No Rule Broken

There is really just one rule for June: Move. If you stop moving on a silly little farm like this, then you might as well assume you have died. Cause there are things to do. Silly things, big and small. You don’t stop to contemplate the majesty of the clouds, or the peculiar behavior of the birds. July is a beast that will swallow you whole if you don’t keep moving!!! This rule can leave a person feeling rather disjointed, and inhuman.

Now that you know this, you’ll find it no wonder that one the rare occasions that the situation defaults you into being normal for a moment, you take them.

Case in point: here and there I need to get a tractor over to the second farm property, BRE, or otherwise known as Wild America. The little tractors I take over on a trailer, simple enough. But the 65A is too big for any rig that I have, and so I just drive it on the road with whatever implement we might need. To get back, I have an old road bike stashed away. Tractor to the land, bike back to the main farm.

And it’s these little 3 mile bike rides that render me a normal person for a spell, doing a normal person thing. It’s as if I am out for a leisurely ride down the beautiful country roads, not booking it back to the farm to check the greenhouse. Nope, not me. I’m just a normal Norm out for a ride.

Along the way, a dragonfly drops out of orbit and flys parallel with me.

“Hey, welcome back to the real world”, he says.

“Thanks dragonfly dude.”

“Enjoy your stay.”

“Will do.”

I pass by the tire turtles, basking on the tire, being turtles. “There is something I can learn from them”, I think.

I deer pops onto the road, looks at me surprisedly and bolts off into the woods.

I stop and help another turtle (obviously not from the Tire Turtle Gang) across the street before it becomes a GMC crew cab pancake. I imagine the turtle having a little moment, suddenly “airborne” as I set it on the other side of the road.

It’s all so…pleasant. And I’m normal. I’m in a veritable wonderland of normalcy. That is until a car passes by, and I suddenly realize how odd I must look, an otherwise truly “normal” person, riding a bike on a country road as one would…but in completely filthy Carhartts, big ear muff ear protections hanging around my neck, and clompy mud covered boots.

“Just out for a ride” I image I would say if they stopped.

“Dressed like that?”

“Silly…I know.”

I think about what it would be like just to ride for the sake of the ride, and then I image that’s what I’m doing. A total lie.

These transports are a nice intermission, one that July won’t dock me points for. Technically, I am still moving, so no rules have been broken. It’s soon enough that I’m back, and moving some more, and looking forward to the bike ride back to pick up the tractor again.

The way back is even better. I get to bomb a hill on that ride!