I followed the dogs to the top of the hill on the other side of our woods. It’s an old meadow where cows used to graze and is now grown over with tall grasses and short shrubs. Because it’s rocky and scrubby in some spots I always feel like I’m much higher up than I actually am.
Fate and Zinnia run the maze of deer trails, their noses to the ground.
You can see our farm from the hill and Route 22. Just over it, to the south, is the dirt road where Jon and I have walked with all our dogs. So it’s far from the middle of nowhere, but still full of a small wildness.
On the way back we slid down the icy hill to the cornfield. The rows of cut stalks in contrast to where we had just been.
As we crossed back into the woods over the old sagging barbed wire fence my mind began to clear and my spirits lift. The cold air and my quick pace helped, but even more, it was the untamed earth that delivered me.
“Still full of a small wildness”. What an evocative expression. I know just what you mean. Here in the rural and untamed areas of the mid Hudson valley it is wonderful to run into the pockets of small wildness.
I believe you can find them almost anywhere. Especially if a place has a chance to heal after we humans have moved in in one way or another.
I believe you can find them almost anywhere. Especially if a place has a chance to heal after we humans have moved in one way or another.
Fate looks as if she is out on sand dunes on a beach! We wish! 🙂
Ah that would be nice!