Worry, Replaced...

This is the view across our side yard, from the porch outside the studio. Our house lot is adjacent to this open land. When we built our home, ten years ago, there were horses in this pasture. They would gallop up the barbed wire fence that delineated the property line for daily carrots and nose rubs. Not long after we moved in the owners of the property sold their farm and the animals went away. This pasture has stood vacant until earlier this spring when two horses and two cows were spotted grazing in a distant, corralled, enclosure up closer to the farm house. It was nice to see them there but I couldn't help recall how much better it would be if they used the entire pasture and came closer like in years past. A couple of days ago I stepped onto the side porch and saw this: nothing, the fence was gone! I was stunned; where did it go, why was it gone, what did this mean? Worry descended upon me... were the owners selling? Was the pastureland being divided up into house lots? How would this view, my view, change? I had a physical reaction as the day went on, a sick headache from the worry; I lost sleep that night, imagining fifty houses going up on this beautiful piece of property. Yesterday morning the pasture was being mowed, my husband wandered out there to flag down the tractor's driver and find out where the fence had gone. He came back smiling, the fence was being replaced, he reported; the horses would soon have the run of the entire pasture... just like in years gone by! What a relief; I felt the worry slide away, replaced by overwhelming peace and contentment. Late yesterday afternoon the view from our side porch changed once again... to this:

Life is Good!