Can't Stay Away from That Honeysuckle and Rose Trail

 First the news-  all the hay that was rolled yesterday is now covered with white plastic and lined up in rows outside the barn where it will be stored for winter feed.  These rolls are almost as tall as I am!  I like them better when they're not covered and they smell sweet and have a glowy golden color; but even on this small organic farm, apparently the hay has to be wrapped by a truck that has a hay roll wrapping device.

P and I decided to walk back via the farm instead of the trail.  As we rounded the corner of the big bottom fields adjacent to the river, we could see the Frolicking Green Water Dragon, a very auspicious land form in Chinese geomancy.  You can see it here in the whipping, snake-like tracing of darker grasses that slides through the field.  An anthropologist on campus once told me it marked the archaic path of the river, and the ground there is the lowest elevation in the valley and is still a watercourse when it rains.  The reason it shows up is that the grasses that grow in it are different (water-loving) species than the field grasses.

We climbed up out of the valley and stood on a little overlook that is above a small pasture where a young milk cow is pastured.

We walked through the college garden, and at the far edge where it runs alongside the trail, we found the college mud wrestling pit.  Our recent dry weather has totally dried out the slippery, clayey mud, leaving it cracked.  Deep footprints from the last match are still in the bottom of the pit.

Across the garden we could see the apiary, where bee hives are kept behind a fence that is surrounded by an electric fence to keep bears out.

And at the bottom right is a single stem of the hay that is currently rolled up in the big white rolls.

Back at home Jesse slept away the afternoon in his own pool of sunlight.  And on the right is my African bug hat with its insect-chasing pom-poms.