Magic hour..
With tales of after dinner adventuring. Of leaving the dishes in the sink along with the chaos of deadlines and homework and walking out the front door and down the hill. Or over the hill to the back paddock. Or down through the top orchard.
This magical time of the day is fast becoming my favourite time of the day.
Mostly we have no plan. We wander.
We watch the screeching cockatoos landing in a nearby tree and the ducks on the dam scatter as we draw close. We pretend we are flower girls and frogs and scary monsters. We notice the crazy amount of fruit set on the apple trees and greet the barking Maremmas as they warn us to leave their chookies alone.
We sit in the freshly plowed paddock for a while and test for moisture content. We try not to get too excited at the prospect of growing vegies for sale again, it's been a while and we are wary. But we love the look of the newly turned earth and we feel like real farmers again.
We fall in so many holes because of the long grass.
And we climb stuff. Chook feeders and stumps and anything climbable really.
And we chuck stones in the creek and hit things with sticks and pick bunches of clover.
And we call out to Jo-Jo to stop chasing kangaroos, to come back to us, to leave them alone. And he runs fast and his furry ears flap up and down. And we shout and shout and eventually he comes back for a scratch and a cuddle.
And we hold hands and we talk and we listen.
And we can really hear because we have left all the crap up at the house and we are only present in the moment.
It is the most beautiful moment. And I know I probably shouldn't break it with lots of picture taking but I can't help it. I need to hold on to it. To keep it. It is mine. Ours.
And eventually the light fades and we make our way back up to the house for bed time. Mostly we walk, sometimes the smallest gets a piggy back or a tractor ride.
And when we come inside the stresses are still there where we left them, but they look different somehow. Less enormous, conquerable or at least manageable.
The twilight walk seems to have magic powers. I love it.
I hope you have the most gorgeous weekend lovely peeps.
We'll be at Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market on Saturday. Why don't you come down and say hi. We'd love to see you.
Bye! xx