Last night sometime, one of the grand old oaks in the woods fell to the earth.  I did not hear it fall, but I heard the barred owl change her hunting patterns.  Instead of hunting for voles down by the creek, she brought her young up into the meadow to hunt rabbits.  I listened to her "who cooks for you" call through the early morning.  Animals change their patterns for a reason and when I went for my morning walk I found the huge oak down across the trail that runs along Rocky Hollow Creek.  The crash must have driven the owls away.

So this morning I spent cleaning up and cutting the oak into stove size pieces that will soon go into the woodshed.  It is the warmth that will keep me going through the coming winter.  All of this got me kinda grimy.  Okay, I was filthy dirty and really sweaty.  Since I was so close to the swimming hole I decided to treat myself to a cool dip at the pond.  Aaaahhh, what a treat. I could swim here all day...except there is still plenty of work to do, work that had been put on hold to clean up the oak.  So to give myself another excuse to swim in the pond I decided to gather a few wild medicinals to take home.  The video above is my attempt to share this with you.