It's 10:30am and I've made coffee, read the Times, perused the Washington Post, weeded my garden, marveled at my designer pumpkins, got one egg from the chickens and picked blackberries. Well, mostly ate blackberries. All the fat, big, juicy ripe ones top a thorny bramble where birds gobble away at them. Hopping about I try to get a purchase on a large stone. A few spikes in my hands with only crushed berries as reward. I give up and start to walk back along a different path. Voila! Forget the bowl; picking with one hand I stuff my mouth full of warm berries. Vision of a peach and berry pie evaporates with every luscious mouthful. Sated, I return with about 10 berries for the chickens.
Yesterday we went to Malbacco, a beautiful, clear river with a marble dust bottom, plenty of pools for swimming and mmany bubbling waterfalls. The morning was hot and dry in town but the verdant river vegetation kept us cool and shady. We lay on big, flat rocks, read, swam and ate our sandwiches with a gusto only found in proximity to water. Too quickly six hours had passed with the sighting of only one solitary hiker clambering over the giant river rocks. I tried catching tadpoles with their new, nubby legs, thinking they would be adolescent gawky. Naturalist I'm not; all escaped my myriad attempts at subterfuge.
Home and a simple meal of grilled quail, roasted potatoes and spicy arugala. Finished my mystery book, looked at the full moon and gave thanks for another extraordinary day.
