Today I was going to start walking, but I had some sort of alergy problem and I just wasn't up to it. Later on in the day I had to go out and was imediately hit with the fresh pungent aroma of cow poop. It is funny how a smell can trigger memories. I was taken back to a time in my youth when I used to explore miles of cow pasture and woods when I was a kid. It was like I had been cooped up all winter long and as soon as the ground was dry enough I would take off and be gone, sometimes all day exploring. I used to give my Mother fits.

Yesterday I walked 2 blocks south then 2 blocks East 2 blocks north and 2 blocks back home. It was uneventfull but at least I got started.

Today 3/24/07 I added another block to my course. Then since it is about 60 outside I went into my little wooded area to check out things. I found a pile of branches and logs that I started to clear out last year but never finished. When I looked closer I found that some of the branches had been picked clean of bark. Here were little teeth marks and shavings where some small creature had chewed all of the bark off. it looked like the wood had been sanded it was so clean. Nature is so cool when you get to see things like this. You can smell the stale smell of dust and dirt on the leaves. I am sure that will get washed away when it rains soon.

I need to take Missy and Dan out in the woods so Missy can play and so Dan can pretend to hunt rabbits. (Dan is a Beagle bred from a line of rabbit hunters. He was never very good at, though.) However, I am not going to suffer through the pollen just for that.

I hope I can get out soon-the I can smell the wisteria.

When I lived in Heath, MA as a young child I would do much the same things. Heath is a seriously wooded town. A hill town full of hill people and farms and stuff. We lived on 25 acres of woods and one dirt road. So my days were spent exploring the woods, building forts in the woods and riding my bike around the dirt roads.

There are days when I really wish I was there again because it was so quiet and so natural and far from civilization. The smells were so strong on warm summer days and whenever I smell hot pine needles it shoots me right back to those days. In fact, lately I've been picturing those days as I used to imagine the days of when my parents and grandparents were kids. How things were alot simpler then than they are now. There was no internet then. No cable TV. No video games of any kind. Just UHF providing four TV channels in very poor quality.

It's amazing how smell is the one scent strongly associated with memory. Smells of dirt, cow poop, pine needles, fresh tree sap and wood smoke always take me back to the simpler times in my life when I was 7 years old.

No walk today due to the rain but o did it smell like spring so sweet, earthy like a freshly planted garden.

I forgot about this thread, which will explain why I am so late in writing this.

Tuesday, I went out in the pasture. It is one of the small pastures with just cows and a few calves. When I got out there, I noticed that my uncle's new bull had been taken out of his pen, in my grandfather's garden, and introduced to the cows. He is a sweet bull and is quite fond of humans, so I did not feel threatened by him. I decided to have a visit with him (I've named him Big Stuff, which fits). I stopped about twenty feet from his face, while he was grazing. I spoke. He looked up, and he snorted at me. That surprised me, since he does like me. That's when I looked-over his body and noticed a few signs of him being aroused by all the cows. I knew that his testosterone was flowing, so I decided to sit still and let him approach me.

I continued to have a one-sided conversation with Big Stuff. He munched on grass, all the while easing closer to me. After a few minutes, he worked his way up to being about two feet in front of me. I never reached for him. I was going to let him initiate contact, if he wanted his face rubbed. (Impeccable manners are a must when dealing with a hormonal bull.) He looked at me, and then he went back to munching grass.

Several minutes passed, and a male calf came up thinking my wheelchair was a hay-delivering vehicle. As soon as he got close to me, something unexpected started happening. The bull began being protective. He was nudging the little boy away from me, but the calf just did not get the hint. That's when Big Stuff decided that I was the one that needed to leave. He stared at me, and then he raised his upper lip. That is a big threat, and that is when I slowly backed away.

I strolled down to the pond's dam, where a log was rotting. There, I learned that anoles and Southeastern Five-lined Skinks absolutely love downed trees. Most seemed to be males. They were showing their dewlaps and bobbing their heads.

The last thing that I observed, during my stroll, was how affectionate cattle can be. Dogs mate and go about their business. Cattle, however, seem to have a courtship period. Big Stuff seemed to have a female that he preferred. I often saw them nuzzling noses, licking each other's faces, and nibbling ears. I am sure that a proper term exists for the behavior, but I am calling it bovine foreplay. I've been raised around cattle, and I swear that I've never noticed any sort of courtship behaviors, until now.

There's no way I would do anything like that with a bull or even a boar hog. We would always keep fence panels between us.

I'm used to big animals, like him. I don't normally do things like that, but I am familiar with this bull. I knew that he might be a bit aggressive towards me because he was reading to breed, but I also felt confident that he would never hurt me unless I gave him a very valid reason. I had no intentions of giving him one, either.

I've always been able to keep myself in the good graces of animals. I speak to them in my normal tone, and I let them interact with me on their terms. I know the body language; and when they tell me to do something, I respect them and do as they ask.

I am also good at gauging whether or not an animal is too unstable for me to feel safe. That's why I've never been hurt.

I just checked this thread and saw the post, Joseph.Very Cool!
The people who bought my house have two large horses. I haven't been around horses in many years and having a large horse gallop toward you gets your blood flowing.

Especially if you see the ears pinned back...

Something happened the other night. Yesterday when I woke up and looked outside. I noticed that it seemed like a lot of leaves just suddenly decided to jump off the trees and cover the ground.
I love the smell of fall when the air is crisp and you can walk around and hear the leaves crunching under your feet. Our town seems to be obsessed with raking them up. I like to leave them for awhile. it seems that you can't get them all anyway.

I don't even worry about leaves these days. I let the teenagers deal with them.

My dad mows the leaves down when he sees them

I would too.

I'll be mowing them soon too.

I used to mow them but now I use the blower vac.

With almost 4 acres of trees that's about all anyone could hope for from me!

I don't have a power chord long enough to cover that space.

Yesterday we got to smell farmers burning the stubble off of their fields.

Now I know, some of you are going to go out and smell farmers to see if thats what they smell like. Thats why I write like that.