An Evening Walk on July 11, 2019

I haven't taken many walks on the land this year, although my wife would argue with that statement. It probably seems to her that I'm forever leaving for a walk, going west across the corral, heading out across the tree rows out there, putting up with pesky flies and mosquitoes, doing who knows what.

If I walk out with my camera and a beer in my pocket, then it's just one of these sentimental strolls through the places I've put so much of my energies into over the past 48-some years. Sometimes, I just stand in one spot for several minutes, listening to the sounds around me, just looking at the landscape, the clouds and their play above the contours of the varying heights of trees, or how stages of light affect the scene.

Tree rows in July are still distinct although grown up in grass. I will mow the rows out in late August or September according to my CRP requirements.

I might pull weeds from around a struggling small tree, pull spring debris away so the sunlight can reach it, and talk encouragingly to it, "Whoa! Looky here! Don't you look great!" Stuff like that ... weird stuff like that. Well, these trees are in a sense my children, my legacy for after I'm gone--if climate change and future landowners are discriminate and allow them to fully mature. So in the meantime--my time--I take pride and promise in a place I can walk anytime I want. And, I might even bring that beer back with me, unopened.

Comments

A Memorial to Jerry Solom August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 No. 2

Jerry Solom, August 24, 1945 -- July 23, 2019 This is a random image memorial post about my late friend, who died a year ago. I wrote a memoir/tribute to him in the Wannaskan Almanac on July 23, 2020. Here's the link to that: http://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2020/07/thursday-july-23-2020.html Me and Jerry with Marion in background in Stonington, Maine in 2015 prior to setting sail to Hull, MA. This is an excerpt from the story "A Louisiana Ruse" by Steven G. Reynolds Published in 2000 in THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History & Humor Journal This describes the end of a 43-hour bus ride we took from Fargo, North Dakota to Slidell, Louisiana, where Jerry's boat was in dock prior to his voyage to Norway in 2000. I was there as part of the maintenance crew, accompanying Jerry, his son Terry Solom of Minneapolis, and their fr...

April 5, 2025 Sven is Dead

"OH MY GOD! SVEN IS DEAD!" the new neighbor Jack Krag said, running from his car to the swing set in Sven's yard where Sven Guyson laid prone on the ground, one foot still afloat in the seat of the swing, his face against the sod, his cap ajar. "SVEN! SVEN!" Krag repeated plaintively, gently turning Sven over onto his back; the imprint of grass and dirt stuck to Sven's open-eye slobbery face. " HE'S JUST A'FOOLIN' YOU, bon ami! " shouted Monique, Sven's wife of two years and some months from the porch. "He's just workin' up to his expiration date and wants his death to be just a part of our normal routine. He doesn't want to surprise anyone by dyin' unexpectedly. You know what a shock a death can be. He's just tryin' to ease us all into it, one act at a time. "WHAT??" Krag fairly hollered in disbelief, looking at Monique, then back st Sven, and back to Monique...

The Chicken Coop Revisited

“Just of Scientific Mind: The Chicken Coop Revisited.” by Steven G. Reynolds Gramma Eff was not deaf, not dumb, nor was she blind. She was not daft this Gramma Eff, just of scientific mind. She wore knee boots, a long white coat, goggles, special gloves, and entered in, a study of, chickens, and their loves. “Chickens, and their loves?” you ask, incredulously, with one raised brow, as if of what she studied hence made a mockery of you now. Gramma kept her chickens clean and altho you might think it mean she washed their feet, their beak, their bod --the neighbors thought it very odd. That no one out should enter in Gramma’s little chicken pen For Gramma too, removed her clothes her boots, her coat, her goggles--those gloves, that Gramma always wore whenever she opened that very door of all her chicken coops there we’ve learned strangers there, their presence spurned Gramma found these chickens smart, they liked color, music, art. Gramma learned their innate needs went far b...

WannaskaWriter

Search This Blog