Our day always starts here, not terribly early, with a cup of coffee and a walk out to the chicken pen to release the chickens and the guineas. We've become coffee snobs since we visited Issac and Olivia last year and fell in love with the coffee we made on their Breville espresso machine. In fact, we were so impressed we now have one here at the farm.
It's a slow process, heating water in the microwave while grinding beans (always Peet's Major Dickason's Blend), then putting it all together as a double espresso becomes a Cafe Americano, with a splash of half-and-half. If you ever try it, you'll never use your Keurig again.
After we have our coffee and release the fowl (this morning's entertainment consisted of a healed, angry Mange immediately running up to Gus and biting him on the neck as payback for Gus doing the same to him two weeks ago--Gus squealed and ran, despite being twice the size of the plucky rooster), it's a short walk down to the fish house next to the pond. We sip our coffee, throw a little fish food, and marvel at the life around us. A grebe has made this his home, and he sits aloofly on the other side of the pond, watching the fish and the cooters boil in a feeding frenzy in front of the fish house with every handful of fish food that hits the water. Most days anywhere from two to five or six whistling ducks are hanging around the shoreline--sometimes they'll walk right up into the yard, to our delight and amazement, and hang out with the Peking ducks. Cattle egrets frequently pass overhead, and many days we encounter a great egret fishing along the shore, or a pterodactyl-like blue heron perched on a pine branch. And of course there are hawks and crows--lots and lots of crows.
When we got back here a couple years ago, the pond was a complete mess--almost devoid of water, and filled with algae. The fish house hadn't been water-sealed in a decade, and was on the brink of crumbling into the shoreline.
George then came and installed a water pump, and over time the level of the pond has risen steadily, as has the quality of the water. We thought we would need to stock the pond, but remarkably there were catfish and bream who survived the years of stagnancy and neglect. And the dog fennel was so high when we got here that, coupled with the low water level, you couldn't see the pond from the house.
Now the grounds are mowed, the fish house is pressure washed and repaired, the water level is back where it was fifteen years ago, and the place is brimming (breaming?) with life.
Those few moments sitting and looking at the water are some of the best of every day. There is a calmness that flows through us, and a sense of the ruach moving across the surface of the pond when it's still. I cannot imagine a better way to embark on the day, before opening the news and seeing two potential hurricanes that are less than a week out. Here we go again.
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