What one’s got

Travelling about the countryside which has become a great pastime, we have become acquainted with a considerable number of animals.

Not actually acquainted, unfortunately. Even if our approach was welcome, stopping to say hello to them all, we’d never get anywhere.

But we always look out for them and worry when they are not in their customary quarters.

Many of our “friends” are horses including three that we pass on the alternate route to Greenwich. We call them the three amigos. Through the winter they were in a pasture closer to the farmhouse, but we were pleased to notice recently that they were back in their upper field. Only two of them, however. For some reason the third remains down by the farm.

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We like when they are in the summer pasture because it is right beside the road and the horses always look up at us when we pause beside them.

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This day, one of the horses put on a show for us.

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His companion was more restrained. I got the above photo two days later.

We only ever stop briefly to call out hello, but those horses never fail to turn their heads and stare at us. It is a small thing that gives us a lift, in large part because these horses seem very content. Not all of the animals we see are.

A couple, for example, Grant calls lonely pony, because they are always alone. One in particular stands by a gate, flicking its tail in an endless battle with flies that torment him as he has no mask to protect its face.

Of all the animals we see, goats are no doubt the most content because they appear to do exactly as they please. We often see them sitting on the roofs on chicken coops or other barnyard pens, or on their owners’s porch and they always look quite smug!

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A quick expedition to Greenwich on Sunday soon concluded, we decided to extend the trip by retracing one of our old routes that we seldom have occasion to travel these days.

We’ve seen this farm in all seasons, but never quite like this.

Time of day makes all the difference.

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Mostly, we passed this way quite early in the day, sometimes in the dark and in many kinds of weather, though only once was it so bad we had to abandon the journey and turn back.

Coming to live upstate, I admit I expected winter weather to be more of an issue…

…than it has been so far…

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The one thing that is consistent no matter the season, nor the time of day, is the absence of people. Over the past nearly 8 years, we have covered many miles, yet except in the larger towns, we seldom see a soul.

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This day, we turned off down a dirt road where we were able to stop.

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So I was able to get a picture of wild bergamot which is prolific currently.

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As we rolled on, Grant spotted a Great Blue heron.

My eyesight is so bad currently, I cannot tell if it is in focus. Some images are more problematic than others. I see my ophthalmologist tomorrow and will discuss it with her. She is very good but not a miracle-worker and as far as I know, there is no cure for macular degeneration. I had hoped that its progress could be slowed, but it seems my left eye did not get the message.

Perhaps I could start a whole new fashion in out-of-focus photography.

One has to work with what one’s got.

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