It is August and I am savouring every moment of the late summer. On our walk this morning my dog and I were again inspecting the apple tree with apples that are too high up for me to reach. Many years ago my mum had planted the apple seed that grew into the tree.
A rabbit ran past as we crossed the long country driveway and my dog, Charlie, was instantly engaged and on high alert. He was on a leash so could not give chase. As we continued our walk we did see the rabbit again, and this time it ran under the trees but I kept Charlie away.
We chatted to my mum who was in the front of the house just off the verandah, watering her plants. We chatted to my dad as he came around the corner of the house on his way to the tractor. The early morning sun was beaming through the trees on the front field. How beautiful this time of year is.
Charlie wanted to go with my dad so we followed him down through the grapevine covered arbour, and through the shrub garden with the lilac, honeysuckle, and red currant shrubs, then through the path that crosses the black locust trail until we came out into the wide opening on the other side. There was the tractor, my dad’s beloved old orange Kubota tractor that they got in 1987. After a lifetime of hard work, and some repairs, it is still going strong. Well normally. Yesterday it had stalled in the field, this morning it got going, no problem much to our relief. As he had swung himself up on to the seat my dad had been beaming, and I remembered how much he loves just sitting on his tractor cutting grass, enjoying the simple chore.
Continuing on our walk, Charlie and I kept coming across single black feathers scattered here and there throughout the property. I wasn’t sure if they were from the wild turkeys that were living previously in the shrub garden but were nowhere to be seen today, or if they were from the Canada Geese that had been scared by my dog the other day.
I saw that the magnificent goldenseal are flowering and realized we are approaching the end of summer. Goldenseal have such beautiful golden yellow flowers. I have always enjoyed them. I have them in my backyard too, but I love seeing them, here in the countryside where they grow wild and I can admire them in all their splendour.
At one point the horse flies (triangular looking flies that bite) were very bad, and bothering my dog quite a bit. They seem to go for his ears. I kept brushing them off him. We retreated from the flies and the heat and humidity over to the cool of the trees.
As we walked toward the driveway and the front of the property, a small white car went by on the road. I heard the music from the radio as it drove by. And I thought that it was a lovely day for a drive in the countryside. We made our way back to the house and Charlie and I went in so he could get a drink of water. He settled down to have a rest. And I put the water on for another cup of tea.