one morning in march, chiaroscuro

A painted pony naps in the early morning sun.

two more stripes in the rainbow of spring

On the front porch, yellow.



And in the front field, pink.



A quick glance at Biedermann and Cooper yields this on rainbows:

the manifestation of divine benevolence, transfiguration, heavenly glory, different states of consciousness, the bridge between the world and Paradise, and an omen of future wealth and the finding of treasure.

If you look around, I bet you can find a rainbow too.

halfway, and a birthday

Today is the spring equinox, and we're halfway between midwinter and midsummer, a wonderful time to start new projects, leap into a new phase, or simply celebrate the growing light of the sun each day that passes.

It is also a pretty special day here on our farm. Cody, fancy name Riskless Asset, is four years old!

Cody, affectionately known as Coden Locomoden, is our youngest horse and also our sweetest. He is a teddy bear, but also quite brave, the least likely in the herd to act silly over plastic bags blowing in the wind, fireworks on the fourth of July, or imaginary monsters in the forest by the arena.



Now that he's four, he will begin a new phase in training - jumping. We had a preview of this last week when he jumped the dressage markers in the arena in a private, rainy-day steeplechase instigated by Keil Bay.



Happy birthday, Cody - I wish I could have seen you four years ago on those long wobbly legs as you heralded spring.

"Blackbirds like small priests walked in the silent fields." --Niall Williams

This was in my chair when I got home today:

Carl Cook photo

If you scroll to the bottom, my photo is the one of the two crows silhouetted in the full moon. It is GORGEOUS.

Browse Carl's entire website for more stunning shots and lots of interesting lore about corvids. If I were an editor for a publishing house, I'd snap him up. What a gorgeous book it would be - his photos and the accompanying quotes, facts, and his own anecdotes and essays.

a slow and steady rain

I woke up to rain and cooler air. Outside, the little stream that flows through our front field when it rains hard isn't there. The rain falls steady, you can hear it soaking into the earth, almost see the greening in process as the roots drink and swell.

Often spring is too intense for me. The hum of insects, the feeling that beneath the surface things are pushing to burst forth, the winds -- building to a crescendo that, until it happens, seems unbearable.

This spring seems to be taking a slower pace, and today's rain, at least right now, feels like a long slow drink.