A Country Day Walk
My boss is away for the weekend which leaves me in charge of all the phone calls and emails. I do tend to have what is a borderline phobia of telephones (if anyone happens to know if they have for name this, let me know); there is just something that makes me very, very nervous when I’m talking on them. Talking on them for too long actually stresses me out; it fries my nerves and leaves me exhausted, probably from having to work up the huge amount of energy it takes for me to make a call. On top of that, I have several craft orders for this coming weekend. As Sunday and Thursday are my only days off from work or market, I generally try to do most of my craft order work on those to two days. To put it simply, the phones were draining all my energy and I had a lot of work to do today, and only a short time to do it, and I was also sleep deprived from the market yesterday. Put it all together and it’s the perfect lethal headache combination.
Feeling a headache coming on, I knew I had to take a break no matter what was on my to-do list, so I grabbed my apple basket and set out across the field for Gramma’s house (she lives on the farm next door to ourselves). It’s always very quiet there, especially when it’s calm and sunny as it was today, and it’s a great way to relax my aching head. Gramma has one of the best apple trees around (actually she used to have the absolute best, but the rabbits killed the tree a few years ago, much to my dismay) and they are perfect size for feeding our cows medicine so I headed for the tree to gather some “cow apples.”
On my way, I passed by the grapes and sampled a few. Still a bit tart, but just beginning to hint at the sweet Concord goodness yet to come. About another week and they will be ready. I also passed by the best pear tree in the county (Gramma ended up with all the best fruit trees), which unfortunately has not been producing any fruit this year. But low and behold as I walked beneath the revered tree, there on one of the lowest branches was a single, juicy ripe, still firm pear, just starting to show pink on one side. It was perfect, so I took the pear picker (a long stick with a basket on it) and plucked it from the tree. My mouth watered just at the sight of it, but rather than eat it, I stuck it in my basket to save as a present for my brother, knowing that as much as I like pears, he likes them even more. Then I continued on to the apple tree.
After filling my basket and my belly with the little red beauties, I decided to take the long way home to ensure that my head received ample rest. Instead of going back down the driveway, I cut across the yard strolling beneath the English walnut trees that the squirrels have already fully ravaged in preparation for winter. I walked past the old well where the garter snakes lay absorbing the sun. I gently tiptoed through the pines by the second grape patch whose wine-making fruits were still green. And I crossed the second driveway to the grove by the pond where the corkscrew willow stood with all its gnarly branches.
A bit further in the woods, I found leaning against a tree, a pile of sticks that Poppy (my grandfather) had stored there at some point, for reasons unknown. Most of them seemed to be swirly branches that had fallen from the corkscrew willow at some point. I gathered an appropriately sized one to use as walking stick and made my way to the pond.
The bullfrogs all dove into the water as I wound around the pond, looking like dominoes as they successively jumped away one by one. From the dock I stared across the water watching the dragonflies dart in and out of the cattails and the damselflies, their thin blue bodies looking like magic wands, hovering over the smooth glass-like surface of the pond. It was so serene I almost felt as though I could walk on water, though I decided against testing the theory due to my reluctance to get wet in the likelyhood of failure.
I sat at the edge of the dock, dipping my toes in the water and suddenly a dragonfly landed on the boards beside me in what was a candidly magically moment. I love dragonflies, so I always get a thrill when they fly anywhere near me. After a moment, it ascended in the air, and I decided to was time to leave. I walked back across the field to return to my work, though not before sampling another half sour grape. My headache was gone and I felt re-energized by my little nature excursion. Not bad for a 30 minute walk. Who says relaxation can’t be brief to be effective?
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