Walking the Land

I love to walk around the farm.  A walk is the perfect way to take the edge off after a day in the trenches.  Spring is finally starting to take hold and eclipse the brown landscape.  There is a tiny tinge of green everywhere.  I love my land.  It's not the typical flat hay-friendly farm land that's easy to work with.  My land is up and down with all kinds of interesting nooks and crannies, shale outcroppings, springs and groves of trees. It has so much character and places to explore and hide in.   My colonial apple orchard is tucked under the piney ridge which provides the panoramic background for my little patch of Earth.  I've been walking the back field with the dogs which is semi-wild and perfect for goats who love to eat brush and trees.  We found the fox den yesterday.  Matt says she is still here but I think Tanner has driven her away.  Too bad.  I love wild animals and foxes eat rats and mice.  I wouldn't mind if she took a rooster or two as I have way too many roaming the barnyard but the dogs would never allow that.  The den looked empty, or maybe she's hiding way down deep like a smart fox.  I checked out the apple orchard.  We have buds, but we also have cold mornings that could kill the tender flowers that turn into apples.  20 F. yesterday morning, but we are slowly warming up.  I loved travelling down south to Maryland where the red buds and dogwoods were growing wild along the highway.  Not many flowering trees here, just wild apples that fatten the deer before winter.  Farmers don't ordinarily plant hybrid trees to watch them bloom.  We are much too practical for that.  I just might buy myself a little flowering Weeping Cherry to plant outside my window and hang a little hummingbird feeder on it.