Sunny Days are Here Again!

 

 Sunny days are here again, and I do believe

 this cow is almost smiling!

Pastures are still very muddy but much 

better than last week, and the herd

is soaking up the sun.

 

 Linking to Thankful Thursday

Old Rusty Barn

It was a very cold day when the corner of this barn's roof 

kept clanging with the wind.

 The barn is fixed now, but that was an eerie sound

 above the braying 

of cattle ready for some hay!

Linking to The Barn Collective

Introducing the Alabama Black Belt

Most every day (especially in winter), The Farmer’s truck sheds clods of sticky black dirt onto our driveway…not-so-picturesque proof that THE PRAIRIE is out there. 

It’s out there studded with hickories, cedars and mock oranges, dotted with ponds farmed with catfish and tracked with trails of deer and turkey. Cattle graze its grasslands, and coyotes howl come dark.

There, even eagles fly high, and the wind seems to whistle a bit louder. Goldenrod glistens with a Midas touch, and clover turns deep crimson.

  

This narrow sliver of rolling land that “…hugs central Alabama like a dark cummerbund,” wrote  author Kathryn Tucker Windham, is the heart of Alabama’s heartland. 

Commonly called the Black Belt for its Blackland Prairie soil, it is where I was raised and where I will rest in peace in one of the last spots left in a rural cemetery. 

Meanwhile, there’s digging to be done: fencepost holes, seed for winter grazing, stories and photos and memories.

And that driveway needs shoveling. Again!

Join me on this journey as we bring home the Black Belt.

Osage Orange Forest

Back before barbed wire was invented in the 1880s, osage orange trees provided menacing fences for livestock. The sharp thorns and extremely hard wood made escape from a pasture practically impossible. The wood is still used for sturdy fenceposts, and the trees give shade to cattle in Alabama's Black Belt.  However, the saplings sprout as prickly bushes that can puncture even the tough treads of  pickup truck and tractor tires!

Posted for That's My World Tuesday.

Camera Critters, Fox Squirrel Scamper

We don't see fox squirrels that often, so catching this one on camera adds a new critter to the portrait collection!

He stopped atop the fencepost just long enough to play statue. 

 Then, he turned to pose.

...and up the tree he scampers!

Fox squirrels are said to be the most colorful tree squirrels in the world, and look at that tail...like a red fox!

You can see more photos of creatures great and small at the Camera Critters Meme, hosted by Misty Dawn.