a few prosaic days

Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze —

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #123)

After a few muggy, rainy days it felt wonderful to get out for an autumn walk in good weather. It was only in the 40s Friday so we wore our winter coats and headed for Sheep Farm. I realized we had been here in September 2021 and November 2020 but never in October. Fall is in full swing now here. We started down the yellow trail.

10.28.22 ~ Sheep Farm
glacial erratic viewed from the yellow trail
new trail markers on the trees

There were so many leaves on the trail we made good use of the new trail markers to stay on track. Love walking on dry, crunchy leaves…

leaves, moss and lichen on a glacial erratic
waterfall in Fort Hill Brook
amazing root system

The drought seems to be over (or almost over) judging by the water flowing in the brook. The drought map for Connecticut puts us on the line between “none” and “abnormally dry.” We decided to cross the footbridge over the brook and get another view of the waterfall.

waterfall viewed from other side of the brook
the same root system viewed from the other side of the brook
footbridge and huge tree with its amazing roots

The we turned around, heading up the hill and branching off onto the red trail.

golden yellow and burnt orange
other side of glacial erratic viewed from the red trail
tree with leaves in shades of green, rusty orange and brick red

On our way back to the car we encountered a very large group of mothers and children of all ages. They just kept coming and coming and the air was filled with their happy, excited voices. I wondered if they were all being homeschooled. When we got back to the parking lot we laughed because when we had arrived earlier ours had been the only car parked. Now there were a dozen (we counted!) SUVs surrounding us. Can you tell which car is ours? They sure gave us plenty of elbow room!

30 thoughts on “a few prosaic days”

    1. Thank you, Eliza. It was a heartwarming scene, so many well-behaved kids greeting us as they passed with friendly hellos and good mornings. 🙂

  1. Oh I feel free and happy following you on this trail today. The little beautiful nuances in the photos – all allowing me to see beauty everywhere
    I miss my car only for this reason – to go somewhere else, like this place

    1. I’m so happy you enjoyed this walk, Leelah. I don’t drive anymore and often wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have Tim to drive me to all these wonderful places. (Most of them aren’t that far away, but too far to walk to.) It’s a big disadvantage to living in the city…

  2. A beautiful walk, Barbara. I’ve just returned from a trip to Shenandoah National Park and the Virginia countryside. So nice to see the fall colors after several years!

    1. Thank you, Anna. We made a trip to Shenandoah National Park 13 years ago — the scenery was breathtaking in June, I can imagine how spectacular it was for you in the autumn!

  3. Beautiful selection of photos. The roots on the tree is wild, wicked and has a bit of a Halloween twist to it.

    Good thing you two beat the crowd. 😉 The energy in the air may have lifted you up into good moods.

    1. Thank you, TD. I was standing on those roots to take some waterfall pictures when I suddenly noticed them and found them to be more interesting than the waterfall. They do look a little magical, maybe even spooky. Later I noticed how much bigger the trunk of that tree is than all the other trees around it.

    1. I don’t have a subscription to The New York Times so I haven’t read that article but I have read several others and do get the museum’s newsletter. Tim & I visited the homes a number of years ago. I remember Tim was fascinated by the hinges on the doors and kept lagging behind the group, much to the annoyance of the docent showing us around. It was exciting for me to see her little desk in front of her bedroom window and to imagine her sitting there, writing. When we were in the gift shop a woman approached me and told me she thought I looked like Emily, except I didn’t have the red hair. I’d love to go again, but traveling that far is very problematic these days. It’s a two hour trip from here. Maybe if you come for a visit and I have a “good” day we could try it. 🙂

  4. The weather looked perfect for your walk. I like the photo of leaves, moss and lichen on a glacial erratic. The color meld together like they were meant to be– which of course they were.

    1. Thank you, Ally. I liked that photo, too, it was as if an artist had arranged the colors and textures into a pleasing frame for me. The weather was definitely picture perfect that day!

    1. Happy to have you along for the walk, Donna! It’s funny how we’ve been to this spot a few times and I never really noticed those roots before. Makes me wonder what else I miss!

  5. A beautiful walk to savor as you know what is down the pipeline unfortunately. As we discussed before, there is always something special about sun hitting the leaves, backlighting them and causing dainty shadows. It makes pretty images – that is for sure. I like your poem as well Barbara – it is perfectly coordinated to your post as usual. Those glacial erratics sure are large.

    1. I can’t seem to get enough of those leaf in the sunlight pictures! We do have some huge glacial erratics around here. They’re like sunsets to me, no two are the same and I never get tired of taking pictures of them. 🙂 They seem like relics from the deep past and witnesses to endless changes over eons of time. Even older than ancient trees.

      1. It’s incredible to imagine the glacial erratics’ past, how they remained where they landed all these years. Old trees are amazing like that as well. I visited a very old cemetery a few years ago. I had gone to Oakwood Cemetery in Wyandotte as a teenager in a sketching class I took for free through my City. We visited that cemetery and did etchings from the tombstones and sketches of the cemetery.

        Anyway, I went back 50 years later and did a post on the tombstones and some of the old trees that were listing and twisted and bending close to the ground. The cemetery, established in 1869, was a bit unkempt as we had had a spate of rainy days and the City of Wyandotte doesn’t maintain the cemetery, only volunteers, many of them descendants of some Civil War soldiers buried there, do the work. So the grass was quite high and it looked like some abandoned place with the trees, even a few rambling roses climbing on the iron fence … quite a trek that was.

        I know what you mean – a pretty leaf is one thing, but in the sun shining through it is twice as pretty. I decided to just do the leaf reflections on the water for my Monday post, though I didn’t lose power and had the generator repaired … I thought it would be better to try and catch up here, though I stepped away for over two hours to be outside with the tech – it got to 73 degrees here today. Just amazing.

        1. Do you have the link to your post on Oakwood Cemetery? I’m thinking it’s getting to be that time of year when visiting cemeteries is more fun with no mosquitoes. 🙂 Cemeteries can often have the most amazing old trees. It’s been warm here, too, and the dew point is uncomfortably high. Ugh. But the cool crisp air should be coming back tomorrow…

          1. Yes I do have the link Barbara – I will send a separate comment. It was a great little tour. I went to another cemetery last year as it approached the spooky season. It is even smaller – very old. I will send that link too.
            We have a few more beautiful days, then this weekend we have a wintry mix. Not looking forward to that. I broke down and spent the entire day Sunday trying to organize the house … I put that extra hour we got to good us and worked from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. – I should have waited for this weekend. But you never know with the weather these days.

          2. Thank you for the links, Linda. I will be visiting soon. We should be getting the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole on Friday and Saturday. I don’t think your wintry mix will make it here. We were supposed to get our first freeze last night but the temperature didn’t quite make it there by this morning. Well done with the organizing! I’m still working my through my boxes…

          3. You’re welcome Barbara. they were pretty easy to find … some searches on my blog are impossible and have a lot of hits, but this one I could winnow down pretty quickly. Well, it’s great you won’t get that wintry mix, but the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole won’t be fun either, but a good incentive to keep working your way through your boxes.

          4. No, it won’t be fun. My favorite weatherman said it will be very muggy when we wake up Friday morning — ugh. Don’t like working when I feel so clammy but will try to make the best use of the rainy days.

          5. I wish I’d taken advantage of last Sunday’s beautiful weather instead of staying inside, but I was motivated as we were having great weather for each weekday. November weather you just don’t know. I hope you don’t get hit badly with Nicole tomorrow.

          6. November is unpredictable. The remnants of Nicole are here now. Woke up to a temperature of 70° and a dewpoint of 66°. Ugh. Wind speed 40+ mph. Not too bad and it should be followed by a cold snap and dry air this afternoon.

          7. Yes, it is … look at this last week. For us, just 48 hours ago we had above-average temps (74) and today we had below-average temps (34) and snowing like crazy. That’s high wind speeds – hope you don’t lose power Barbara.

  6. A lovely walk, and so nice you could enjoy it alone before the families arrived! Great that the children all got a walk in the fresh air and woods too though. 😃

    1. Thank you, Cathy! The timing worked out perfectly for all of us. 😃 It was nice seeing all the little ones happy to be frolicking in the woods.

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