mound of ash there now).  Squirrel thinks he is invisible or invincible.  I clank just a few feet past him with the milk buckets and sometimes stop and talk to him.  He sits with head slightly turned (no eye contact) and ignores me.  It is only when Bess says she's had enough of this and makes her move that he drops down into his burrow.  There is evidently no ratter in Bessie's mixed bag of heritage because she takes no further action.  I have seen her predecessor, Dogie, dig a pit so deep only her hind quarters were above ground as she went after a critter.

Taking Bess for walkies last night, the near-full moon was so bright it washed the stars from the sky.  We stood together in the driveway loop and listened to a pair of owls calling on the hill across the road, one tenor, one baritone (or maybe it was soprano and alto or a mix of genders, what do I know?).  It was a chill night and we soon walked back up to the house where I'd had the wood stove lit.

It was a good day.