A pageant of beasts.
Animals seem to be abounding lately.
Yesterday afternoon, on my drive home I watched a bald eagle and a hawk swoop and tumble as they heckled each other, talons out and wings akimbo. The territorial imperative on broad display.
In the morning, wild turkeys quibbling down in the meadow. Ravens and magpies cartwheeling about in the trees. Chestnut-brown horses cavorting in green paddocks with loose manes flying. And always the leaping deer.
I think a lot of the ranches around here are 'bulling' the herds this time of year; many of the pastures I pass by are now occupied, in addition to the mellow cows and knobbly-legged calves, by weighty great bulls. These are massive beasts with horned heads slung low on thick muscled necks as broad as their shoulders, and huge testicles each bigger than a man's fist hanging down to their knees. They move ponderously slow with their mighty weight. It makes me think of Cu Chulainn's Brown Bull of Cuailnge, a beast so potent that wars were fought over it, and the earth shook with its every thunderous hoof-fall.
It seems we will have a couple of goats before long.
In other news, the goldfields are blooming, and it looks like someone has carelessly splashed yellow paint all over the meadows between the creek and the road.
Yesterday afternoon, on my drive home I watched a bald eagle and a hawk swoop and tumble as they heckled each other, talons out and wings akimbo. The territorial imperative on broad display.
In the morning, wild turkeys quibbling down in the meadow. Ravens and magpies cartwheeling about in the trees. Chestnut-brown horses cavorting in green paddocks with loose manes flying. And always the leaping deer.
I think a lot of the ranches around here are 'bulling' the herds this time of year; many of the pastures I pass by are now occupied, in addition to the mellow cows and knobbly-legged calves, by weighty great bulls. These are massive beasts with horned heads slung low on thick muscled necks as broad as their shoulders, and huge testicles each bigger than a man's fist hanging down to their knees. They move ponderously slow with their mighty weight. It makes me think of Cu Chulainn's Brown Bull of Cuailnge, a beast so potent that wars were fought over it, and the earth shook with its every thunderous hoof-fall.
It seems we will have a couple of goats before long.
In other news, the goldfields are blooming, and it looks like someone has carelessly splashed yellow paint all over the meadows between the creek and the road.