The view on Sunday

This morning I gathered a camp chair, my journal, too much tea (considering the lack of a port-a-pot) and my cell phone camera and headed to the property for a long sit, look and listen.

I found a house stake to sit by. I didn't realize these had been placed, since we don't yet have house plans and haven't bought the property. During this time of unsettledness, I had a sense of place.




The prairie grass (?) rippled in the breeze, like someone had sliced open a down pillow and shaken it on the plants.








This panorama extends from the southeast corner of the house to the double oak, west of the house. The view from every window will be breath taking.

 

The double oak in October

I stacked this cairn weeks ago. Something has disturbed it, a reminder that while we might live on this land, we won't tame it. And don't want to.

 I walked back along the path Dennis had chopped from Herman Street and imagined children playing hide and seek. The leaves are changing and not many flowers are blooming, but I found color close to the ground.  

Can anyone tell if this is milkweed?

  

The soil is definitely sandy.

At the north border of the property, larger trees have been cut.



Requisite sun through the trees photo

Finally I settled enough that I didn't feel the need to record the world through photos. A damselfly landed on my thigh and basked in the sun's warmth. A (garter? ribbon? black with yellow stripes) snake slithered under my chair, intent on its errand. A yellow moth danced by. Insect chirping was a constant background to the trains, breezes, birds, dogs, people talking on the Pumpkin Vine, a rooster crowing (WHAT? Inside city limits?) and a factory phone ringing.

Settling more deeply, I concentrated on the grass undulating around me. Dozens of plants, hundreds of plants, thousands of plants, not one of them demanding to be different from the next, none pouting because it wasn't a tall significant tree., just bending, swaying in the breeze, alive to their surroundings. ahhhh