The backroads leading from our home to Marietta are so seductive. Every time I resolve to take the main road, which saves about ten minutes, I turn off as if pulled by a magnet on my favorite backwoods route. I can't resist it. Today, there were unexpected sheep and goats on a white hill against a leaden sky. This is the kind of road that allows sudden stops and lingering. Good thing. I'd have been flattened long ago if there were much traffic on it.

I would bet that many people are unfamiliar with the concept of meat goats. Most of us think of dairy goats when we think of goats. But people around here raise goats for meat. They're different from dairy breeds--much blockier, but no less intelligent. I cannot imagine raising a goat and then eating it. There's something in their eyes that seems to reach into one's soul. This is a meat goat, alone on the crest of the hill.

I hadn't gone much farther when I found the horned larks that Bill said would
be in the freshly manured field along the same road. They were no more than a fleeting glimpse as they disappeared over the hill. The crows made a bolder statement. I spent the rest of the day in town, running around like a crazy person, provisioning our house for the next week, running errands, and matting and framing paintings and prints. I much preferred the morning, which was spare and stark, and all about composition.