Not often this late in the season do you get the opportunity of soaking up the sunshine while sitting out on the front porch enjoying your breakfast.
Not so this year. That is exactly where I am perched as I untangle the words you are now reading.
The sun is so warm that I find it necessary to roll up my shirtsleeves and unzip my vest for comfort – this at a time well prior to 10:00 in the morning. I knew it was going to be warm, as the 26 Boer goats had quietly tiptoed from their hutches in the nighttime paddocks where they gather before sunset each evening. Boer goats are a bunch of wimps, as they don’t like getting their tootsies wet while the dew is still on the grass in the morning. So they now, in their usual question mark pattern, are browsing the steep hillside, nibbling their way up and over the crest to knee-deep grass where tall poplars await to shade them.
Meanwhile, betwixt and between, the six yearling black heifers, having grazed earlier in the morning, are chewing their cuds in quiet contentment. Now well on their way to becoming mothers, they are lying down in an off-centre circle, having slackened their thirst at the spilled-over water trough. Not far away, Brutus, the giant fawn-coloured bull of French extraction, is ignoring his harem while slowly licking the blue cobalt salt block that will tantalize his taste buds for probably a half hour or so.
The backdrop to this scene, as seen from my chair, is difficult to explain with only 26 letters. But the huge hardwood bush that corners our property is rapidly changing colour, from greens to yellows, golds to red and crimson, all of which can be noted by each passing hour. I think Jack Frost and Mother Nature are in silent cahoots with each other; probably one holds the palette while the other wields the brush.
High over the sideroad to my right, silhouetted against the cloudless azure blue sky, I can see one, three, five, six jet black turkey buzzards as they randomly circle in expanding circles on out-stretched wings, riding the up-drafts without a single wing-flap, searching, I suppose, for a road-killed lunch. I’m a little reluctant to join them for lunch, but I totally envy their ability of flight.
There is a soft southerly breeze blowing north, allowing me to hear the flip-flapping of the red and white John Diefenbaker flag that is atop the 35-foot white-stained pole by the barn. It is keeping rhythmic time with the tinkle of the wind chimes at the end of the porch.
Beyond that, but out of sight, I can hear the contented grunting of the three huge Berkshire sows as they lay flopped on their sides nursing their respective litters of ten, eight and seven, 25 in total, active and squealing piglets. That is the start-off sounds of bacon in the making, folks.
Beyond the white-posted goat’s paddock, flying low over the short-cut green of the harvested hay field, I can see one of the resident red-tailed hawks searching for a mouse.
And at this precise moment, Molly, our white-patterned rusty red barn cat, has dropped at my feet her gift of a fresh-caught mole; she dislikes their taste so gives them to me. She had caught it while I watched beneath the white birch tree where our flat-racked hay wagon is parked, loaded to the hilt with freshly picked orange and white pumpkins, zucchini, cream coloured spaghetti and acorn squash, as well as dried shining red Spanish onions.
Fall colour is not lacking at Westwind Farms, likewise our reasons to be thankful.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
Barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105