Morning Walk at Holy Cross Abbey

I was a little surprised to find myself the first one awake on Sunday morning. While it's typical for me to awake before many of my peers, the folks in Berryville were a more mature group and I expected many to be early risers. And I think maybe they were ... it's just that I still got up before them. I missed sunrise proper, but the light outside beckoned, so off I went on a walk about.

Farms: where trucks go to die.
I loved walking the fields, avoiding cow shit and keeping a respectful distance from the cows themselves. If I got too close they'd all look at me in a way that creeped me out. I imagined walking up to them and then having them all stampede me to death.
Thistle?
Giant mushroom.
Pretty pretty.
This was just one of four or five junked trucks in one field. I took a photo of all of them on my phone, but that will be for another 'phone photo round up.'

This truck lost its guts and hood. A shell of its former self.

I love when the phrase 'rolling hills' really makes sense.

Nuts?

Yellow bird flying away from its friend.
Itty bitty mushrooms. Hallucinogenic? Dunno.
Farms: where tires roll their last breath. What?



Here is a photo of the triplet calves. I petted them because they were too tired to bother running away/hadn't yet learned that they don't want humans touching them.

Berryville Sunset and Chicken

After my river walk I returned to the house and sat with H. and Dad on the porch for a while. Then H.'s friends M. and P. arrived and also sat outside for some time. I again meandered away and talked with some friends/employees of the farmer, who pointed out that the baby cows (also known as calves) I noted in a pen near the house were all from the same mother. Triplets! This was, according to them, nearly unheard of. I wish that I had managed to get a good photograph, but I didn't. So instead you'll just have to deal with sunset photos.

I think sepia toning many of these images is the right move.
This is not sepia toned. It's just sunset.

This, however, is sepia toned.
Eventually H.'s brother and his wife arrived after a long journey from Athens, Georgia. We ate in the Spanish style. Ie. late. Here is H.'s brother doing an excellent job of carving up a roasted chicken that I had nothing to do with making.
The finished product.
And scene. It was a nice evening full of laughter and stories of muggings and kidnappings and robberies and quick engagements and flights to Kenya and the like. I guess most all of us eventually have them.

Farmer's Market, Juice and Nails

After the ramen we went to the Union Square Farmer's Market. I picked up two bunches of radishes...delightfully spicy, it turns out.
Appreciated the look of these onions.
And stocked up on tomatoes, among other things.
Then we returned to Brooklyn and got our nails did. This included my first ever pedicure, but there's not proof of that really. I think the reason that many women in my life are so in love with pedicures is that their feet are a tougher sort than mine, far more in need of pampering and smoothing. My feet, however, are rather dainty creatures...I don't stuff them into high heels often enough that I have any real system of callouses, and my feet blister more than anything else no matter what. My point being that while I liked my pedicure, I didn't exactly understand what the big deal was. Afterwards I had a carrot beet juice at BeQu.
I've been rocking the golden nails for some and decided to give silver a shot. L. went with a green. I like the silver well enough, but gold is nicer - at least for my fingers. Though I would consider silver toes and a burgundy set of fingernails. Blah, blah blah.

Country Drive

After breakfast A. and I made a trip to the local Amish produce center...and another farmstand...in order to get a few things for the planned dinner. We drove down country roads laden with pretty. It was overwhelming. The problem with pretty places is that there are so many things to sigh over and want a piece of, but, you can't take pretty home with you. What? We drove past signs for towns with names like Ovid and Covert.



I had a moment where I thought to myself that maybe it was in this area I should buy myself my little hermit house and while away the rest of my days in contented misanthropy...but then I remembered how crazy the winters must be up this far...and my curmudgeonly temperament lessened considerably. What?
So many old barns. A. and I discussed our mutual interest in living in a barn. I wondered whether a barn that has gotten to this point of dilapidation can be renovated.
At the Amish produce place/farm there were chickens! Fancy fancy chickens! It was out of control how fancy they were. It was also difficult to take photographs of them because many of them (including the non-chicken peacock) were enjoying the shade of the coop, and the mesh keeping them enclosed was an awkward size for the camera lens.
I think if I were to get a tattoo, it might be of a beautiful chicken.

We purchased basil, raspberries, bacon and maybe something else. They did not, however, have fresh corn.


Moo cows!
Because the Amish didn't have fresh corn, we went to the other favorite produce spot of A.'s family. There were these lovely arrangements of freshly cut flowers that I just couldn't get enough of looking at.

And there you have it, that was our drive to get veggies.