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Losing my Air

I haul our mowers 150 miles to our cabin so that they can get flat tires.  I have done that twice, recently.  Now when I load the mowers, I take the tire pump, too.

We have the cabin on the market, so I am more assiduous about mowing and accumulating flat tires than is usual.  If I do not attend to mowing, the tension between what is wild, and what is tended, blurs toward what is wild.

As is often the case with rather long drives, when one does them regularly they become almost a welcome routine.  That is especially true after a long day of mowing.  I turned off the dirt road onto the first pavement and found myself behind seven antique tractors in splendid condition, seemingly headed toward Decorah, Iowa.  I enjoyed settling in at fifteen or twenty miles an hour, watching more old tractors come up over the hill behind me.

At St. John's Church, the tractors turned left, and I right.  Turning toward Mabel, Minnesota, a mile or so later, another caravan of antique tractors came toward me.  I counted 33 of them, every one restored and shining in the sun!

Not a flat tire in the lot!

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