We went on a tandem ride today on the local farm roads. There is always something to see, and what is seen changes with not just the season but how deep in the season it is.
We’re at the end of an unusually rainy summer, so the greenery is wild. What was quite visible in the spring is now lost behind wild grape, out-of-control undergrowth and the extravaganza of full-leafed trees.
There’s a spot we stopped at today that caught my eye because of an abandoned crane next to a cornfield. Rusted, but still holding the crane arm high, its end lost among the limbs of a tree that grew in the course of its frozen moment, the machine appeared to be in pause.
Someone was using the area to store hay rounds, perhaps with the belief the crane could act as guard. Who used this crane and why was it just left there, seemingly ready to charge back to the job? The cab door’s open, hop in.
Just across the street, where we stood in the shade and drank water, we pondered its possible history. Then my husband turned, saying that there were at least three abandoned houses along this stretch, as well. We gazed into the almost impenetrable woods.
“There. I can just see the roof,” he said.
I looked and could not make out any sign of a house. So I stepped closer, peered around a hedge of wild grape. There, not more than fifteen feet off the road stood a wood-frame house, its shingle roof still in fair repair, the siding, an upgrade to what we usually see, was lapboard, its white paint still discernible.
With such a small window of view, I couldn’t take a picture. It was an old home, but its lines were still straight, no lean present. Was it owned by one family for forty years or a turn-style home, with family after family rotating in?
We’d never know, but the wondering and sharing that wonder was enjoyable.
It made me think of the cows we’d seen earlier. They were adults, mostly, used to strange humans trundling along the road, though a tandem did seem to pull at their curiosity. Often the response is to get up and leave, first one then the next and soon the whole small herd exiting at a trot, deeming us some danger to them best left alone.
But this group took it in stride by not striding away, the white-faced ones giving us their full attention.
We’re they wondering what our bone-skinny, white steed was? What our history of existence contained?
They had the time to ponder these things. We did too, and it was a peaceful, enduring gesture, a homage to the past of “who knows.”
Twenty-three miles of “thoughtfulling,” musing on the past, turning it as our wheels turned to see its full round of life. We need to take the time to ponder, to examine what is, was and the possibilities of will be. It’s a peaceful gesture even the cows can appreciate.
