Crystal clear

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

What a joy it has been to see clear blue skies for the past two days! I had almost forgotten what the color blue looked like.

When I stepped outside for morning chores, I had to raise my hand to shade my eyes from the brightness overhead. I had grown accustomed to the past several weeks of gray days.

So I returned to the cabin, reached up to the rafter row of caps and selected one, pulled my hair up into a pony tail, set the cap securely on my head, and tugged the bill down low to cover my eyes and shade them from the brightness outside.

As I worked at doing the animal chores, I thought about how I have noticed that the days are definitely growing a bit longer now.

The morning seems to dawn shortly before 7 a.m., and it is still light outside after 6 p.m. I know this because the chickens are lingering longer in the yard before they return to their coop to roost, and with the longer daylight hours, they are definitely laying more eggs.

After chores, we decided to go for a walk along the creek. The water was running crystal clear. I could look below its surface and see the limestone shelf rocks, made up completely of 450 million year old fossils.

I knew that the water would be cold, but I took off my glove and reached down to pick up a palm- sized rock made up of segmented worms and sea shells. I dried it off against my jacket and placed it in my pants pocket.

As I walked, stepping over the perfectly clean creek side rocks, they clanked beneath my footsteps, sounding almost as though I was walking over china. I watched where I stepped, but I also kept an eye out for other particularly beautiful fossil rocks.

It occurred to me that the clear water seemed to magnify the ancient still life that lay just beneath the water's surface. No silt dulled my view.

The day passed quickly. Greg gathered firewood and split it by hand with the mall. The ground was still too muddy to get the tractor and the three-point hitch, hydraulic-driven, log splitter up to the wood shed.

I puttered about inside the cabin, mopping the floor and dusting. The sunlight that poured in through the windows had unveiled a fine layer of dust that had settled across every aspect of our inside world over the last several weeks. I even swept the layer of dog tracked mud from the porch and front steps.

And then the day was done.

We ate an early dinner and as Greg settled into his chair by the wood stove, I stepped outside to close up the chickens. It was dark. There was no moon in the sky, but the creek valley was lit up by star light.

I could clearly see my way out to the chicken coop. I raised and latched the ramp door securely in place. I could hear the girls inside gently chortling their good nights. I turned to walk back to the cabin and as I made my way up the hill I looked up at the night sky.

I stopped still in my tracks.

The entire sky seemed to shimmer, covered with countless bright stars. I craned my head back and looked up into the crystal clear deepness above.

Orion, the hunter, stood out boldly from a backdrop of millions of pinpoint lights. I traced the outline of his shoulders and belt, and could easily make out the sword that hung from his belt.

I looked up and gave him a wave. It had been quite a while since I had seen him striding so boldly across our creek valley world.

I smiled, "Good to see you, old friend!"

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.