Wednesday Reflections.

Fireweed is a blooming as are the bachelor buttons and the California poppies.   Hard to believe that June is almost over and that we'll be celebrating the Fourth of July in less than a week.  

This week also signals another milestone for Bill and me.  When we turn the calendar over the day after tomorrow, we'll be celebrating ten years here at the Lovestead. 

And, some of the same sounds I first heard ten years ago are making this decade of living in beautiful Selle seem like it started just yesterday.  

I couldn't get over all the new sounds we immediately noticed when we moved here, especially bulls bellering in pastures all around us.  

At the time, I believe that three bulls owned by three different farmers were hanging out with their cow herds in their respective fields. Fences did not keep far enough apart to make hate stares at each other, paw up a lot of dust and exchange a little bull. 

I never quite knew what set them off, but they must of conjured up some sort of disagreements or maybe just felt the need to demonstrate their macho.  Then, the bellering would begin.  

One of those first mornings when I woke up to the male bovine verbal competition, accented by Bullet, the fox terriers, constant barking over at Gary's place, I felt like I had truly come home. 

After all, in my mind bellering bulls and barking dogs sure beat the window rattling sound of lear jets powering through the sky or dozens of trains roaring over the tracks past our farm every day.  We lived between the railroad tracks and the airport. 

These new Selle sounds were pleasing to the ear of a dirt-road girl who had finally returned to dirt-road living after several years of watching the countryside at our former farm slowly giving way to industrialville. 

Everything was wonderful ten years ago, even though it was a lot of work packing up and moving 30 years of stuff.  When we came to this new farm, we had help from our niece and nephew, Laura and Sefo.  

The image of their tent over by the southwest flower bed where they and their triplets slept still pops in to my mind from time to time.  We worked hard but had fun too, celebrating this new chapter of our lives. 

We also faced a healthy dose of must-do fix-it projects that would keep us pretty darned busy those first few years.  Now, the mere maintenance of the place keeps us pretty busy, and that is a good thing.  

Over the years, I've repeated numerous times to anyone who'll listen that I'm still pinching myself.  That hasn't changed. 

And, as we move on to that anniversary date of the day we dubbed this place the Lovestead, I'll still keep pinching and probably will for years to come, especially every time I hear Bert Wood's bull bellering on a summer day in the pasture to our north. 

It's a good life, and it's fun remembering those days when we had the good fortune of moving back to the country. 

Happy Wednesday.