A Quiet Afternoon at the Farm

Some afternoons don't ask us to accomplish anything.

They simply give us somewhere to be.

I spent one of those afternoons at Gallrein Farms, wandering around with a camera and noticing whatever happened to catch my eye.

A backlit sunflower glowing against a clear blue sky at Gallrein Farms. — And then I noticed the sunflowers.

There is something about a sunflower that makes it difficult not to stop for a minute. Maybe it is the color. Maybe it is the way they seem to turn toward the light. Or maybe sometimes we simply need an excuse to look up.

A wide field of blooming sunflowers stretching toward a tree-lined horizon. — There was more of it than I could take in at once.

A whole field of them is another thing entirely.

Standing there, surrounded by all that yellow and green beneath an enormous blue sky, the day felt pleasantly uncomplicated.

A vintage red and white Ford tractor resting on the grass at Gallrein Farms, with flowering shrubs behind it. — Little reminders that ordinary things have their own kind of beauty.

An old tractor. A weathered fence. Flowers that had begun to fade a little at the edges.

None of it was perfect, and none of it needed to be.

That may be part of what I like about wandering. You start noticing the things you might otherwise pass right by.

Curious goats looking through a wooden fence at Gallrein Farms. — And, apparently, a few creatures had something to say about the afternoon.

The goats were especially helpful in reminding me that a quiet afternoon does not necessarily mean a quiet audience.

There was nothing remarkable about the afternoon.

And somehow, that was exactly what made it beautiful.

Maybe a good day doesn't have to be extraordinary.
Maybe we just have to be there for it.