catching the last light

It's evening now, midweek. The day started with a gloomy fog, and when the fog left, it didn't take the gloomy with it. So gloomy it stayed all day.

But yesterday...

As usual we waited late in the day for our country drive. Wally had the day off.

And as usual, he stopped for me to commune with cows.

 

These gentle beasts were concerned for a mate of theirs who mooed from a barn across the road.

They were only mildly curious about me.

 

Their concern was palpable, and occasionally one would moo back.

 

Eventually this girl with the curled down horns came to join us.

 

She had her eye on some bit of stuff on the ground.

 

But this shy one who hid behind another wanted its mate to know they were there and cared.

 

As the dark began to fall, Wally headed back to town for us to walk around

the Bird Sanctuary pond. I spied this lovely milkweed that monarch butterflies love so well when they bloom in the summer.

 

The light was getting quite low and a damp cold was moving in.

 

Wally posed for me at the entrance bridge.

I brightened the photos but lost some saturation here. It was a glorious rosy pink sky.

We could see the community that lays along the shore of this pond, fed by a tributary of the Cornwallis River

The ducks floated safely in the middle

 

sending a tranquil ripple through the pink water

 

so sweet

We began our march around the pond, here at the northwest corner

 

when I had to stop again in the fading light

to capture these rose hips against the pond

as festive as holly

You can just see the bridge from whence we came at the top of the picture.

By now my camera is really struggling to catch the exposure of the fading light.

We were home again by 5:20pm, amazed that it was still quite early,

 but glad to leave the ducks in their cold, darkening pond. Brrr.

 

Grateful for creature comforts even if the days are already so short, or perhaps because they are.