2010-2012

To climb a hill – just to be alone for a while – is a pleasure I relish.  The constant upward pace quickens my heart rate, deepens my breathing – this must be good for me I think.  The light changes as I continue up, more blue sky appears, and there is more grass because the trees are smaller and the sun reaches the ground.  As the path curves ahead, I glimpse a much broader view of the sky, and I reach a clearing at the top.  I am distracted and pick up a hedge apple, also called an Osage orange.  This hard, warty, softball sized tree fruit is familiar to me, yet still is very strange.  It cannot be eaten by man or beast.  The one I picked up was bruised when it fell off the tree and has sticky white sap on it.  So I toss it back on the path and photograph it.  Then I gather a couple more and toss them on the path.  Further along, old farm implements sit rusting on the ground.  I pick up some hedge apples and lay them on top.

What compels me to do this?  An instinctive urge to create, to alter, to record.   This is how I was made, I think, and shuffle along the higher ground to see what other wonders I can find.