Out at the field

My mom and I went out to the field this morning to mow along the road ditch. The ditch bank is very steep and it is also along the highway. I played lookout while my mother mowed with her push mower. It was slow, grueling work, as the grass was three feet tall. I noticed that one of the nosier neighbors made her way down to see what we were doing and I simply did my job–keeping my mom safe while she mowed in a dangerous area–and ignored the pest. She did just about everything she could to get our attention, but I ignored her, and my mother was oblivious to her presence because she was much more worried about getting run over than getting into any kind of communicative response to that particular neighbor who has not been particularly nice to my family at any point in our relationship of many years. She finally wandered back down the road with her dog to her house and never did anything with elaborate hose-work that she had been performing to get the sprinkler at the end of said hose in the perfect position all that time. I think I handled it the right way. I do not like to snub people, but I like arguments even less. Besides that, I had one job, and it was an important one!

After we got done with the most dangerous part of the mowing process, my mom stayed up the road mowing and I drove down the road alongside the field about halfway so that Mom could refuel her machine at some point. When she got everything mowed that far, I went on down the road farther and parked in the shade of the trees. The breeze was nice and cool and I had great plans of getting plenty of writing and reading done, however I fell asleep. When I awoke, there was a male ring-necked pheasant preening himself only five yards or so away from the front of the truck, where I was sitting. His emerald green head and blazing red comb and eyes would disappear into a grey downy fluff beneath his mottled brown wing feathers and then he would look around for danger, and again he would be down in the grey fluff. He was beautiful. What a handsome bird, and he was in no hurry to go anywhere. Once in a while, he would beat the air with his wings and crow, but then go back to preening some more. I watched this for at least a half an hour. Wildlife up close, especially with such a flighty bird, is amazing to me. I was not particularly careful about scratching my head or my other movements inside the vehicle, and he did not seem to mind that I was there at all. Evidently, I was not a threat to him. My mother had made her way down to where I was sitting in the truck with her mowing project and decided that she was tired, and rightly so. We soon headed back to town. We had been out at the field for a good four and a half hours.

I have very low energy today for some reason. Upon getting back to the house, I drank a large glass of orange juice to try to get my pep back. We will see if it works. Mom is fixing her special “dipping eggs” for us for lunch. What a treat! I am so excited! I can hear the sizzle of the eggs in the iron skillet right now, and toast popping up from the toaster. Mom makes the best classics.

What a great lunch! I am so impressed with my mom’s cooking. I did not used to appreciate her so much, but the older I get, the more I appreciate everything she and Pop did when I was growing up.