Day 3 of 21
It’s been cold here today. It sleeted or snowed or something for a little bit earlier. I had to wear a coat and hat on our walk with the dogs today. Thankfully, we just have our cold-hardy vegetables in the ground, but I’m worried about my flower pots. Maybe I should bring them in. I had better.
It was a lovely day overall though. I am in love with Maine in the late spring.
When I first moved to Maine, my officemate at the university told me, when I was complaining about Maine winters, to “just wait” that the springs and summers were so beautiful that it would make the long winters worth it. I told him I thought that was just because the winters were so terrible that, by comparison, everybody thinks the springs and summers are awesome.
And then May came, and I understood.
There are apple blossoms literally everywhere, in the trees, floating across country roads, on the cars in town. The greens are so vibrant. We have so many magnificent trees here in Maine that it feels a little wild, like Maine still keeps some of its wildness and just will not be tamed by humans.
It’s beautiful here.
On our walk today, I took pictures of some of the apple and pear blossoms, and when I got home, I got this picture of Rooster under one of our pear trees that is maybe my favorite picture of him. Isn’t he so regal? He has a regal personality, and the coolest thing is that, after all of these years, he trusts me. He is like me and trusts almost no one. I rarely “show my soul.” Rooster is the same.
He also worries like me. Today, Ron was trying to cut down an infested branch in our neighbor’s tree. He was up way too high on the ladder, and I was holding it but was very scared. It was not a wise thing to be doing, and Rooster was letting Ron know. He kept clucking at him the way he does when he’s trying to tell the flock to behave better, to be safer.
I told Ron that Rooster is my people. Ron laughed and agreed. I am so glad Rooster is still here. He’s so old, but he seems determined to hang in there. I am grateful to have him.
Ruby is doing well at Day 3 of her journey. Every day, I feed her some breakfast scraps because she’s so devoted to her eggs that she won’t get up to eat and drink much. I’ll have to write more about that tomorrow, but I made her eat a little, though was not able to get her to drink. I’ll try again in the morning. I did pull her out of her crate to get her to walk around a little because I haven’t seen her off the eggs for two days. She squawked about it and went right back to her eggs, but at least she moved around a little.
PS I just have to add one more sweet Rooster story. If he hears you sneeze, he makes this worried sound and checks on you. Every_single_time.
Farmer-ish 