reunion weekend

Decoration Day at the cemetery is also our annual family reunion.  It has been as long as I can remember.  I imagine the original thought was efficiency.

You may notice the photos seem to be heavy on animals and light on actual (living) people that were presumably at this family reunion.  The reason is that animals do not shriek and throw their arms in front of their faces when you point a camera in their direction.  I am sparing you dozens of  photos of blurry hands.  Also, the animals do seem to outnumber the human beings somewhat.  (My mother seems to have become a minor god to all creatures canine or is bringing in, what girl child insisted on referring to, dogageddon.)  Not featured was also a blue heron that stopped by my grandparent's small pond that evaded my photographic capture, much to my regret.

summer marches on

It's been a week or so since my last post because we've been generally summering and getting about.  Camping, visiting the farm, hiking, getting too much sun and too much heat while dodging storms... that's what it looks like around here.

it's the end of the world

The childs and I dropped by my grandparents' place last night and stayed over.  I was hoping that today the kids would get a chance to work on the dead wood fort they started building last summer.  Instead, it was rainy as hell.

Some of the creatures that inhabit the farm didn't seem to mind the rain.

And others were as put out by it as I was.

I stayed dry on the porch and looked about.  Compared to the city, the farm is so very quiet and peaceful.  I feel completely privileged to have spent good portions of my life, particularly my childhood, feeling contented to be among the mostly dormant, gently rusting, detritus of farm life.  

Rain, on the farm, is good.

Outside my grandmother's window is her extensive bird feeding systems.  There is dozens of species that visit.

Not all of them feathered.

Be very, very quiet, we're hunting ground squirrel.

I seem to be taking more and more pictures of the farm, as of late.  I think I am documenting. The rumblings about having to sell up and move into town are getting louder and more frequent. 

The thought of no longer having this home feels catastrophic. 

So I visit, and take pictures, as often as I can.  I try to freeze time and make stay what will, inevitably, go away.

Perhaps the rain, so good for the flowers, wasn't so great for my psyche.  While I was being melancholy out in the damp, the childs were hanging out with their great grandma, developing an appreciation for the finer points of The Price is Right, snacking on forbidden sweet cereal and laughing their heads off at the antics of the birds outside at the feeders.  For them, living in the moment, they feel fine.