Deer in the Hayfield

It's not always noise and dust around here.

One evening Wally called me out from the kitchen to see the deer in the back field.

While my little camera couldn't capture them up close

here are the best blow-ups I could get of a doe and what appear to be 2 fawns

It pleases me to see them safe and

so far from our garden

Mom retreats her little family back into the ravine

and I turn to come in, capturing the old shingles that Wally removed from the other side of

Forget-Me-Not Cabin's roof

while Muji waits patiently for my return

The next morning I capture Babu in the Roma tomato box

(or, rather, he put himself there)

after freezing most of the tomatoes for this winter's use.

After a particularly hot week here in the Annapolis Valley,

wishing you a particularly pleasant weekend.

(I can't help but laugh to myself these days when I use the word "weekend" in this public forum, assuming everyone knows what I mean when there was a world, once, that didn't...)

this quintessential quote by the  Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith)

from "Downton Abbey"

Deer Me

 

 

As you may have noticed,  I have pulled the portrait on the last post from my etsy shop.   I thought it was creepy,  and when a friend of mine agreed,  that was it; down it came.   What can I say, except.. "the best laid plans of mice and men gang oft astray".    I know, I know; this wasn't an act of fate,  but when you think about it,  many of the choices we make are somewhat predestined by all the pieces we put in place prior to that pivot in time.  I admit I had misgivings about posting the piece in the first place,  but I was so determined to get something up,  that I jumped before I felt it out.   Yes, felt it out,  for I also think we rarely make choices through thought but through our feelings rationalized.

In the meantime I will have something new to show you in the next day or two.

The last morning of June.  I couldn't wish for a more wonderful gift to celebrate .

Amidst the bracken, raspberry and sweet william, this little fellow stands at the edge of the forest.

Yesterday was Canada Day,  the nation's 144th birthday.   The day passed happily with friends and good food.   We watched the celebrations in Ottawa on TV last night and prepared for bed to the booming of fireworks in the distance.  And the next morning,

this morning:

 

 

We had 2 new visitors, the Pansy Eaters, who decimated our planters halfway up the front stairs.

 

The morning sun began to lift the dew from the long grasses, daisies and Indian paintbrush.

The Fawn

 

and back to Mom

These are the quiet joys of life in the country.   We are lucky in a million ways.

 

We are lucky to have such a camera.  And the skill to doctor these shots taken through our, as yet, unclean windows still covered in tree pollen from the spring.   And just to live here. I have to put the camera down so I can really drink in the experience.   Behind my glasses, behind the camera, behind the window,  I am thrice removed from reality.   We are not here just to witness but,  indeed,  to engage.   That's where the creativity comes in.  

 Creating a life for ourselves,  not just being in reaction to what happens to us,

 but creating in action that which we would have in our lives:

 love, good health,  peace,  beauty,  freedom,  choice,  you name it....