Starry, starry night...

Sunday, 8:45p.m. Someday Farm.

The kids are finally in bed. D is passed out on Jade's futon. The dishes loom, laundry lurks, the kitchen floor looks like it's been noodle-bombed. But I quietly open the creaky closet, slide on my coat and sneak out the back door.

I take a deep breath. A winter night, and it's all mine.

There's a big ring round the moon and the snow glitters with diamond sparkles. No wind tonight, for once, so I can hear the river rushing along behind the treeline, and owls hooting hellos to each other in the sentinel pines. Their chuckles echo off the barn wall. I can even hear Ms. Red Squirrel tossing in her sleep inside the hollow of our chestnut tree. I'm alone, and not alone.

Then I hear a snort. I turn to see ten deer in the south field, maybe six car lengths away from me. One is meandering along the edge of our lawn, snuffling the ground in search of old apples. Then she spies me and stands perfectly still. I stand perfectly still. I hold my breath.

Our screen door, which I've neglected to close tightly behind me, makes a terrible clang as it slams shut, scaring the hell out of me, the deer and the owls. The deer flicks her tail and gallops off with her sisters, fast, then faster, until they're just blurry bounding specks heading for the safety of the trees.

After a pause, the owls begin to chat again. The snow is still full of diamonds. The river keeps rushing.

I take another deep breath, and smile.

Ode to a Lawn Tractor, Part II

I hauled back the enormous barn door and there it was: the lawn tractor. Just me and John Deere and a helluva lot of lawn.

I decided my lawn-cutting experience might benefit from a closer relationship with the lawn tractor. Taking a cue from my friend Muffy, who recently named her new car Betzsy, I tried to think of something feminine and jaunty; something that would roll off the tongue a little smoother than "the lawn tractor." I decided on "Jean Green, mean machine" (or "Jeanne Verte," for when I was feeling multilingual). We'd become friends, Jean and I, over the many summer hours we'd clock together. She'd always start for me, and never buck me off. She'd never run out of gas and strand me mid-cut. It would be the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship, I was sure.

Confident that I'd soaked up all of D & C's lawn tractor wisdom, I dutifully checked the oil and hopped on. After several tries, Jean's engine snarled, sputtered and refused to turn over. I tried patting her on her cobwebby green hood. I tried verbal encouragements as though she were a moody child. Nothing. I restrained myself from using D's traditional method of fixing things and kept my foot firmly on the ground.

In despair, I clomped back to the house and called my mother-in-law, who was a lawn tractor guru. She wouldn't make fun of me and she'd know what to do; it could be our little secret. When my father-in-law answered and told me she wasn't home, I took a deep breath. "Dave," I whispered, switching to my newly acquired farm vernacular, "she don't start."

He drove over, surveyed Jean's engine for a few silent moments, then pushed the throttle all the way up until it touched the picture of the rabbit. I hung my head. I'd forgotten about the throttle. To lessen my embarrassment, Dave mumbled something about engines being stubborn sometimes and gave the engine a shot of ether (which, incidentally, is highly explosive). I turned the key and Jean lept to life with a trimuphant roar. Dave finished his visit by yelling a reminder not to shoot cut grass onto the uncut sections of the lawn. I'm nothing if not well-instructed.

And so we were off! My husband and brother in law would be amazed at my precision and skill. People would drive by Someday Farm just to admire Jean and I on our weekly rounds. Maybe I'd even give Jean a new coat of pink paint. I couldn't wait until bikini season.

After a few effortless runs up and down the stable lawn, where I shot some gravel perilously close to the shop windows and backed into a fence, I tackled the south border of the property. There I met my first Waterloo: hills. Every time Jean would start to heave and rise on a slant, I'd panic and steer her the other way. It felt like she was going to betray me, roll to her side like a felled buffalo and crush me to death. Okay, so Jean and I wouldn't do the hills. Hills would be "man's work."

Turning northward, I attempted to cut the remaining stable lawn. That's when I realized I needed a better bra. Run your finger enthusiastically over a head of cauliflower and you'll get an approximation of what our lawns are like. Even at her slowest speed (where a crawling baby could pass us), riding Jean anywhere on our property is a tit-jostling, butt-thumping experience. I felt like Roy Schieder in Jaws, only I didn't need a bigger boat: I needed a bigger butt.

Lumpy-bumpiness aside, I found myself entering a state of lawn-tractor zen. The droning buzz of the blades becomes as soothing as a monk's chant, and you begin to notice the loveliness around you: sweeping green fields, the smell of the mock orange bushes, the simple beauty of a dandelion...until you cut its head off. I began to see the appeal of farming; driving a tractor up and down a field, or going round and round cutting hay would give you a lot of time to think. It's a solitary activity and there's no one you can share it with except the birds, the bugs and a few curious deer. And you can see instant results: the shaggy mess becomes a lawn again - for a few days, anyway.

After 3.5 hours, I hoisted my stiff self off of Jean and hobbled into the house for a beer. Sitting on our back stoop, I raised the bottle in a toast to my green partner. Long live Jean Green! and long live Someday Farms, lumpy lawns and all.

Joy in the cornfield

I saw eight deer in the West field the other night at D's parents' farm. D walked me to my car on his way to do chores.

"Watch out for ---," he called as he walked towards the milk house, but I couldn't hear him over the wind.

"Watch out for what?" I yelled back.

He put his fingers above his head like antlers and started prancing around. Quite a sight, a six-foot tall guy in coveralls pretending to be a deer. I felt a surge of affection go through me, waved and drove off.

And sure enough, as the Kia crawled down the bumpy lane through the darkness, I spied a flash of white off to my right - the flick of a tail as a doe lept through the cornfield. And then there were 3 more, then another 4, flickering across my headlights, bounding high and wide across the road.

I was fascinated; they were a stone's throw away from me, so I slowed the car to a halt. They watched me; I watched them. Then, as though someone had pressed a button, they turned in unison and danced their way through the field to the forest. Deer move with an otherworldly grace, leaping and flying over cornstalks, dodging each other in a pattern that seems planned. My heart lept with the deer, just like Clarice Starling's did in Hannibal.