June 24, 2020 – Wednesday (yes – we are still battling Covid 19 … day 2,456,897,052)
I must have been a cow in a former life. Seriously. The older I get the truer it seems.
I’ve taken to an evening walk in the past months. Sometimes a week goes by without me ambling down the road … other weeks I’m out their nightly – rain or mist, clouds or clear skies. Sometimes sunshine, too. The sunsets have been phenomenal.
The other night I went out walking … Saturday, June 20 … the first night of Summer. It was lovely.
I seem to venture out my picket fence sometime between 8:15 and 9:30. We stay light til nearly 10pm now … it is fabulous. It’s a nice evening window … some nights I’m back home before the street lights come on … other nights, like tonight, I’m walking home after 10pm under their soft glow. I love walking when the lights are on … it’s somehow very cozy. With the gathering darkness I know I’m being watched by deer that I can no longer see; their shapes blend in with the blurred landscape but I can feel them watching. I’m glad they aren’t lions.
The other night I left the yard and latched the gate behind me sometime after 9pm. I like walking later – usually I have the road to myself. Sometimes I see neighbors walking their little, sweet poodlette. I like when I see her because I get a little bonus dog kiss on my way. I leave my yard and make a right and go one house where the road T’s … (my neighbor’s home looks like some hurricane winds picked it up somewhere in New England and plunked it down on the corner of my street – all brown shake-sided and Nantucket-coastal looking. It adds a nice element of eastern charm to this corner of the NW.) At the end of her property is the cliff road (Edgecliff) … I turn right and wander down it until it dead ends at the property that I’d love to snoop around on. It’s a big beautiful old house with a pond and another cottage … beautifully landscaped lawns and their front yard falls into the sea. It just rolls right off and over. I have no idea how they mow it! The road used to continue along until, years ago, the storm took out that side of the cliff and the road with it. Once at their gated driveway I turn around and retrace my steps home. Sometimes I sit in the empty meadow on the cliffside – looking out over the sound towards the east and the mountains/cities; most of the time I don’t and I just continue on towards home.
Anyway – on Saturday night when I got to Edgecliff and made my turn, I started counting the bunnies. They are plentiful on this island and now is the time of year when they have their cute babies hopping about. Local lore has it that years ago someone let out the domestic rabbits from the 4-H barn during the county fair. And you know what rabbits do … and pretty soon, the island, at least our end of it, was inundated with rabbits and bunnies. And these weren’t any rabbits and bunnies … but coal black ones, fat apricot ones, pure white or brown and white spotted. They are big and beautiful and every once in a while I wish I could touch one – they are just so pretty! Now and then you’ll see a wild rabbit – but it’s the wild-domestic ones that stand out because well, they don’t blend in! The coyote population determines the bunny population. I’ll take a herd of 100 rabbits any day over one coyote.
I set out on Saturday evening with the sky a cerulean blue and streaked with clouds the color of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. It was gorgeous. (The water reflects the color of the sky so it was exceptionally stunning that night.) I usually start out at a decent pace … I’m not on a race here … but I’m not shuffling along – until I’m on my way home and then I slow down a bit more. My knee is bothering me but I like to look around and that makes my walking slower. I’m a counter … and I know that it’s roughly 3000 steps (round trip). I always mean to count the houses from my house down to the end – along the water side and the land side – but somewhere along the way I get distracted by deer in a meadow or bunnies nibbling near my feet or an eagle soaring overhead … or the way the breeze ripples the reeds growing in the water culvert at the side of the road.
Saturday night I lost my house counting track because the Silver Poplar tree was rustling. It’s lovely when that happens. It’s almost musical. Not too unlike what I’d imagine to be the swish rustle of a ballgown with petticoats under it. This Silver Poplar is a huge tree – probably 80 feet tall with several sizable white and black (like birch trees) trunks. The leaves of this tree are a 5-pointed, shiny, emerald green and the backside of the leaf is a soft, velvety white. The leaves are on stems, like aspens leaves, and they shake and twist in even the slightest breeze. We had one of these trees in our backyard when I was growing up. My dad planted it when I was a baby. It grew but the trunk split and he chained the two trunks together and it grew and grew and arched gracefully over our patio for 20 years. They are graceful and beautiful trees.
Along the way that night I lost track, again, of my house count … but I managed to count 1 cat, 13 deer and 21 bunnies! The most I’ve counted in a single one-way walk since I’ve started walking. I figured they were all out celebrating the solstice and it was a 21 Bun Salute to Summer!
Today, due to me trying not to venture out and grocery shop unless absolutely necessary, I am down to the last of my fruit … a few apples and an orange. I’ve had summer fruit (berries/melons) on my brain for a week now – I’m feeling deprived! As I walked out of the gate tonight I noticed the sky … not a cloud in it and such a clear blue … the blue that is the water on any globe you’ve ever seen in any elementary classroom. I walked along the cliff walk/road and looked over my shoulder (west) and the sky was that blue streaked with the color of a perfectly ripe cantaloupe. By the time I had reached the end of the road and was heading back, the sky had darkened to that of a papaya … and as I was reaching home it was a mouth-watering watermelon. It was truly breath-taking … and I realized it’s also time to get myself to the produce department!
Summers in the NW arrive at the same time, on the calendar, as everywhere else … but in temperature, we’re behind by a few weeks. And most of the time we just don’t get up to what most everyone would deem “Summer” temps. Today we were 69 … maybe this week we’ll hit 70 but I won’t hold my breath til it happens. We might have 2 days next week of 72 … wonders never cease! But, again, I won’t hold my breath and that’s HOT for us. And while Summer still means you need to wear a sweater or sweatshirt at any time of day and certainly in the evening … it can be extraordinarily lovely with a slight breeze wafting the island scents around … clean air, flowers, grasses, sea.
As I walked home tonight I heard nothing for a while – absolute silence. No water lapping on the shore below me … no birds or frogs peeping as it was too late and they were already abed. I passed by the house for sale with the 2 acres and perfect old barn and if I had $1.3 mil I’d buy it in a heartbeat. The house sits on the cliff/the barn is across the road … in the event of a catastrophe I’m glad they thought to keep the animals safe while the house would probably slide off the cliff! Further along there is a house – a super tiny cabin with Edison bulbs strung along the front porch. It’s half hidden behind an enormous cedar but I can see the rocking chairs and it looks like it belongs in the Appalachian Mountains somewhere. I can smell the honeysuckle that drapes over their old shed/garage long before I see the house. It’s perfect. It’s also next to a freshly mown hay meadow … and I walk very slowly past this house and the field … inhaling the perfumed air until I’m sure I’ll hyper-ventilate and pass out.
These are the times when I think I must have been a cow in a former life – it all just smells so wonderfully good! It’s all I can do to stop myself from running into that field and rolling around! There are enough weirdos on this island that maybe no one would think twice about it! Maybe I should keep it as an option while on a future walk.
As much as I say I want to leave here – it really is a beautiful place. And however cool our Summers may be … it’s a lovely spot for a late evening walk and a 21 bun salute to Summer.