Morning Meditations with Cow Patties

We enjoy our daily strolls much and I’ve gotten to really love this cow field. It’s nothing grand and yet ever changing. We’ve got three sandhill cranes who live nearby year round and deer that wander about. Sometimes cows, sometimes not. Bit of breeze, more so than in the woods.

Morning Meditation

At first glance, an empty field.

An empty field haphazardly filled with cow patties like a drunken checkerboard.

As always, so much that came before.

A leaf falls.

Distant rooster crows.

Flock of birds silently swoop by.

Way in the distance, the gray sandhills drop from the gray sky and casually stroll.

A leaf falls.

Birds twitter nearby.

A couple miles away, the Most Disgruntled Employee, an eighteen wheeled rig complains along the interstate.

The cow patties rest. Or do they?

Perhaps under each pile, a crew of dung beetles like Snow White’s comrades, is whistling while they work their pickaxes.

Or humming.

Or meditating.

Some heaps resemble sand castles; others quite symmetrically round.

The cows are in another pasture this morning, doing their cow things.

Yesterday seven calves, shoulder to shoulder, awaited–what?

A photo shoot?

Oranges?

No doubt, I disappointed.

Breeze swings a tendril of Spanish moss.

The sandhills have disappeared behind the red tractor.

(Yes, WCW, so much depends on that red tractor, too, we know.)

Dragonfly lands on the barbed wire.

A leaf falls.

Rainy Days Bring Mushrooms

Living out in the woods, I delight in the ephemeral nature of and variety of mushrooms that abound. They push forth with determination and are gone almost before I can go fetch a camera. On my list to learn more about them and identify them.

This tree came down a few years ago. Standing next to it, the top of it is almost hip height to me and runs half the length of the immediate back yard. Fortunately, it didn’t fall on anything, so there was absolutely no urgency to do anything about it. We cleared around it and left it. The dogs thought it was a great obstacle course challenge. Bugs got to it. Woodpeckers and armadillos dug into it. See how light the soil is around it? Well, three years on, it has decayed quite a bit and it is making the most outstanding mulch and soil, rich and dark.

Same tree now, as seen from opposite end.
It has been fascinating watching its decay and observing all the life that this dead tree has supported.