Living Room

I love Saturday mornings here on the farm.  I rise with the sun, instead of the clock, stumble my way through the kitchen to the living room, which is so aptly named.

We do not have a parlor, nor do we have a formal dining room.  Neither fits into our lives.  We have a living room and it certainly is lived-in.



Meador Home, Forrest County, MS
http://misspreservation.com/2010/12/31/national-register-2010-part-2/



Our living room is in the "dog trot" between a sleeping area and the kitchen/master suite.  When settlers would move into a new area, they would build a one-room cabin.  As their fortunes improved, they could add separate rooms.  As their fortunes improved further, they might, if they were in a warm climate, cover the area between those rooms to create what we would call a breezeway, but they would call the trot.  Eventually, they would enclose the trot for a living area.  Which brings me back to Saturday morning on the farm.


"Chicken" or sharp-shinned hawk
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sharp-shinned_Hawk/id/ac

 As I passed the kitchen door this morning, a chicken hawk took wing and alighted on the cross-member of the martin house pole.  My cousin and neighbor has seen it a few times, but this was my first sighting.

Red-tailed Hawk
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id/ac

Later this afternoon, a red-tail hawk will sit near the sedge grass, helping to control the field mice which are so plentiful, before he skims along the tops of the grass, darting occasionally into the russet blades for a snack.

Killdeer
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Killdeer/id/ac

Because of the warm weather, the foolish killdeer have returned early.  Every year they build a "nest" (an indention in the sand) in the bare rocks of the driveway, and we mark it off and drive around it until the wildlife harvests the eggs or the next silly generation hatches.



Eastern phoebe
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Phoebe/id/ac

 The aggravating phoebe has returned, too.  It likes to perch outside my bedroom window early on Saturdays and announce its presence with a high-pitched, "Fee-bee," over and over again.



Eastern meadowlark
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Meadowlark/id/ac

 The meadowlark had rejoined us.  I heard one last week, but today's cold should have driven them back into hiding.

It occurs to me that I didn't hear these things, notice these things, in the city.  There was a constant roar of traffic, of sirens, of people.

Here, there is the conversation of the birds. 

Here, there is the whisper of the pines--yes, they do whisper. 

Here, there is the clatter of dry leaves against the frozen branch. 

Here, there is the rustle of the sedge grass as the wind stirs it.

Here, there is time and space for thought and creativity and inspiration.

Here, surrounded, swaddled, by it all, is me.

And I am at peace.

Foggy Summer Morning