Such Is Country Life

As usual, when I took my morning walk with my dog Tupper, I bumped into my next-door neighbor, Al. He was lying on the ground under his tractor, mumbling to himself. Looking up, he saw me passing by.

“Hey, Dean, did you hear about the wooden tractor?” he asked

“No, I haven’t, Al,” I replied.

“It had wooden wheels, a wooden engine, wooden transmission, and wooden work.”

“Ha, having  a bad day, Al?”

“Golly Darn tractor just stopped working, and I got to get the lower field plowed before the rain settles in for the next few days.” He said.

“What’s wrong with it? I asked.

“She’s as old as I am and is just tired, I guess.”

Obviously, that wasn’t true, as Al was approaching seventy. The tractor was an Allis Chalmers WD-45 from the 50s and had seen its day. It originally sold for a little over $2000.00. To replace it today, you would have to spend, on average, $22,000.00 to $40,000.00. That was the reason Al kept it around. He spent a lot of time maintaining it, except maybe for the body, which had lost its red color and had many rust spots.

“Well, good luck,” I said as I continued down the road.

“Tupper! Stop!” I screamed as she ran into the adjacent field to greet Mildred, Al’s favorite cow out of the fifty he owned. Mildred had been put out to pasture when she stopped producing milk, and she and Tupper had become barnyard friends.

I walked into the field to retrieve her and stepped into a “cow pie” only a few hours old. My shoe sank into it, and as I bent over to try to wipe some of the crap off, I fell over and landed in it.

“Why did I ever move to the country?” I said out loud.

I reached into my pocket to retrieve my handkerchief to wipe my hands, which were now covered with this odiferous muck. Thinking I was reaching for a treat, which I kept there, Tupper came bounding over and jumped on me, knocking me backward into the barbed wire fence and ripping my new Carhart jacket.

I laid there for a few minutes, with Tupper standing on me, licking my face, wishing I was sitting in my den with a fire in the fireplace and watching an X-Files episode. I stood up and headed back home. Passing Al, who had managed to get his tractor running and was passing by, I tried to ignore him, embarrassed that this “city man” had managed to get into this mess.

“Wow, I could smell you a hundred feet away. What Happened?” he asked.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I answered.

“Well, why don’t you head to the barn and clean yourself up? Madeline, is there milking the cows? She can show you where the hose is.” He suggested.

“I think I will do that,” I said. “you do know this is the 21^st Century, and they do have automatic milking machines, right?”

“ Hey, they are about eighteen hundred dollars for a portable one. I can barely manage to put food on the table. I can only produce about 300 gallons from the girls per day. So, I make a little over $70 per day. If it weren’t for the land I lease, I would have to sell the farm.” He said.

Good luck with your plowing,” I said as I headed to his barn.

Walking into the barn was like stepping back 50 years. Madeline was sitting on an old stool, hand-milking a cow. She was a heavy woman with gray hair hanging over her shoulders.

“I’m not even going to ask.” She said. “The hose is around the corner, so why don’t you wash yourself off.

I walked around the corner, noticing that Tupper was helping herself to some grain that had fallen on the floor. Knowing that Al used a growth hormone to increase milk production, I grabbed her and pulled her away from her “dinner. I had no idea if the hormones would affect her. I didn’t want her to grow a third eye or gain weight. She was already a healthy 75 lbs. Feeding her the veterinary-recommended premium dog food costs me almost $2,00 daily. I found a rope and tied her up while I cleaned myself off as best I could.

“You look like a drowned rat. Why don’t you get your butt home and dry off and toss those clothes in the trash. I wouldn’t wash them in my machine.” She said as I exited the barn and went home.

As I headed to the house, I noticed I had been remiss in lawn mowing. I had over 5 acres to maintain, and it took me four hours to mow.

I had moved to Vermont two years prior from a four-bedroom colonial on the outskirts of Boston. I had only a 1/4 acre of lawn, which took me just twenty minutes to mow. Some days, I wish I was back there. Such is country life.