Over the last couple of days I've been thinking about a lot of things. One of my thoughts has been about fall allergies. I can't help but think about it thanks to my sinuses and itchy skin. But, there are perks to this time of year. I love the temps, I love how the dogs act like puppies again and I enjoy going out into the recently harvested corn field and find the leftover ears of corn. We glean them for our chickens and they LOVE corn. We can't cover the 149 acres (I think that's the number), but the edges and corners within easy walking distance are prime areas for finding ears of corn just waiting to be enjoyed by the local wildlife. Typically, the edges of the field have the smallest or deformed ears of corn. This year we have found a fair amount of that, but we also found some huge, even foot long ears. When they were harvesting the other day our free range chickens quickly discovered the bounty and went to town on pigging out. This is not just the season for being thankful for human blessings. There are plenty of blessings for the critters to enjoy too. Our squirrels love the corn. They store the black walnuts for the winter. We have 13 producing walnut trees. It gets difficult to walk through the yard because there are so many walnuts. I have rolled my ankle more than once. The funny thing is that running chickens stepping on a walnut can land on their butts too. But, I digress. It's really easy to get bogged down and focus on what we don't have and wish we could get. I'm just in the frame of mind to see what I do have and the beauty of this season makes it easy. I just wish the chickens would eat walnuts. The squirrels can't keep up.
Yesterday evening my husband and I were scouring another corner when we were joined by four young boys. We had our dogs Scooter, Gretchen and our son's dog Todd with us. The boys wanted to know if Gretchen is a wolf (little kids often think that), what were we doing, why were we doing it, and many more questions. It took just moments until they were picking up corn and helping us out without us asking. We found out their ages are 6,7, 9 and 10. We talked to them about school, reading books, doing homework and more. When we had our load of corn the oldest boy, just ten years old shook my husband's hand and then mine and looked us in the eye when he did it. What great kids! As we walked home we discussed this meeting. My husband said it is interesting how the older we get the less open we are and these boys haven't learned to isolate themselves like so many do as they get to the teen years and older. They are still innocent and open to meeting people. They expect people to be kind to them. I hope they keep that innocence for as long as possible. Their friendliness, curious minds, energy, happiness and the ability to just live in the moment was so refreshing. Just thinking about it makes me happy.
One more thing to share: the chickens are so thrilled with this weather and the snacks that they gave us 15 eggs yesterday. I think that's the most we've ever gotten! And the bounty continues.
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