“The day was a scorcher, & the second day in a row I’d had to throw food out the truck window. I just wish I’d noticed before I left the “convenience” store. Using my well honed technique, I pitched the block of moldy cheese as far into the ditch as I could manage without taking my eyes off the road, and then, as an after-thought, tossed the apple along with it. May some critter with a stronger stomach than I gain nourishment, I intoned, under my breath. Our poor, beleaguered food chain, even in Vermont. A working person who barely has time to brush her hair, who drives north an hour to get certified organic food but not with any regularity since all her jobs are south, who has no angel at home anymore who likes to cook, though for many, many years, it was her ... this may be a familiar refrain to more than a few of my readers. I don’t feel sorry for myself, or my cowboy ways, not at all. We are all chameleons at heart, one day inside the game, the next day rudely replaced; conditioned by the life we get, to do what we must do, to survive, and move on. My good fortunes abound, and flow over, even to the point of lessening my hunger, my thirst, my need. It’s need that drove me into many a disaster, and cessation of needing, that led me back to terra firma. Or maybe, it’s more a shift, a twist, a portal we walk through, that brings our need more in line with truer, rather than lesser, gods. Anyway, despite having lost a potential lunch, I labored in the sun & bugs, with enthusiasm, for a good long day. Got the straw put down on the new grass planting, moved bark mulch that had been abandoned on a tarp, took out weeds so that the form of the garden was able to return. The heavily cut back smokebush was finally bursting with new growth; the gas plant in full bloom & aromatic, the peony buds sticky with ants, and ready to pop. I don’t like to miss a week, when so much happens, so quickly. You don’t get to see it all, every year, but what you do see, goes deep into the unconscious, and buoys the winter darkness. The drive home, settling into a now-standard bucket seat, even in a truck, with a beer ready in the cooler, for the last miles closest to home, well, that’s going on in so many trucks, as I accelerate the Chevy up a gap, and down a gap, and pull in for gas, at the outpost store that I love. Then taking more back roads, I turn without thinking, onto the North Hollow, a leg I don’t normally take the time for, but it’s still light, and it’s the lightest, latest, its going to be for a while. Probably 5 pm, or so ... the light is beginning to slant, to fill the hollow in ways, I doubt a poet could describe. I’m not really so pliable anymore, or less willing to be manipulated by romance, but this is far better than the promises I’ve heard. It makes me slow down, put my turn signal on, pull off if I can, just stop in the middle of the road, if I can’t. There aren’t too many cars. None, to be exact. I wander to the fence line with my camera. The hills here are not ordinary, and I wonder what it is. Or who, or why. I’ll probably check Parcel Viewer, later. Just to see. And the next farm down is a working place, it’s not a hobby farm. I creep around a cattle truck, and glance over, to see two guys, who sort of wave. I think I have a finger up off the steering wheel, enough to acknowledge something. The piles of manure are enormous, some folks don’t use a tank, which now seems old school. The cows are back lit from the west, probably by those same angels who cook dinner for some lucky assholes. I keep the truck in gear, slow, checking my rear view, making sure I’m not an obstruction. I’m not. No one seems to drive this end of the hollow. Not this time of night, anyway. I stop to shoot the gate. Notice a white pickup, the same one I guess that was with the cows. It makes me shoot fast and I clamber back in my truck, not really wanting to stand out, not out here. I also don’t want to signal that I’m feeling any pressure. It’s my land too. It’s my right to cruise. They stay a healthy distance behind, but I can tell they’re tailing me. They want me to know, I’m on their turf. I’m being watched. I’m being escorted, out of town. No biggy. This is not my first day at the rodeo.”
