Night Vision

[snousle]

Went out for an evening walk last night. Very pretty. One of my great pleasures is walking in the dark; it's a different way of seeing. The map of the landscape your mind constructs depends much less on light, and far more on sound and touch. It's beautiful in a way no photograph can capture, because it requires actual darkness to be experienced. In all the years I've been doing this, even on rough ground full of obstacles, I've never once stumbled over anything. It's a slow walk, to be sure, and one that puts much faith in your animal instincts.

I met the skunk at last, scrabbling through the underbrush near the arroyo. When he came up on the road and saw me, he raised his tail threateningly, and it looked about six feet tall. It wasn't really, of course - probably only half that - but they sure know how to make the most of what they've got.

There was also what must have been an owl, swooping low through the trees, more felt than seen.

On other fronts, one of the great surprises of the day was to discover that trail building is much, much easier than I had expected. The ground consists of stones ranging from fist-size to half of that, bound by clay - it's easy to move, but with a few whacks with the hoe it sets up like a jigsaw puzzle into a nice, flat pavement. Not sure how it's going to respond to heavy rain, so for this first year I'm being pretty conservative. I'm working on a nature trail up to the spring and beyond, from which you can't see anything off the property. A little cleanup and it's going to be gorgeous - ultimately, a winding garden path nearly a mile long, half a mile as the crow flies, with about 600 feet of elevation gain end to end. Again, just a little bit of work every day, when I need to blow off steam, and it will happen. Fortunately the work is such a pleasure as to be nearly addictive.

Comments

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

lovely entry. *hug*