Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-01-03 - 10:03 a.m.

Put Down that Book and LOOK

You know, the scenery around here recently is just wonderful. I love the way I drive to work. I go through a part of the county I really like - the flatlands of our valley. The roads I travel go by small ramshackle farmhouses, and paddocks with fences so dilapidated that the sheep are on the honor system. Many yards have assorted cars that haven't moved in years, although once in a while a hopeful "Best Offer" sign will appear on one of them. Unconcerned horses graze next to ancient Buicks sitting on their rims. Front yards are full of tiny fat ponies, and geese, goats, and an odd sort of sheep the girls and I call the sheepalo. The house trailers all boast satellite dishes. In the spring, the wild fields spring up bright yellow with mustard, and the cultivated fields are rolled by long rows of giant wheeled sprinklers.

This time of year, these plains flood, and they flood well. The ground out here is never exactly dry anyway, and there is no runoff - it's all stayon. The paddocks are now ponds, the fields are lakes, the houses sit isolated by moats - some have water up to their doorsteps. The drainage creeks are full and they don't move; if it rains hard, the roads are underwater. The shaggy ponies get covered with mud, and the other animals either find the few high spots and stand marooned - if they're horses or sheep - or they revel in their temporary waterworld, as the geese do.

The girls went with me to work today, since they're on vacation and I had no one to watch them. They played Battleship in the backseat while I drove.

C'mon, girls. You're missing some incredible scenery. Did you see that mudball sheep back there? Look at that field! There's an egret out there - I don't think there are any fish in the rainwater ponds, but maybe he found something else he likes. How can you guys not look?

When I was a kid, my father liked to go for scenic drives. My sister and I read, looking up only often enough to avoid getting carsick. I could never figure out what the big deal was with scenery. Jeez, it's just scenery, for Chrissakes, it's BORING. I don't WANT to look at the scenery, I want to read Lord of The Rings. What is this big scenery thing with grownups? Is it like how they always talk about the weather? Man, don't let me grow up into THAT.

A bunch of geese went over the fence out of their yard. I guess they figured with all the water it was just a free-for-all; apparently the honor system collapses in extreme weather. They were playing, and fishing butts-up in the swollen drainage creeks on either side of the road. I also noticed that the cows in one pasture like to stand close to the unused motor home in this weather. The rain is falling straight down, so standing alongside a motor home is not going to keep them dryer. The vehicle isn't used, so it can't be generating any warmth. But the cows seem to feel better standing next to it. I guess it's just company. If you have to stand out in the rain, it's probably nice to have a Winnebago to stand with you.

Girls! I just saw a dead possum! Now THAT should interest you! You weren't looking and you missed a run-over possum by the side of the road - now what could be grosser than a dead possum? (Girls, without looking up from Battleship, answer "TWO dead possums.")

There was a woman in her knee-high rubber boots, determinedly spading a small drainage path out of her yard and into the drainage creek. Unfortunately, her yard is at the same level as the creek, and the creek is not moving because the water simply has nowhere to go. When I went by, she was about three feet from finding out that water doesn't like to go uphill.

There is a lot on one corner of my route that sells pumpkins in October. The lot is a big pumpkin patch with a small goat pen in one corner. After Halloween, they turn the goats out into the paddock and it becomes an all-you-can-eat pumpkin buffet. Most of the pumpkins get kicked apart into shards - I think the kids that live there help with that - and the goats eat pumpkin until they probably can't stand to see any more. In January, there are still pumpkins in the field, and the goats are eating anything else they can find in the now-swampy field. (Not pumpkin, please, oh ANYTHING but pumpkin.) I like the economy of it: today's expensive jack-o-lantern, tomorrow's goat feed.

Gaga over scenery. When did it happen to me? When did the things I see as I drive get so much more interesting, become parts of fascinating stories? When did I start to love the chance to go for a drive and admire the landscape? Yeah Mom, yeah, we see it. I already GUESSED 0-17, dummy, I sunk your battleship. Yeah, whatever, Mom.

�

previous - next

�