Our horse, Lily, escaped again. She was found about a mile away by one of our neighbors who knew her. Frank spoke to her from the driver’s seat of his pickup truck, which got her attention. Shortly after he pulled into our driveway, I stepped out on our porch to see her running up the road, in pursuit of Frank and his truck. She jumped the ditch, rather than taking the driveway and ran straight up to Frank and me standing in the driveway. She's more like a big swooshy-tailed dog than a horse. I'm thinking I need to get her a collar and ID tag. Although she knows where home is, she's Houdini-like when it comes to getting out of a fenced pasture.

Tonight, Dave and I went out to fix the fence, in hopes of limiting Lily’s escape routes. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening, so while Dave worked on strengthening the fence line with more posts, I took the opportunity to get to know our 10-acres better. As I walked into the wooded portion of our property, I was devastated to see that the previous owners had used the nearby woods as a dumping zone for all types of garbage, from old, glass bottles to a Ford pickup truck with a topper, but engine or transmission. Unfortunately, what is out there really needs to be cleaned up for the sake of Mother Nature and it is going to take a lot of work. We didn’t know about the mess until fall, when all the greenery died back with the colder weather.

As I walked, I could see several trails in the leaf litter where deer and other animals indigenous to our area, walk. It was a very peaceful walk. The ground was really soft in some areas, because this particular part of our property appears to be somewhat of a drainage for water and melting snow. Every few minutes, I would stop and listen, while looking around, in hopes of seeing some of our wilder neighbors. All I could hear was the wind whispering through the tops of the trees and nearby grasses, not that it was disappointing. I walked about 2/3rds of the way back, then, because it was getting darker, decided to hike up the hill. I came out at the west side of the pond, which also exists on our property. As I continued along the trail, I found a long stick and decided to see how deep the pond was off the end of a small dock along the shoreline. It’s not deep at all. I’d guess about three feet, max.

As I was standing on the dock, looking into the woods, I heard Dave call my name. He asked where I was and walked out to meet me. Together, we sat in the grass, east of the pond and watched the skyline as the crimson turned to pink and then a very dark grey. While sitting there, we listened to every sound of nature we could squeeze out of our immediate surroundings. Several of the sounds were made by little critters getting ready to burrow in for the night. Some were made by unknown birds, as they hurried to find a place for the night. What was most wonderful about this evening, though, was a flock of Canada geese, about 15-20, flying over our heads. As they approached, we listened to them talking back and forth between themselves. It seemed a good possibility they were headed for our pond, but as they neared, we saw that they were still too high to accomplish a water landing. Disappointed, Dave and I watched as they disappeared over the tree line, but quickly turned our attention to more and different sounds. A few seconds later, Dave nudged me and told me to look above the same sky line the geese had just gone over. Silently, we watched as the same flock returned, without a sound, and gracefully landed on the pond. It was perfect. I wished I’d had a camera, but I doubt anything man-made could capture the beauty God had created just for us and do it justice.

Dave and I sat there until the light in the sky was all but gone, which made it somewhat challenging to keep headed in the right direction. As we walked along the pond’s edge, Mother Nature continued her show. Unfortunately, our movement rattled the Canada geese and they decided it was better to move on. They took off as they landed, all one unit, accept this time, they were quite vocal about having to move.

As we rounded the far side of the pond, the moon was just coming up over the lake. As the sky lightened, a big yellow disc started climbing over the tree line to the east. It rose quickly and helped us find our way back to the west fence line and pasture area.

We must have done something right, because, as we approached our yard, Houdini, the big swooshy-tailed dog, (a.k.a.: Lily) greeted us immediately, asking quite clearly for scratches in all her favorite spots. Hopefully, we will awaken to find her safe and sound in our yard tomorrow, when we will, once again, begin working on keeping her within the confines of our property lines.