More changes

Things are changing around me so quickly now that it getting difficult to rant about them all.

The farm that surrounded me on all sides has been divided and sold.
The larger part is combined with the existing hunting club and now approaches my back door bringing the hunts and target practicing even closer. It's not hunting season now, but the target practice never ends. The club did generously offer me the continued use of the land for my birding walks, but I wonder which birds will stick around after all the shots are fired.
The hunts are controlled with birds being released from traps for the shooters. So there's always a fresh supply, and the seasons are long.

The other piece of land is being scraped clear of most trees and vegetation to make pasture for cattle.
The clearing has been ongoing for 3 weeks and has not finished.

It was difficult to watch the brush tangles that the common yellow throats and chats had nested in this summer piled up to be burned, knowing I won't have their songs next year.

Change is constant, but it certainly seems to come larger and faster lately.

Beaches

You know you've seen a lot of changes when the beach in the first photo now looks like the second  photo.

Many, many years ago my dad phoned us to say he had found the most beautiful beach with crystal white sand and emerald waters, and he couldn't wait to take us there. He did. And for many years we spent a heavenly week each summer on uncrowded pristine beaches.

The water is still blue and the sand is white after the machine drives down the beach and sifts the debris out from the day before. 

I do miss the solitude of the vast empty spaces.

dark of winter

Truly it has been a dark winter, not extremely cold, though there have been some frigid days predicted that never came to pass. 

Dark, overcast, gloomy, foggy, rainy misty, damp—all those adjectives that define an uncomfortable state of being, especially if they seem never ending.

I haven’t managed a lot of walks and have a good case of cabin fever.

I’ve had 2 outings this week and was able to pull a bright hopeful photo out of the starkness around me.

Sweet narcissus blooming this year in a spot where they refused to in the past.