I Spy

The weather has been unseasonably warm the past few days.  Like many New Englanders who know that days like these are gifts not to be under appreciated, I spent many hours outside.  Over the weekend, I spent half a day digging a hole for a tree we planted, a Green Mountain Sugar Maple. On Sunday I woke up early and went for a 10 mile jog as the sun rose over the hillsides and was eating breakfast at the Vanilla Bean before 9am.  Yesterday I went for a shorter, but no less satisfying run.  When I'm running, I actively endeavor to step outside my brain. What I mean is that often when one is running, it's easy to fall into a conversation with oneself about the run itself - a sort of constant back and forth.  How far should I go?  How's my breathing?  What is that twinge of pain I feel in my ankle?  Will I make it up the hill?  Am I running too slow, too fast?  In an effort to staunch that kind of thinking I make sure I look around.  And yesterday, like most days, what I see is much better fodder for an internal dialog.

There's a dirt road that runs up slight, but steady hill from my house.  There are only three houses on the mile stretch.  The rest of the land one either side is field and woods.  The road is narrow and the trees on either side form a wooden canopy that folds warmly overhead.  There's a stream on the left and in a few places, if you tune your ears you can hear the babbling water winding its way over rocks and branches.  It's rare that I see any cars on the road so the only sounds other than the brook is the rustling of trees and the sound of my footfalls on the packed dirt and gravel.  That and the sound of my own breath.

At the top of that hill the road becomes paved and as I follow it to the east it leads to a farm.  The farm is not of the Normal Rockwell variety.  It's run down and dilapidated.  Rusty tractors sit abandoned on the field's edge; the cow barn's siding is pockmarked and piecemeal.  There's a dog who barks loudly at me as I jog by.  He's tethered to his weather worn plywood house by a metal chain heavy enough to tow a tank.  Ferrel cats wander back and forth across the road.  Despite its appearance, the farmers seem to have placed their limited resources in the right place.  There's plenty of hay for the cows who seem unaware of their relative poverty as they happily lumber up and down the rocky fields surrounding the ramshackle barns.  Just past the farm is as rickety a domicile as you can imagine.  It's actually not a house, but a small compound of tarp covered RVs, trailers, and pickup trucks (with a few old chicken coops smattering the grounds for good measure).  It looks more like a movie set decorator's concoction than anything from real life.

Beyond the farm and the rusty trailers the road curves around a hill and the view expands to reveal two sprawling homesteads on either side of the road.  The properties are well tended to and bucolic.  The large farm houses sit in the midst of verdant fields and neat fencing.  In the field to my right are cows with a white band encircling their midsection.  Having never seen this type of cow before, I first thought they were lawn ornaments!  It turns out that they are Belted Galloways, affectionately known as Belties, and they are one cool looking breed of cow.

Sometimes instead of going through the farm and past those farmsteads,  I'll continue up the hill to add another mile to my run.  Going this way, I wind up through some more fields before being deposited at the top of a steep hill that soon runs along property that's been turned into Vineyard Valley Golf Course.  The nine hole course is carved into a steep rise affording gorgeous views of the countryside.  Running this route permits me the same vantage without the frustration of suffering my poor golf game.

Whether I jog past the farms or the golf course, I end up turning back to the main road that leads me home.  Here I must hug the shoulder more closely than I might on the back roads - the cars tend to speed fast on this flat stretch of road.  On this more trafficked byway it's not uncommon for me to see sights somewhat less attractive.  There's usually a new bit of road kill somewhere along this stretch every few days.  Yesterday it was a possum.  Sometimes it's a squirrel or a skunk.  Occasionally there's an incredibly flat snake or frog, rolled no thicker than a penny.  When I run the same road a few days later the roadkill is gone.  Vultures?  The other thing I see too much of on these roads is discarded beer cans.  The good news is that the litterers seem to be weight conscious as the brands they toss are almost always of the less calorie variety:  Bud Light, Miller Light, Busch Light.  The bad news, of course, is that they are drinking and driving and littering to prove it.

I pass by a massive old manor (estate?) largely hidden by a leaning masonry wall and wonder who lives there and how they came to possess such a property.  Beyond that is a small campus operated by the New England Laborer's Academy.  Its collection of brick buildings is well manicured, but somehow still looks like a cross between an addiction treatment facility, a minimum security prison, and a home for little wanderers - something out of a John Irving novel.

The last mile of my run takes me down a slight decline.  I pass Babbitt Hill Road (a road I occasionally divert on and also where one finds Majilly) on my left, the Pomfret Volunteer Fire Department on my right before coming to Hull Forest Products' entrance.  I stopped in there the other day to inquire about getting some mulch for the tree we planted over the weekend.  When I asked them how little mulch I could purchase, they asked me how big my truck was.  I told them I didn't need that much and didn't mention that my truck was a Honda Civic.  I should have known better judging by the giant log trucks that rumble down the road, past my house, and up their drive.

I trot the last half mile down the hill to my house, pass a few houses set amongst the woods on my left or overlooking a field on my right.  The road is straight and I can see the bottom of the hill where the road turns just past my house.  I feel as if I am funneled home, gravity easing me down the slope and delivering me to my driveway and to a chair on my back porch.

Jogging up and down the hills I burned several hundred calories.  And in addition to the health benefits to my heart and lungs, I filled my soul with the sights and sounds my environs.  I saw dirt brown roads, felt the crush of earth beneath my feet.  I saw white girdled cows, standing like statues in still green fields.  I saw rusty trailers from which I feared the hillbilly cast of Deliverance might appear.  I enjoyed the majestic view of old vineyard hill fairways.  I sidestepped bloodstained rodents while shaking my head at the discarded shiny, silver beer cans.  Winter's coming, but it won't prevent me from dashing through the snow.  There's too much that's good to see, too much that's good to breathe.

Photo courtesy of:  www.visitpomfret.com