The country: Trees, leaves, people, dogs
Nov. 10th, 2004 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninevirtuesI rode my new bike today, out past the bike shop, down NC 87 to Old NC 87, out to the intersection of Highway 150, and back. I think it was about 40 miles. Nice ride through the country.
On the way out, passing isolated houses and farms, I heard a lone dog barking nearby... probably at me. Within minutes, the sparsely populated countryside rang with barking dogs, barking to each other: Stranger here. Sound the alarm. Keep watch.
In the city, a barking dog would be hushed, told to be quiet, told not to disturb the neighbors. Out here, a dog telegraph operates: What one knows, they all know, and the sound of dogs fulfilling their civic dog duty by barking at me reverberates through the seemingly deserted countryside.
At times like these, I conclude that I lead a loud, but charmed existence.
I rode on, watching the trees. It is clearly fall; there was frost on the ground when I set out this morning, and I walk to class through scuffs of dead leaves. The lush green forests of summer are golden, brown, and red now. I can smell smoke-- people pile the leaves and burn them, and out in the country, with its otherwise clear air, that's the most sensible way to get rid of dead leaves.
The countryside is sparsely populated, but you can tell that people have lived here for a very long time: Every church has its graveyard, and every graveyard has many stones. It made me think: Perhaps leaves are to trees as people are to their society and culture.... as individuals we are born, live and die, but the society we live in continues after us.
On the way out, passing isolated houses and farms, I heard a lone dog barking nearby... probably at me. Within minutes, the sparsely populated countryside rang with barking dogs, barking to each other: Stranger here. Sound the alarm. Keep watch.
In the city, a barking dog would be hushed, told to be quiet, told not to disturb the neighbors. Out here, a dog telegraph operates: What one knows, they all know, and the sound of dogs fulfilling their civic dog duty by barking at me reverberates through the seemingly deserted countryside.
At times like these, I conclude that I lead a loud, but charmed existence.
I rode on, watching the trees. It is clearly fall; there was frost on the ground when I set out this morning, and I walk to class through scuffs of dead leaves. The lush green forests of summer are golden, brown, and red now. I can smell smoke-- people pile the leaves and burn them, and out in the country, with its otherwise clear air, that's the most sensible way to get rid of dead leaves.
The countryside is sparsely populated, but you can tell that people have lived here for a very long time: Every church has its graveyard, and every graveyard has many stones. It made me think: Perhaps leaves are to trees as people are to their society and culture.... as individuals we are born, live and die, but the society we live in continues after us.
