The Green Green Grass of Home

1967 a very good year and yes Tom Jones released the song "The Green Green Grass of Home.  We were quite a fortunate generation.  Some of the best bands, singers, flower power, peace, hippies, you name it we were right smack dab in the middle of a revolution.  It was an exciting time to be in our teen years.  I wonder, what would our life have been like had Viet Nam never happened.  What would the marches and protests have been about.   It was a time when it was just time to be a rebel.  Living in the Oswayo Valley area was quiet, no protests, just long hair, hippy clothes and yes maybe a few that smoked a joint.  Seriously I can remember the first time I heard the words, weed, joint, dubby and marijuana.  Which also was probably the first time it was brought to town.  Life was going to change, I think it was a wave of change that started on the West Coast and made its way to the East.  California Dreaming, yep another song and that was the land of anything goes and it did.  Blond hair, tans, Muscle Beach, beaches, surfers and the start of the little bikinis, going braless, flowers and long beads.  As I'm typing this all smiles remembering those hip hugging, bell bottom, embroidery blue jeans.  Darn I liked those jeans.  Of course now, not so much.  Those lean days are gone to just a sweet memory.

In 1965 when I turned 16 my dad allowed me to buy  a new Bridgestone
90.  The 1960s dream come true for me.  Candy Apple Red

Well, that was a step back in time just because I happened to look out to the back fields and see all the green.  Yes, it was that song Tom Jones sang that brought the 1960s back to my thoughts.  The green has now passed the 50 percentage mark and the brown dead grass is quickly fading.  In a few weeks I will be on the John Deere brush hogging the fields.  We will wait until the birds that build their nests on the ground have hatched their young and mama deer are done hiding their tiny ones in the high grass before we cut the fields.  I know for sure somewhere out there a pair of Killdeer have a nest started.  Every time we go to the barn one or both start a warning call and try to play the wounded bird to keep us away from their nest.  They are smart birds considering there also is a pair of Red Tail Hawks tending their nest in the trees up the hill.  They would love to find baby Killdeer to feed their young.  Most of the day the hawks take turns setting in a tree along the field line looking for mice.  When they set there our hens stay in the barn or under a big tree with low branches.  It's a food chain, survival of the fittest.  Nature at its finest.  We also have a couple hen turkeys searching for bugs in the field close to the woods.  Every year a hen or two raise their little ones and when big enough bring them into the field to search for bugs.  It is the cycle of life out there, each month offers a new happening.  Any morning or evening that is warm enough we are on the back deck keeping an eye on the field.  Of course the rifle is close incase a coyote happens through. 

Today we rode to Mansfield to pick up a part for the rototiller and order parts for the tractor.  Unfortunately if you have equipment it needs tended to before it breaks down.  The ride was nice and the sun popped through the clouds now and again.  We stopped for a takeout sandwich at the Brick House Café in Galeton and drove to the Muck to eat and watch for migrating birds.  Then off to the John Deere Dealership.  Oh, to have about $50,000 extra dollars.  He could get a new farm tractor and I could get a new zero turn.  We looked and dreamed, bought the parts for the old faithful and headed home. 

From our woods walk, April Showers brought May Flowers.