From where I am currently sitting, I can see a local farmer cutting the hedgerows.
his man is a neighbour and famed for how particular he is. He cuts the banks first, then the face of the hedge. Next comes across the top, lowering the height.
Although he operates heavy machinery, he makes it look almost dainty; as if he is planing timber rather than chewing through briars and birch as he squares everything up for the winter.
It is immensely satisfying. At the time of writing, he has completed one side of the road. I've just been out and caught the fresh smell of the countryside after a heavy shower. It goes right down into your soul.
There can be a deep pleasure in watching someone immerse themselves in a task. Cutting hedges is hardly painting with watercolours or sculpting, but the beholder is in charge of the beauty they wish to see in the moment.
It is almost the perfect antidote to what we have been seeing over the last two weekends in the Ulster Football Championship.
Before the hackles rise, this is not a punching-down exercise. I am keenly aware that the cannon of Gaelic Games columns is more than amply stacked with pieces decrying the oft-times abrasive nature of Ulster football.
It's actually a lament for those times.
Cast your minds out there and bring in our haul of what the Ulster Championship is all about.
The white ball tossed up in the air by a referee and the anticipation as it comes down, the walk in to a ground, the crowds and unusual costumes. Marching bands, national anthems being tortured. Gangs of children all dressed in county colours, families milling about, going to the game, gangs of teenage boys and girls giddy with the prospect of cider and minibus and on the cusp of adulthood, baloobas with the joy of it all.
And then you have the football.
And when that's all we have, and it's November football at that, then it's grim.
Some people have said to me that I am lucky, getting in to cover all these games. And they are right. I am lucky in that I believe I am witnessing history in the making, the coronavirus Championship that one day will have a comprehensive retrospective written about it.
But whether it be Cavan-Monaghan, Donegal-Tyrone, Cavan-Antrim or Fermanagh-Down, it's the same game on an endless loop.
The physical things that change are the team kits and the venues. On the pitch, the contests are decided by a combination of strength and conditioning, skill levels and moments of inspired genius.
It all sounds fairly positive until you put it all together. A team force a turnover, then they shovel it around to whoever is free in their defence, usually the sweeper. Cool on the ball, not going beyond a walking solo while the dispossessed side retreat into a predetermined defensive shape.
Then they toy around with the ball, moving it from wing to wing, just yards from a defensive wall set up along the 45-metre line, until they spot an opportunity to 'make an incision', or 'punch a hole' in the defence.
Really, what that amounts to is a player with a smidgen of courage to take on an opponent and get in behind the cover. Or a big unit spotting a small fry that they can trample over the top of.
Most of the time a hand pass will go astray or a free awarded in or out. There's a severe predictability to it all that comes pre-packed with its own language to contextualise.
Managers will talk in terms of 'making too many mistakes' to succeed, as if a team stitching together five-yard hand passes in their own half can win a game.
Players will talk about 'learnings' from games when it's clear there are none, and mathematical equations about what happens on kickouts with percentages to back it up. A turnover count. Yawn.
It's not just in Ulster, either.
Kerry, the supposed keepers of the flame, the protectors of the soul of Gaelic football, are out of the Championship now.
In their defeat to Cork, there were 54 frees awarded in normal time.
For all the complaining done about the style of football and lack of scores in Brewster Park - 0-2 each after 19 minutes - it was the exact same in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
I mean, this was Kerry - the team that ran Dublin to a draw in last year's All-Ireland final, the team that, along with their opponents, produced the highest-scoring first half in the history of All-Ireland finals in the replay showdown, sharing 20 points evenly, only three of them frees.
Here Kerry were, trying to remorselessly grind their way to a win over Cork.
Things have been heading this way for years now.
The GAA's response was to introduce the frankly ludicrous and unnatural rule of an advanced mark, which was borrowed from another sport.
Winter conditions are not helping. It used to be said that hurling was not a winter sport but it is holding up well, while Gaelic football just looks ugly in this light.
