The first frost of fall has come and gone, and as I drove to work that chilly morning, I found myself marveling at the beauty of the sun reflecting off the crystalized landscape.

I will say that is one of the things that I enjoy about the time change—driving to work in the early morning sun. Unfortunately, the tradeoff is driving home in the darkness, and soon thereafter feeling like it’s time for bed only to check your watch and discover that it’s still in the seven o’clock hour.

In a perfect world, I could have both early morning sunrises and late evening sunsets, but such is life.

Nevertheless, on that frosty morn a few days back, I made my way south singing along with James Taylor’s “Walking Man.” I had chosen the song from my playlist, as Taylor’s lyrics about “frost on the pumpkin” and “hay in the barn” seemed apropos for the chilly morning drive.

Hay in the field or the barn has always been a beautiful sight to me. I suppose that goes back to my time spent as a teenager hauling and loading hay. To this day, I still love the smell of hay, although I suspect in my teenage years there were lots of places I would rather have been than in a hayfield or barn loft.

What I wouldn’t give to wake up one more time as a fifteen-year-old on a frosty morning before school, bundle up, and head down to the barn to get hay for the horses. I would drop it from the loft into their hayracks and sit back on a bale and listen to Rosie or Chance or Patches pull the fresh straw and rhythmically chew.

I often find myself getting lost in memories like that when I feed hay to our trio of Nigerian dwarf goats. Although the sounds that come from Jack, Pip, and Grover aren’t quite the same as those old familiar sounds of my childhood horses, they are close enough. They make me smile.

This week we gave them a Halloween pumpkin as an experiment based on a friend’s recommendation. I had envisioned our trio of ruminants munching on the orange treats, but apparently our goats are picky. Instead, the pumpkins became a healthy snack for Moose, Murphy and Birdie, our three dogs.

I’ve often wondered what exactly the fact that I take delight in the chewing sounds of farm animals says about me. However, something that I came across in my reading recently made me realize that perhaps I’m not totally strange.

In his essay, “When I was Twenty-five,” writer Gay Talese had this to say about himself, “I came from a small town. My perceptions were rather provincial. I possessed a sense of wonder about what others saw as ordinary.” I’m glad that, like Talese, I often see wonder in the ordinary.

The famed New York Times writer who also wrote for the likes of Harper’s, the New Yorker and Esquire, goes on to say that “…I thought that the ordinary, the everyday happening in an average person’s routine, was worthy of writing about, especially in a newspaper, if it was written well.” Maybe there’s hope for me yet as a writer.

Hay, frost and the chewing habits of farm animals—I’ll bet none of you thought about this list of disparate entities on your morning commute this week or imagined that you would be reading about them today in your local paper. However, for me, they are all examples of seeing wonder in the ordinary, and they also reinforce the importance of being present and living in the moment.

Ever sat at the base of an oak tree and listened to a deer crunch acorns over your shoulder or hidden in flooded timber watching and listening to a preening wood duck? I assure you, there’s magic in it.

Have you ever lost yourself in the language of migrating geese overhead, or watched the vapor of a longbeard turkey’s breath linger in the air each time he gobbles on a cold morning? I’ve been moved by the sounds and sights of both.

Everyday wonders abound in the outdoors. Fortunately, you don’t have to be hiking across a mountain range or floating a secluded backcountry river to witness them. They surround us all every day right here in East Central Mississippi.

Brew a cup of coffee, throw on an extra layer, and sit outside watching a sunrise this week. Ask a friend to walk the trails at Bonita with you to take in the gorgeous artistry of nature on display in the fall leaves and listen to nature’s symphony in the sound of those leaves falling.

Multiple studies point to “being present” as one of the keys to happiness, but in our hyper-connected world that can often be hard to do. We worry about tomorrow rather than fully living today. As a result, we miss out or fail to appreciate the ordinary wonders surrounding us.

This week, make it a point to unplug from your devices, take a social media vacation, and “plug-in” to the everyday wonders that exist in nature. Until next time, here’s to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.