It seems strange to walk through the woods on the hill behind the house and have the ground cover so bare and the forest floor (as well as the treetops) so clearly undressed for winter when its sunny and nearing eighty degrees. A strange and lovely day in the midst of the rain and gray and chill. The chickens, the two flocks, old and young, having joined together recently, are romping and playing in the sun. Turkey spent the morning standing at our open back door and gobbling at my cat Opie through the screen. Opie isn’t exactly sure how to take these rather loud words of love. Nor what to think of Turkey, looking for all the world like he is about to vomit on the cat, spasmodically pushing out his neck to full length like a drunk who has had three too many, then letting out a stream of throaty gobbles. Turkey looks as surprised as Opie does when it happens.
I need to find that poor bird a girl.
The annual ground cover being gone, I can get a good look at my plan for next spring. I want to cut down the deciduous trees that make a path up the hill between the old pines and replace them with berry plants. I am looking into a few more exotic things, gooseberries and elderberries and such, as I have raspberries and blueberries along the fence line already. I would love to take some of the old pines down someday and run a small vineyard up the hill as well. There are a few pines that I could never take, though. Lovely and contorted, growing out instead of up, looking stark now without the oak leaves crowding them. They take on patterns of scrolled ink paintings, reaching for the peach tree below it instead of reaching for the sky, all curves and twists, wrapping the hill in shag bark horizontals.
Down the hill the last of the chamomile-like flowers are blooming. Their bushes were a whole star field of white a month ago. Now they push out singly, last touches of white in a gilded brown field, a point of memory, a prick of life as winter comes in.









