Under blue fall skies we walked down a lane of our farm on Thanksgiving Day. The sounds were muted: a squirrel barking a message from a far-off oak, a car on Possum Trot carrying late-in-coming guests to the family dinner, the loud crunching of our feet through thick fallen leaves as we approached the pile of massive rock at the far end of the path.

From our limestone perches, we gazed skyward, hypnotized by the last leaves that dropped and swirled from the tall oaks and poplars. From time to time, we’d stick out a hand, only to have the leaf find an unseen current and elude our capture, eddying away to its final resting place on the ground. Building soil in the forest takes many such unnoticed acts of sacrifice and decay. We were there only minutes, but the leaves were centuries in this work.

Across a barbed wire fence, an unseen crashing of the brush indicated something larger at play, perhaps a buck clumsily indicating its presence during deer season, its misstep unnoticed by the hunters feasting at their tables.

With no time frame or destination limiting our ramble, we stood and walked. We shuffled through the heavy grass in the bowl of our own private amphitheater. A large oak that had fallen two years back still lay crosswise on a fence, a beached whale that chastised me with bulky limbs for my laziness in its removal. Adjacent to where it had fallen, an upright white oak sported a distinctive and garish pink ribbon. We pushed on across the field and spotted its mate on a post marking the corner of our property.

We noted the flagging of the boundary, one we had shared with two lifelong farmers, both now deceased, then turned and trudged up the hill along the fence line. Just as our hog was dispatched and slaughtered yesterday, just as elderly farmers pass away, change is inevitable and expected as the natural course of our life on this planet.

We crested the hill and looked down on our farmhouse and barns. If we were writing The Book, we’d say we were pleased with our efforts, so we sat on the ground and caught our breath on a perfect Thanksgiving afternoon. Still, there was no ignoring the tremor of change. Where we had once jogged along in quiet company in this valley of small farms and small homes, pink ribbons of demarcation sent new signals that could not be mistaken. New neighbors were coming with suburban dreams of big screens and big homes on isolated plots of land carving up the woods and pastures for no reason except the commerce of easy development and a place to park their purchases.

Taking a more practical stance, Cindy focused on the good, the things yet to be done to keep our farm productive and cared for while it is in our charge. I appreciate that course of action. But sitting on the grass, watching our sheep, I wished for the impractical: That I could hear Mr. Raby again on his tractor, bringing hay to his Holstein herd, even on a holiday. That beyond the pasture and through the woods, across Sweetwater Road, Mr. Kyle would still be heard hollering for his cows to come home.

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Reading this weekend: Shantyboat (H. Hubbard).