Enjoying the Moment

Every year in February I wonder if spring will ever come. The pastures look terrible and the landscape just looks so dead. This year I was really beginning to wonder if the grass would come back and if spring would ever come. Usually our daffodils are in full bloom by the last week of February if not earlier. Today they finally began to bloom and what I consider to be my personal, official, sign of spring finally arrived!

The daffodils put a smile on my face every year

Our weather has continued to be so lovely, mid to upper 60's and sunshine, with an occasional day in the 70's. It rained for a couple of hours over night last night as I hoped it would. A nice, warm rain was exactly what the grass ordered and overnight the cool season grasses were appearing very green. The warm season grasses are still a few weeks away but it definitely looked and felt like spring on the farm today. The birds were singing, my water troughs all have grass pieces dribbled into them instead of hay pieces, and shedding hair is flying everywhere. Heaven.

Mina and Jo and Billy grazing in my back yard. It looked like someone had spray painted the grass to make it green overnight.

This afternoon I did something that is extremely rare for me. I sat on a bench in front of the barn. I just sat there not doing anything, and watched the horses in the pasture, watched the goats, watched The Don (the rooster), listened to the birds, and enjoyed the sunshine. This is such a rare occurrence it actually prompted Jason to come over and ask me what was wrong, I am always doing something, I don't ever just SIT. It was one of those moments when everything simply feels right in the world and you want to freeze time and treasure it. I have to admit that I never had those moments in corporate life, even as a CEO running my own successful company. There is something about being on a farm, surrounded by a menagerie of content animals and soaking up beautiful weather that speaks to a fundamental part of my being. I'm glad I took the time to soak it in and just be for a little while this afternoon.

Tomorrow is another farrier day. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain all morning, at least until noon. I'm thinking tomorrow won't be as perfect as today. However, since I had such a perfect day today I probably won't complain about being soaking wet . . . . . . . . much.

Apollo, Homer, Chance and Trigger in the afternoon sun

Levendi

Slinky

Dustin

Elfin

Chance, Homer and Apollo. If you look closely you will see that the only part of Homer (gray) that isn't solid mud is the bottom half of his head

Harmony and Cuffie

O'Reilly, Chili and Snappy

Sebastian

B-Rad

Winston and Alex with a perfect blue sky behind them

Lucky and Teddy were just hanging out

Alex and B-Rad

Faune and Sebastian