Into the Autumn Woods

This morning there was a blue sky with the most perfect, puffy clouds, and the grass was littered with what I call 'fall confetti.'

It had rained all weekend, so the clear sky and sunshine was like a rebirth for the countryside. Everything was fresh and glistening. The thought of stepping into the cool, dripping shelter of the forest was paradise, so I stuffed my jeans into rain boots, threw on a thick sweater, and headed out with my camera and four legged companions. 

Have you ever caught yourself smiling for no apparant reason? I smiled the entire length of this walk. From the beginning in damp meadows, through the muddy leaf-strewn and mushroom-studded paths of the woods, to the return to open fields and civilization. 

There's something joyful about seeing dogs getting really dirty. Muddy paws and underbelly, catkins and burrs in their fur. Even though I know I'll have to clean them when we return home, I also know how much they must love the freedom to get filthy, to smell of soil, to roll in the dampness of the forest floor, to pounce through puddles and wade through ankle-deep fallen leaves. I was glad I had on my rubber boots, because the ground was really swampy. It's so much fun not having to worry about your shoes getting muddy. There are no 'restricted areas' when you have wellies on!

Rain water, leaves, acorns, rotting tree stumps offering the sustenance for new life...spending time with these organic gifts of God is a privilage, and I feel blessed to be surrounded by them every day. I was so full of this feeling of gratitude that I had to stop and thank God for this moment, and this morning. Out in the woods with my dogs, with all this gold and brown and green. 

I pray that I might always have the great good fortune of living in nature. It's something so essential to my well-being. 


As we stepped out into the light of the open fields again, I wrapped the quiet cobweb dew of the forest around me and hoped to keep it on me, in my hair, on my finger tips, all day.

I think if you can keep that feeling of the woods somewhere in you, in some corner of your being, you can be grounded in it even surrounded by the bustle of the city.

xoxo country girl