Life o' Reilly, Yessir

The tractor across the road flushed out a moose back near our driveway when I was out walking. 

Ever since the first time that happened I turn quite a few circles while walking, so as not to miss anything.

I also turn because there is a long way to see, and lots of it, and it's a feast for the eyes. I practically fall on my knees at the everyday splendor of the land, trees, sky, water, birds. Top that with the sweet scent in the air (wolf willows in bloom?) and I can't imagine a better heaven. My contented sighs are deep and frequent.

Last year's stubble: crooked stripes.

It's almost hard to believe these photos were all taken on the same walk yesterday, but that's how it was: I started off with a scarf around my pencil neck, and a bunnyhug with the hood up, under a squall jacket with its hood also up. By the time I got home it was so hot and sunny on the step that I couldn't get those clothes off fast enough.

I walk to the ravine most days. It hosts blue herons, canvasbacks, northern shovellers, mallards, goldeneyes, blue-winged teal, mudhens, Canada geese, and the odd grebe; this spring there was a pair of cormorants. And there are always muskrats and, they say, beavers, though I've never seen one here.