Uphill After a Long Absence

I lured Ox up the mountain on the pretext that we should take advantage of the hurricane’s tail to fly a kite.  When we got up to the field, however, the field had not been mowed;  flying a kite risked our mowing down blooming milkweed and also twisting our ankles.  “We could walk up our mountain a little way,” I said, “When we get half-way to tired we’ll walk back to the car.”

We own the mountain by virtue of our love for it.  The field at the bottom of the hill was full of pink globes of flowering milkweed.  The air felt delicious on our arms and face; it was redolent with milkweed's strong scent.  Milkweed on the mountain was only half as tall as the garden's milkweed grown from the seeds from here, because of the richer garden soil.  The monarch butterfly has not come yet, here or in the garden, but fritillaries fluttered around the milkweed, and bumblebees visited each flower.  The bergamot had begun to bloom, its lavender-colored spiky flower heads dotting the landscape.   White yarrow was still in bloom, and bedstraw.  Occasional Queen Anne’s lace flowers grew larger and whiter than they do down below.

We walked up the Appalachian Trail as far as the gravel road and turned left up the road.  Birds sang everywhere, goldfinches by their song.  A large rabbit darted out of the ferns and then back into them.  Earlier in the season I saw small bunnies, fodder for other animals on the mountain.  This rabbit was a survivor.

We walked as far as the first English oak tree in the middle of a meadow.  I had thought the tree would be dead by now, it was so covered with poison ivy last year.  It was fully leafed and looked healthy.  The folded mountains to the south were a true ultramarine blue, muted by the atmosphere.  The trip down the hill was as delightful to all the senses as the trip up had been.