A Good Thing

hay in barn

I always feel pleased after a delivery from our hay supplier, when the empty hay aisle is filled with sweet smelling green bales. We buy from a supplier who stacks the hay for us. The guys who delivered it this time were new and inclined to whimper when I insisted that ninety bales of hay had always fit before. The hay has be stacked carefully so we can still get through the doors in the back of the stalls to feed the horses.

Fox Run Park

Fox Run Park
For years I’ve been driving by the entrances to Fox Run Park, which is about five miles due east of where I live, thinking that I ought to check it out one day. I stopped this afternoon, and found a little gem of a park. In this photo, Pikes Peak is framed by trees across an expanse of ornamental water. Along the trail I walked, the trees have been thinned so that the woods seem spacious with very little understory. Since the main species is Ponderosa pine, there is a very faint smell of vanilla, unlike the strong pine scents of the forests I remember from the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Cottonwood Creek

Cottonwood Creek
Sunday, while my mother was at Mass, I took a walk along Cottonwood Creek. This shot points to where I imagine Pikes Peak would be if it weren’t for the clouds.

Zinnia

Zinnia
Most of the zinnias that I planted didn’t survive, but the hardiest ones were over-achievers, with huge blooms that practically assault the eye.