Self Portrait 608

Tree

Ok, I know a mouse that has chided me for me revealing photos, but since today was my last day at the farm, and walking the bucks, I could not resist.

A late night left me riding the snooze button and all us of draggin rears this am. As it was, I had to scrounge for a camisole to throw on underneath a big t prior to work this am. Never mind digging out the sundress, and good thing, as the story will show later.

R and I were solo on the bucks again today. R said he didn't mind cleaning while I walked, and I grabbed my bag and digi, tobacco, rake, clippers, and a mason jar of cold coffee for the trek out to the back meadow.

The bucks slowly worked their way down the woods road, Zeuss in the lead as usual. Once they broke clear of the field, he kept going, past the solo boulder on the rise of the field, and down, down, down to the edge of the woods, where I understand yet another field lies after another woods walk.

I have never had the bucks so far-having heard tales of the day they got away from boss and came out of the woods two towns over....Not on my watch, thank you very much.

As we passed the boulder, I laid tools and bag aside, and followed through the meadow, snapping wildflowers as I went. Red Clover, Blue vetch, daisies, and what I call hawkweed and Indian paintbrush. Handful after handful, with the intent of braiding a flower crown.

The bucks paused down at the end of the field, and I sat a distance away, and began to make sense of the stems, preparing to braid. By the time I got that far, several stampeeded back towards me, breaking left and right while I sat with my blossoms, ready to roll to the side if needed.

Then theybroke for the other woods, where they are not allowed, but they seemed to know I was watching and stayed just in range, so I bundled the flowers into two groups and headed back for the rock, hoping to draw them to the other end of the field.

They stayed below, spread out in two groups. I decided I would experiment a bit with the timer on the cam-I have been enjoying that challenge-10 seconds to photo.

Not having a tripod, I use whatever is handy, in this case the rock being the only option. Given the lay of the land, if I had been in correct position to the sun, my knees might have been in the photo. I needed to be downhill, which threw the light this way.

Two snaps and I decided it was time to cut the brush to bring back for the bucklings, so I tucked my T behind my belt to throw back on for when R came to collect the bucks, and headed for the stone wall with the clippers.

I saw some nice beech, so I lopped a few chunks. I was further out than the car could reach, so I thought I would drag it to the woods road for picking up later. Halfway there, the bucks realized I was dragging brush, and R appeared to collect them.

No chance to throw the T back on-here I was, clutching beech limbs over my head and sprinting through the meadow, simultaneously avoiding two or three bucks jostling for a bite.

R came to the rescue and held them at bay while I stashed the brush up on some swamp willow-out of site, out of mind.

Then I threw my t-shirt back on. ;)

I was glad I passed on the sundress-that would have been a good one for you-tube. Hehehe.

And the closing shot really happened-one of the bucks thought I had gathered that nice bouquet for him and chomped half it it to the stems in my fist on the walk back, when I wasn't paying attention :D