![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judifilksign I rode fairly soon after supper tonight, and I'm glad I did because it rained after my ride.
I took things very slowly. I passed by the usual neighbor dogs, and they were all lazing about their yards, and none of them deigned to even notice me, much less bark.
Today, all of the pink ladies in all of the yards, including my own, decided to bloom their delicate flowers. An unexpected delight! I found my eyes getting teary at their beauty; probably because I've been pretty emotional all day.
The sun was setting, so it was the light that I got used to being in around 8:30 back in June. Along the path in the sunbeams, columns of little flying insects swarmed. It was like looking at the way cartoons and computers animate poison gas clouds. They swirled up in slow, undulating spirals, golden specks flashing in the sun. I half expected little cartoon eyes to leer out at me...
If there was a bit of shadow, one could ride around them. I was going so slowly, I was wobbly, and then they'd mist around me and not land or get in my eyes or mouth.
The dragonflies zoomed in and out of these clouds, creating doughnut holes briefly as the little insects flinched away. Swallows dove down again and again across the path, and the little brown birds (sparrows, I guess), and the buntings flashing brightly blue through the sunbeams, beaks open. There were dozens of birds swooping, nearly in formation, like fighter planes diving in for a strafing run, one after the other after the other.
I rode to the second road, and I noted the little pond was completely gone, despite last night's rain. A heron flew low and slow parallel to the path, its white feathers gleaming golden in the sun's setting rays. I almost kept up with it, but stopped at the road while it flew on.
The sun had set enough for my trip back that all of the flying bugs were gone, as if they'd never been, and the birds were singing happily in the trees. I did not hear the cicadas tonight for the first time in a long, long time. Along the farmer's fields, growing up from where the wheat was, I saw a tall, bushy, dark purple flower in tufty stalks. Not clover, I could see that too, but dark purple, the same color as violets. I have no idea what they are, except pretty.
On the way back, a trio of pre-teen boys, all bare-headed, approached me on their dirt bikes. The lead boy yelled as he approached me, "You look stupid wearing that helmet!"
Just as he was passing, I retorted, "Better to look stupid than be stupid!"
The second boy passing laughed, and taunted the first, "Dude, she just totally called you stupid!"
The third boy grinned at me as he passed, and said, "She just totally called us all stupid, and she's totally right about you two!"
All the horses I pass on this route were near the fences near the road, and they were so pretty, and ignored me completely.
When I pulled up into my drive, I could see lightning from the north moving south towards us, and dark clouds starting to pile up on the horizon in the distance. I ended up chatting with my neighbor about her new horses and house projects, and she'd forgotten their dinner cooking on their stove, until her boys came out of the sliding glass doors in a billow of smoke. Oops.
"I didn't want no hamburgers anyway," said the elder teen. "I'll make us all some grilled cheese sandwiches."
I came in to find my darling husband worried about me because I'd stayed out so long. I think the ride was good for me, and eased a bit of the ache in my chest, and strain behind my eyes.
I took things very slowly. I passed by the usual neighbor dogs, and they were all lazing about their yards, and none of them deigned to even notice me, much less bark.
Today, all of the pink ladies in all of the yards, including my own, decided to bloom their delicate flowers. An unexpected delight! I found my eyes getting teary at their beauty; probably because I've been pretty emotional all day.
The sun was setting, so it was the light that I got used to being in around 8:30 back in June. Along the path in the sunbeams, columns of little flying insects swarmed. It was like looking at the way cartoons and computers animate poison gas clouds. They swirled up in slow, undulating spirals, golden specks flashing in the sun. I half expected little cartoon eyes to leer out at me...
If there was a bit of shadow, one could ride around them. I was going so slowly, I was wobbly, and then they'd mist around me and not land or get in my eyes or mouth.
The dragonflies zoomed in and out of these clouds, creating doughnut holes briefly as the little insects flinched away. Swallows dove down again and again across the path, and the little brown birds (sparrows, I guess), and the buntings flashing brightly blue through the sunbeams, beaks open. There were dozens of birds swooping, nearly in formation, like fighter planes diving in for a strafing run, one after the other after the other.
I rode to the second road, and I noted the little pond was completely gone, despite last night's rain. A heron flew low and slow parallel to the path, its white feathers gleaming golden in the sun's setting rays. I almost kept up with it, but stopped at the road while it flew on.
The sun had set enough for my trip back that all of the flying bugs were gone, as if they'd never been, and the birds were singing happily in the trees. I did not hear the cicadas tonight for the first time in a long, long time. Along the farmer's fields, growing up from where the wheat was, I saw a tall, bushy, dark purple flower in tufty stalks. Not clover, I could see that too, but dark purple, the same color as violets. I have no idea what they are, except pretty.
On the way back, a trio of pre-teen boys, all bare-headed, approached me on their dirt bikes. The lead boy yelled as he approached me, "You look stupid wearing that helmet!"
Just as he was passing, I retorted, "Better to look stupid than be stupid!"
The second boy passing laughed, and taunted the first, "Dude, she just totally called you stupid!"
The third boy grinned at me as he passed, and said, "She just totally called us all stupid, and she's totally right about you two!"
All the horses I pass on this route were near the fences near the road, and they were so pretty, and ignored me completely.
When I pulled up into my drive, I could see lightning from the north moving south towards us, and dark clouds starting to pile up on the horizon in the distance. I ended up chatting with my neighbor about her new horses and house projects, and she'd forgotten their dinner cooking on their stove, until her boys came out of the sliding glass doors in a billow of smoke. Oops.
"I didn't want no hamburgers anyway," said the elder teen. "I'll make us all some grilled cheese sandwiches."
I came in to find my darling husband worried about me because I'd stayed out so long. I think the ride was good for me, and eased a bit of the ache in my chest, and strain behind my eyes.
