Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep.....

Today I'm in a counting my blessings sort of mood.

There's a blog I follow - soulemama.com - really lovely stuff. She chronicles her mothering adventures, her crafting, and artistic endeavors and natural adventures on her website. lovely lovely. and every friday she has a photo up from the week that she took, that just kind of sums up the feeling, the moment you want to hold onto longer.

Today was full of moments like that for me.

This evening the baby and I went for a long walk. She loves to go for long walks. She's only two and a half yearsold, but she can't get enogh of her long walks, of being outside, and of being surrounded by nature. Usually we go down through the field, past the cows and the chickens, down to the edge of our field and back up the hill. Sometimes we go into our neighbor's field, and go to the ice cream shack right there.

Tonight we weren't able to go on our usual route because the cows had to be moved up to the other pastures today, which meant putting up the cattle chute (a fenced in 'canal' kind of thing, a fenced in path connecting the lower pasture to the back pasture). So the temporary electric fence was up from one pasture to the other, essentially blocking off our way to get to the usual route.

Instead, at my dad's urging, we went up along the other side of the far pasture, up along the fence, and through the neck of the woods, and up through the next field. This takes us up to one of the old barn foundations/ruins on the farm, and up to another beautiful field. We didn't go up through the barn ruin, but we got through the far field, and up to the road before we decided to head back.

Along the way, we're in high grass. Everything grows there. And as we're walking, the baby is happily stomping along, I see something red. ruby red.

Wild strawberries! The baby instantly sat down once she heard the word strawberry, and was gobbling them up. These were about the size of my pinky fingernail, and we probably didn't get more than five, but still sweet, and beautiful. Still sunkissed. Our first strawberries of the summer.

On this long walk, I thought about how lucky I am to be able to share nature with my daughter. My parents did this with us. We went for long walks every Sunday. we went out and saw the animals in the woods, saw the sunset, all of that. I remember eating wild strawberries, and pigeon berries and wintergreen berries on our walks - I could probably still identify them too. I remember breaking off my own walking stick when I was old enough to do so. I remember climbing all the old grape vines (not the little ones we grow in our gardens but the huge old wild ones that are as thick as your arms) and swinging on them or climbing up into the trees following their curves. We used to have to stop at every grape vine so I could have a swing.

As we came into the neck of the woods, the baby started saying, "Trees! Look at the trees! I love trees! I love trees! Trees and the sunshine!" Just her all out sincerity of really loving the trees, of really loving seeing the sunshine dappling through the tall trees, and I thought, I love them too.

We climbed up through the farther field. This is the field that when my love and I first started heavily considering moving, we came for a walk up to this field (easily the size of a football field, if not larger and wider), and I burst into tears. the entire place was full of Queen Anne's Lace (also known as Wild Carrot) - my favorite flower. Just for as far as the eye could see. And I was just overwhelmed with the beauty of it all. And then hearing that there isn't Queen Anne's Lace in Utah just about made me crumble in two.

This season the field has been planted. Probably hay or corn. Fine either way.

We walked back down through the field, walking sideways to try to avoid stepping on too many little new plants. Back through the neck of the woods. Back to the far end of the pasture, and finally home again.

Dinner, the baby and I were sitting together, and she leaned into me and said, "My beautiful Mommy...." "I'm your baby, you're my mommy..." "I love you too," without being prompted...

Just lots of moments like this today. Lots of moments of just being together, of playing, of swinging in the new swing, of playing with her cousins (she adores her new baby cousin. She gives him kisses. She can't wait until she can hold him..)

The baby opted not to watch Shaun the Sheep (I had turned it off, but sometimes there's a battle) during dinner, and she actually ate dinner. We had a little conversation about how our day went, and what we liked... and she ate well.

So while I have no idea what I have done to get such a beautiful day, I am grateful for it.

Count your blessings instead of Sheep, that way you'll fall asleep counting your blessings..