anniversaries of a farm girl's heart....

this morning dawned bright and beautiful through my farm house windows...

and yet it was filled with a familiar chill,

an ache and longing and thankfully, a comforting promise.

outside, the air is scented with a curious mix of mint, garlic and autumn...

and deep yellow leaves are beginning to show high up in the poplars.

Looking up at them, I'm always struck with how sights and sounds and

scent will bring back a day as clear and bright as if it were

yesterday...

It is the scent and sound of yellow leaves gently falling and hitting the earth.

running barefoot through deep green wet grass,

the scent of juniper wood smoke and apples hanging from an old tree...

crossing over

a ditch with clear water running fast,

singing and dancing underfoot

as if it never heard anything else that was happening

but it's laughter.

I cradle this anniversary of my heart and hold it close...

the unfathomable loss of a loved one on a day just like this...

On days like these I can still see and hear and smell each event of that day as it unfolded.

And somehow I am grateful for them. For he will never be forgotten as long as I can remember with scents and sights and colors of all the happy days before

that chilly sunshine filled autumn morning.

~~~

another anniversary of my heart this day, is that of our country's heart...

For farmers and ranchers here, the flag flying at your gate post or atop the combine, bale wagon,

barn or tractor is an everyday celebration.

not just brought out and hung up for

a special occasions such as 4th of July or Memorial Day or Flag Day...

You'll Always find it proudly hanging here...

~~

Not long after those terrible events took place in New York and Pennsylvania that chilly sunshine filled autumn morning

I happened to look up out my kitchen window while washing dishes to

see my Mt. Jefferson. Somehow just seeing him there each morning gives me solace

and peace to begin my day...

and I saw

this...

~on the left of the picture is a hay barn with the American Flag on it's side~

and my Mt. Jefferson watching over us all.

Our American Flag. Someone had made it of corrugated metal,

painted red, white and blue,

Someone, we still don't know who, and not the rancher who owns the barn,

put it up over night on the side of a huge hay barn

across our valley for all to see...the sight of it then clutched at our hearts and still does.

~~~

I hope you can see it there, on the left. If you were here you could see that it's very large...

and this morning as the sun came up and shone on this rancher's hay barn

it was filled with remembering, an ache

and a longing and somehow,

Thankfully,

a comforting promise...