Take A Break. Take A Breath. Take A Moment.

What was once an orchard is now a vast open meadow.

On Sunday afternoon, Mary and I dropped the top on the Solara, and headed out to take a Springtime inventory of our part of the world.  If you don't pay attention, or let those distractions all about you get in the way, you will actually miss it, and will be among those saying, "We really didn't have a spring this year", or, "We went right from winter into summer".

Does that really happen?  In some years I thought it did.  I was too distracted by to pay attention to the real world around me.  It happens.  Life is like that, and we either learn early on to limit our distractions, or become buried by them.  I learned that years ago, but there were times I lost focus.  I don't loose focus that much anymore, in fact, I believe it is the world around me that actually keeps those real life worries from burying me.  I don't miss the coming and going of spring as I sometimes I did in the past.

Mt. Dan in the background in Sturbridge.

Mary and I headed north on Route 148 and took a left onto Warren Road a couple of miles before the high school.  Down Warren Road into Brimfield, and into Warren we drove.  The old orchard in Brimfield is now mostly devoid of fruit trees, although there a some smaller ones blooming in the distance.  At the entrance, to the old orchard on the left, there are some very large trees with there roots balls wrapped in burlap awaiting planting along the driveway into the the now empty meadow.  The land is beautiful, and those new trees will be a wonderful addition to the landscape.

Warren Road becomes Apple Road, and once in Warren, we turned left onto Brookfield Road.  A short distance up the road the view to our left, over the what had been had been the orchard, was beautiful.  The hills in the distance were a blue shadow against the trees that were just leafing out in pale greens of newly erupted leaves. The new leaves unfurl soft, and fragile   and hang in the sunlight gathering strength, and color.  If you let life cause you to blink, you'll miss it all.

Keep your eyes open, and if you can do it for a little while this spring, do it for a little longer this summer, and a whole lot longer this fall.  It can be habit forming, and soon those stressors will seem less foreboding, less threatening, even easier to cope with.

Cheap therapy, and effective.  Believe me.

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