Staying Sane

farmhouse2

Farms and ranches and open space around here blur into farms and ranches and open space, and if you're willing to wander and invited to do so, there's plenty of good territory for exercise and camaraderie. It's a fine way to stay sane, and lately it's what keeps my gloomy moods at bay.

Yesterday we hiked at the ranch of a friend whose family has been farming beans and running cattle since 1912. We were six women, encompassing every decade from 30s to 60s, and a little baby too, not to mention a pair of frisky border collies.

We climbed up steepish hills to viewpoints that looked down onto Jalama Road and places beyond, wandered along brushy trails punctuated by branchy clumps of poison oak and bordered by oak trees, trudged through plowed, unplanted earth, and came out onto open, straw-colored fields....all of it in dire and conspicuous need of rain.  It was a fresh and windy day, and that mackerel sky suggested prospects of moisture in its plushy tufts but yielded not a drop.

I felt better anyway, and hopeful.