Wednesday, April 04, 2007

What a Lovely Evening!


We've been working for quite a while, to clean up an old brush pile and some rotted logs around our old fire pit. Partly to get the space ready for our upcoming family reunion, and also so we can see back into our little woods from the house.

We've always known that there were deer wandering around our property, and occasionally saw them come into the back yard, but we've never seen them until they came out into the open. I've always wanted to see them just comfortably wandering around, at home in the woods.

We spent hours yesterday, tending the fire to burn off the old wood, raking and cleaning around the fire pit, and finally, after dinner time, the fire was down to one tidy pile and we took the last of our dinner wine out to relax and watch the last of it burn.

What a magical time! Evidently we were screened by the smoke from the fire, and the deer didn't see us as we sat quietly sipping in our chairs. Four separate times, deer walked into the woods, and just wandered around, not alarmed at all, but just nibbling and strolling through the trees. They seemed to see the fire, and didn't come closer than about 20 feet to us, but we could clearly see them as they strolled around our woods. Their tails never went up, they didn't hurry, but just wandered around, totally at home and relaxed. How nice!

Then, just as the sun was going down, the light turned magical. We were facing east, so the sun was behind us, and as it neared the horizon, it strengthened, finding its way under the trees in the area and lighting the scene before us with a rosey glow! Beautiful! Each tree was highlighted by this rich pinkish light, and the back sides of the trees were in shadow! It was like everything, for that moment, had crisp, clear edges and my fingers itched for a paintbrush and canvas to try to capture it. Of course, I've never tried painting, so wouldn't have done justice to the scene at all, but I really wanted to try.

What a very special time and place we live in!

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