Cool!

It was so cool and almost dry today!  A cool front has passed over us, and we are happy happy happy, at least I am.  I walked down to the farm to buy a dozen eggs that were probably gathered this morning from happy organic bug-eating chickens.  I walked down the mountain from our backyard (see drawing at top left, which shows roughly where we live), then traversed the hideous path along Warren Wilson Road with its barreling trucks and zooming cars and no shoulder to speak of.  Soon, though , I came to the trail head for the new River Trail, which I followed for about 3/4 of a mile.  The trail went through the golden bamboo grove, where I checked on Owl Man (right side of page), who has, happily,  gotten his leg glued back on at least partially.  Last time I was here he had a sock where his lower leg should be.  He also has his modesty bamboo leaf in place.

I peeled off of the trail when I came to the college sawmill and lumber drying shed;  from there I passed several fields, one of them my absolute favorite field.  This field contains a Chinese Feng Shui feature known as a frolicking green water dragon, and this is a very auspicious landscape feature.  You can see it in the top left drawing-- a ribbon of greener, weedier, denser vegetation whipping through a field of grass and marking the ancient path of the nearby river.  There is still a trickle of water under all the dense vegetation, and it fills when it rains hard.  But the river has moved over the millennia to its present location.  I know all this because I worked on the archaeological site down in this valley for four summers in the 90's.  The water dragon coincides with the lowest elevation on campus, around 2200 ft above sea level.  The water dragon is beautiful and mysterious, and walking along that field always feels lucky.

I reached the main chicken house and yard, next to the farm office, where I went in and bought my honor system eggs, putting my $4 in the coffee can and taking eggs out of the fridge.  Then I continued back toward the trail, passing a little paddock or field or something that had some sheep grazing.  Not only were these sheep close enough to really see, but there was a bench on the overlook.