Walkabout – 2017

The last sunrise of 2016….

The first sunrise of 2017!

So here we are again, but this time it’s a new year. Happy New Year Friends! A chance to start all over, set new goals, and make new promises to ourselves. A clean slate, as people like to say…

I took a New Year’s day walk around the property with the dogs the other day.  It was a perfect day for it. A little misty, a little rainy, and very wet. This is my favorite kind of weather. The dogs came back soaked and muddy and thrilled to get out and go racing through the woods and fields. I haven’t been back to that part of my property in a while. There isn’t much time during the winter though, when the daylight is short and the weekends usually end up too busy getting caught up on everything.

I thought for a second about riding a horse instead of walking – you know, pretending I was on a foxhunt with the hounds or something all cool like that…But since they haven’t been ridden in awhile I figured I’d just end up on my ass in the mud somewhere and catching a loose horse didn’t seem all that appealing. So I walked. Another glass of wine and I would’ve taken the horse…

This creek that runs through my property changes water level throughout the seasons. It’s deeper in winter, shallow in summer, and crazy deep during the spring rains. Last year, with all the heat and shortage of rain, the water level dropped so low that I made the discovery there are fresh-water clams living in it. They were the size of my hand! Freshwater clams are edible, but not a good food choice unless you’re starving to death. The meat is tough and lacks flavor, and they accumulate toxins from the water. But if you know the water is pure and you enjoy chewing on rubbery, tasteless meat, then I highly recommend them.

There’s a spot in this creek where it widens and becomes more of a pond. Beavers lived here once and built up a damn and formed a large pond that isn’t so large anymore. Sometimes I sit there on a log in the summer, catching fish, sipping wine, contemplating life. But mostly drinking wine. It’s a very peaceful and relaxing spot when the bugs aren’t too bad. And if you don’t mind snakes.

In the past three years little pine trees (White Pines I think they are?) have started popping up all over the back of the property.  This one here was less than a foot tall two years ago.  It’s now five feet tall.  I plan to dig up a few smaller ones and transplant them around the front yard near the road this year.  I love the smell of pines and the sound they make when the wind blows through them. And they stay green all year!

Now back to setting goals, clean slates and promises. What are YOUR goals and resolutions for 2017? A goal of mine is to make this blog more interesting (and maybe even helpful in some way) for you, my readers. Is there anything you would like to see more of? Less of? Seriously! Let me know. Otherwise, I’ll just continue to ramble about whatever comes to mind. I do promise I’ll try to mostly keep it farm / food oriented though. Mostly. ~A