Fog hung over the orchard cloaking it like a misty cloud. Dew drops covering the leaves, flowers, and early peaches.
Cadaghi leaves crunched underfoot as I began to explore the rows slowly, one by one.
The spiders had been active in the night. Thin lines of silk, like strands of delicate necklaces, ran from tree to tree and limb to limb.
The dew revealed the webs so I could walk beneath them.
In a way they caught me too. The strands a tether between all things in the orchard.
The young peaches were in various stages. Some still with their wilted blooms hanging like a skirt of brown and tan.
Wild turkeys strutted under the oak tree. The largest male puffed his chest and splayed his tail feathers. The cawing crows nearby shared the field, side by side, all in search of food.
Roosters sounded the morning alarm. Small birds flitted from ground to tree and back again.
The last of the blooms of the latest variety to bloom were on display, pink against the fresh green leaves of their neighbors. Color in its final display, soon to fade away.
The stately row of cadaghi trees dripped dew in a calming rhythm, like rain falling onto the dry leaf bed below.
Wildflowers were growing: Virginia Pepperweed and Blue Toadflax, both native plants. Field Mustard and Drummond’s Phlox bloomed beside them, visitors that have naturalized to this land. All markers of the human touch, growing where the earth has been disturbed, but not fully tamed.
Mornings like this, time has no meaning.
Without the sun, there is no marker of its passing. Ten minutes, and hour… Who’s to say?
I could have stayed there forever.
A moment frozen.
Hanging in the silk of a web.