This is the week when, beyond the preserve perimeter and the latch of the gate, the yellow buses begin to roll with the new school year. In the heavy, humid morning air — doesn’t seem to matter if the temperature is high or low — there are 1/2 mile shouts of “Bus!” from siblings who are already out the front door to another sibling who is in the throes of mid-adolescent groom.
This week isn’t just an adjustment for school-age children and their families, or drivers who must adjust their drive to work because of reactivated bus traffic. The grasses and lone trees at roads side rustles this time of year with ground birds, pre-teen fox kits, raccoon, shrews, voles and heat-seeking butterflies who, up to Sunday night, had to contend with one schedule of human activity and now must adjust to another noise and traffic level as they ready for colder weather or a move to warmer climate.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s back-to-school for all creatures great and small.
In the cool of the morning, all are active, seeking warm pools of breaking sun in the lee of open doors and east faces. Pears and volunteer apples glow amongst leaves made more green by contrast with the blue a.m. sky.
Inside the fence and tree line, new rooster Antonio and established cock-of-the-walk Freckles seem to have established a hierarchy, at least as far as the flock is concerned, although, based on past experience, they will always try to outcrow each other.
No one messes with the will of Bob, except for one white rabbit.
As the late summer days heat, the chickens bury themselves in dust bowls or sprawl on the decks with the goats. All the goats, that is except for Mister Bill, who digs deeper and deeper pits in the driveway gravel to escape the heat/cold/rain/wind/gnats, or just because.
Luckily, there’s field stone to fill and an active stone quarry two miles north, and pleasant company to make the effort all the more worthwhile.
Please, as you yield for the school bus, have a care for the the roadside as well.
Plastic buckets and pails of concrete were stirred with great big spoons and paddles to make steppers and then decorated with everything from glass beads to shells and aquarium stone. More concrete was pressed over leaves arranged on sand mounds to create leaf bowls.
There were also marbles, glass pebbles, press letters and crockery bits with which to ornament the finished containers, if the students so chose. Unbeknownst to the group, these sparklies had been perused on Wednesday night by a couple of juvenile raccoons. I heard them chattering from next door as I was putting the chickens to bed.
