This rural life

I've been enjoying my time off from bloggy-land, I have to admit, and I will continue to take things slow and easy when it comes to blogging for a little while longer. This is actually the first time I've cracked opened my laptop in days, which is a first in many, many months. Reading from an actual book has been most satisfying of late.

Today at work a friend and I were discussing how the local soy and corn crops seem to be faring as a result of the uncharacteristically wet summer we've been having (from all outward appearances, they both seem to be growing tall and hardy), which led me to think about the fact that I only pass by corn fields on my drive to and from work - no soy along my route this year. This, in turn, got me to thinking about how blessed and happy I am to leave "out in the country." Not that the city of Athens is a big hustle-and-bustle place (not by a long shot!), but living "out" has a certain charm that I really just can't get enough of.

As I started thinking about my rural driving routes, the number of country encounters started to add up in my head fast. There's the corn fields, cows and horses. And goats. And sometimes chickens... and turtles and deer, bunny rabbits (please stop darting in front of my car!), and woodchucks with their familiar and silly waddle. And the lovely aroma of skunk.




Bluebirds on phone poles and wires, Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows in low flight over road and fields, maybe a Great Blue Heron at a pond's edge if I'm lucky... Mockingbirds, Killdeer, Red-winged Blackbirds and Turkey Vultures (not to mention wild Turkeys).

Wildflowers galore, morning fog, and ponds. All part of the rural landscape that I know and love so well...

And then I come home to find that the power is out, another "charm" of country living. That's okay... I'll take it. I don't think I could go to bed to Katydid song nor hear coyotes howling and yipping at night if I lived in town. Yes, this rural life is quite fine by me.