0545

One of the habits that I continue to work on is my walks in the morning.  Part of it is simply that I need the exercise.  Part of it is that Poppy The Brave also needs the exercise. Part of it, as I have written about, is that it helps me to think.  And part of it, with a big hike coming up in August, is that I just need to get in more training time.

Walks here at The Ranch are always an ever evolving practice.  The range of sunrise and sunset is much more varied here, and some of the times when I might want to walk - evening, for example, carry with them the very real presence of things larger than me looking for a meal.

And so I walk most often in the morning.

Early morning here carries with it a lot of silence.  The sound of cars has not yet invaded the space, nor is there the sound of the inevitable aircraft that will eventually make their way in the skies overhead.  The flight path they follow is the flight path I sometimes end up taking when I fly back here.  I continue to look for The Ranch from above, but somehow always seem to be on the wrong side of the plane when we are passing overhead.

The air has a certain luminescence some mornings - like this one - that I can fully explain or describe.  It may simply be that we are in the final transitions from Spring to Summer - it is late June, and that is usually when I associate Summer starting.  We are in the midst of one last cool spell before the coming of what will be the Summer heat.  The last of the native grasses will dry up and off and the vernal streams will finish their annual runs and disappear.  By the time I return next month, likely this walk will be surrounded with brown.

The wildflowers of Spring continue their appearance, cycling in and out through my monthly visits.  The picture to the left is what I know as Tarweed, a low lying scrub brush.  I have distinct memories as a young boy being with TB The Elder and my Great Uncle - the one who originally bought the land with my Great Aunt.  My Great Uncle was doing a controlled burn; I remember a can dripping with fire as he set the the Tarweed alight.  He knew about controlled burns and practiced them long before they were a thing.

Every time I see the bloom of Tarweed, I think of him, a gentle man who really only ever wanted to manage cattle.  He played the fiddle and always smelled faintly of something I never could identify growing up; it was only years later I realized it was hand rolled tobacco.

My walks here have a rhythm and rhyme to them; after all, no matter how much I may enjoy the walking I still have to get back to start the workday, so I do not go quite as far as I might or should.  I keep thinking about ways I could extend them.  I can go down this path and continue up to the main road, or make the large outer loop that surrounds our property.  Always at the back of my mind is the nagging sense that I have to get back to "the real world", so I usually turn back before I would like to.  The only way to increase this is to get up earlier, something I have not been able to quite bring myself to do, yet.

As I make my return, the world is starting to wake up.  I hear the cry of roosters from surrounding homes as I make my way back.  There was time - not so long ago - when those noises were much rarer than they are now.  People are creeping in.  

But even as they creep in - at least these people - they still follow the rules of the road.  Everyone is respectful of property, closing gates and going around where needed.  People still wave as they drive by, at least on this little part of the road.  And good neighbors around always make for help when things go awry, as they sometimes can out in the real world where a neighbor is far closer than civilization.

The morning birds chirp away as I make my return, singing me back to the house and the computer desk (although I am only an accidental recipient of their trills; they likely see me only as another moving object to be avoided until I pass). A squirrel, invisible in the tree above me, chitters away in anger as I pass, yet lacks the dash or bravery to make an appearance, preferring to heap scorn upon me at at distance.  The cows in the pasture are starting their morning conversation.

Inside, the coffee, warm and dark and full of its own sort of mystery, awaits.