morning musings

One of the priceless features of our location out behind the barn is the view from my computer room; I turn my head to the left and this is what I see; you can tell from the curve of the earth that we are on one of the highest spots around, although there's really no distant view due to surrounding trees.

The goldfinches aren't awake yet, and I understand they'll soon be leaving to raise families anyhow. But I certainly enjoy them while they're here. My daughter gave me the birdbath you see here because she had two of them. It gets plenty of traffic. The finches only use it for drinking, but robins and sparrows bathe in it often. And I finally saw a pair of bluebirds taking turns bathing there the other day. Bluebirds were my original reason for wanting a birdbath; I read that they are attracted to them.

I like looking across our hay meadow and seeing the woods in the distance. If I so desired, I could walk back there in five minutes.

At the old house, there was nowhere to cast my eyes that didn't remind me of how close my neighbors live and how cluttered most of their yards are with junk; I will never take my view here for granted.

A goldfinch is awake and eating outside my window now, and I thank the Lord I have this day to watch them; they haven't flown away yet.

Now my mind wanders.

As I travel around the countryside with Cliff, I can't help but wonder what led pioneers to set down roots in a particular spot. I understand why the original residents of the country, the Indians, chose certain places: they needed plenty of game, a source of water, and a safe place to set up their teepees.

But the pioneers were mostly farmers. When they headed west with a certain destination in mind, surely they were looking for reasonably level land and fertile soil. Unless, of course, they were part of the gold rush; that's a whole different story.

When I'm in the Ozarks of south Missouri and Arkansas, I try to figure out who the original settlers were, and why they would choose for their home a hilly place where the soil was more rocks than dirt. It's beautiful there, yes. But beauty doesn't put food on the table. I wonder if perhaps their Conestoga wagons just happened to break down in that spot, and they had no choice but to stay because they were out of funds.

So much for that musing.

I'll leave you with these shots: My husband and son driving up the driveway...

... and back. Notice there is no muffler on the Oliver now. They like the whistling sound the turbo makes without the muffler. So they can be seen going up and down, back and forth, just to hear that mighty sound.