Ford Tractor, blue

It's a 1970 Ford tractor. Blue. The machine an interesting combination of vehicle and tool. He rides it, controls it, commands it. . . the machine and the land he goes across as familiar to him as it is alien to me. He's bush hogging the land. Part of it his father's, part of it a neighbor's that lets their horses graze there. Her husband long ago fenced off enough of their land to maintain as a lovely yard.

I think it really only goes back a few acres, maybe 8 in total, though it could be miles to me. It eventually descends into the same ravine I've walked down on his father's land. Tree covered, tiny flying bug infested, beautiful and unseen spot of land probably with it's fair share of serpents, until it bottoms along a small, cold creek bed.

And there he goes, riding along. Cutting down errant grass and weed. I suppose to keep rodents and such at bay. To keep it from growing too high. Or maybe for the simple act of just cutting it. I suppose I don't know.

On the tractor he rides and I watch him from a fence gate, from afar. I walk the land before and after he's mowed it down. Careful of snakes. Not sure if I'm more interested in surveying the land or watching him. Spots of beautiful grass, areas in shade overgrown with weed, brush growing up along the rough hewn posts and barbed wire composing the fence. And over it all, he comes with the tractor that's almost as old as I am, with the bush hog behind it. Simple mechanics running it off the tractor's motion. He tells me things about a clutch, a PTO shaft, things that sound foreign to me, but he understands them. He understands them as well as I understand things he does not understand - the simplicity in blunt conversations about sexual practices with friends, the draw of the beauty of the drag show, the importance of matching brown belts to brown shoes.

I envy the owner of the land, actually. I covet the land. It's lovely, even beautiful in it's own way. I laugh and tell him later that if we are able to buy it someday, I have picked out the spot I want to build a gazebo with a swing. It's a spot in an open green field, open to the sun. There's a slight crest at the highest point. That's where I want a swing, in a gazebo, like I once saw on television. I think about ways to power a fan that far out in the field, and consider ways to keep the horses from walking through and getting wound up in the chain that will hold my someday swing. Problems I've considered long before there's a possibility. Challenges I'd like to overcome some day.

But today, there's him on the blue tractor and me walking in the field. I'm content with today.