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Aged Curl
When Jinx and I finally left the house this morning, the rain was draped across the mountains in an undulating line, gray and sweet, the droplets magnifying the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine and violet. I wore hat and boots and coat. Jinx wore his blue collar. We made it to the end of the driveway, and then Jinx saw him. Methuselah has roamed this farm since before we arrived. The first year we were here, I saw him hanging upside-down from one of the bird feeders, trying to gnaw his way through the metal into the sunflower seeds. I lifted my BB gun and popped off a shot in…
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Dogwood Winter
The sunny, balmy weather of the past week has yielded to a cold rain with the threat of some snow mixed in today, and freezing temperatures for the next two nights. This means I will be draping old bedsheets and towels across Mrs. Orr’s flowers in the front garden, and bringing in the basketed ones hanging on the front and back porches. Our dogwoods have finally come into their full strength, which makes this cold snap the Dogwood Winter. The blackberry canes surrounding our farm have started to bud a bit, and the next cold snap should be right about the time they bloom out. That will be Blackberry Winter,…
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Farm Life
For the past week, we’ve enjoyed some of the most glorious weather I can recall. Crisp lows in the 40s at night, yielding to low 70s during the day, as dry as Peter O’Toole’s wit and as gorgeous as a granddaughter’s eyes. We made the most of the weekend. Jinx and I took several walks each day, and he roamed farther and freer that usual, stopping to look back at me just as he would disappear over a ridge or down into a hollow. He wore himself slap-dab out every day and slept like a pharaoh each night Mrs. Orr and I ventured down to a nearby city to visit…
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A Day No Cows Would Suffer
Le On the drive home Friday, I was thinking about how nice it is to be able to leave Jinx in the house while we’re gone, and how pleased we have been that he has never displayed the slightest inclination to destroy anything out of boredom. When I arrived home, I saw him poking his snout through the blinds, waiting for me to let him out. When I approached the door, I noticed something odd about Jinx’s appearance. “Odd,” I thought. “He looks like Stonewall Jackson. I wonder when he grew a beard?” When I opened the door, I got my answer. At some point during the day, Jinx had…
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Land Within Reason
Out here in the country, we don’t have a trash pickup service, so we have to take ours either to the county landfill or to one of the smaller drop-off stations situated in various places around the county. The one we mainly use is a few miles from our house, on a two-lane highway that offers beautiful scenery year-round. Just before the turnoff for the drop-off station sits a small farm. Out in front of the house is a pasture with an old but still serviceable barn. In the pasture is a hay ring, and most times I pass the place, there is an old horse and a goat…
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On The Feast of Stephen
The dogs allowed us to sleep late today –0700 — and after they had eaten and while the good Texas pecan coffee was brewing, I took Jinx for a walk. Not even a hundred yards into the ramble and I was wishing I’d worn sunglasses. The fresh-risen sun was slashing across the diamond-studded smooth white surface laying on the fields, and it hurt my eyes. All about me, though, was beauty of the pure shocking kind that only wintertime can produce. The snow lay all around, deep and crisp and even, and Jinx chased a cow that had somehow escaped her fenced pasture. My heart lifted as the sun lifted,…
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Between Solstice And Celebration
I didn’t plan to stay away from this blog for so long, but life sort of ganged up on me there… We’ve been preparing for the grandkids’ visit. Once again, I am amazed at the number of things that need cleaning, stowing away, and rearranging. And in the midst of all the preparations, we’ve had repairmen and contractors and electricians here to do some much-needed work. For the past few years, my wife and I have been torn about whether to stay here in the mountains or to return to Texas. We’ve back-and-forthed ourselves to the point of exhaustion, covering all the pros and cons, exploring as many options and…
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All Saints Day
“Mom? Why did Jesus have twelve opossums? I mean, what did he do with them?” — Lizzy Beck This morning during my walk with Jinx, I was struck by how absolutely silent the world was. My own steps were the only sound in the pewter air. It was almost easy to believe that last night the air had been full of ghosts and spirits of ill-will, because the early Sunday hours were so clean, so spotless, so purified. Surely all the saints were watching as I crunched gravel beneath my boots and Jinx’s tail cut the air like a buggy whip. Into my mind came the opening line of Poe’s…
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Gate Of Heaven
I worked from home today, an experience which was not as peaceful as I had anticipated. But I enjoyed the solitude very much, and in spite of my many mistakes and blind alleys, I had a productive day. It was also nice to be able to take the dogs outside and stretch my legs whenever I wanted. While wearing a t-shirt and shorts. And snacking on pork skins. In bare feet. With Jackie Gleason playing the background. How many of you know who Jackie Gleason was? Many have watched the old “The Honeymooners” sitcom on television. Some of you likely have seen Gleason’s masterful performance as Minnesota Fats in the…
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Purpose
I have watched, and am become as a sparrow all alone on the housetop. — Psalm 102:7 (Douay-Rheims Version) Last night at twilight, a large woodpecker lighted on the utility pole in the back yard. He made a few desultory taps on the treated wood, then scurried to the top and sat there, looking around, his magnificent head a flash of color in the ebbing light of a day that was on the edge of slipping into the past forever. The bird began to sing, the sound an exotic, quasi-tropical series of notes as staccato as the ones his beak made in the weathered fibers of the pole. Ten to…