Where the Pavement Ends

The road in front of our farmette is paved until you pass the driveway, then it turns to gravel. The traffic is light but we get cars, trucks and tractors. We live just west of several large farms and tractors are always pulling large, spidery looking, farm equipment. The type of equipment depends on the time of year and crop they are tending. The tractors are moving slowly and do not vary their speed as they pass the house. The trucks do not slow down for the transition from pavement to gravel, they just brace for the bumpy ride they are about to get. The cars, however, slow for the adventure ahead. Some even turn around in our driveway at the sight of the gravel extending in front of them for several miles.

Sometimes I stand on my front porch and watch the fields across this street. The farms are laid out in an uneven checkerboard pattern and run from south to north down into the small valley we overlook. In the spring, some of the squares are brown from the winter and some are the green of early winter wheat. Some fields are still brown from tilling and awaiting seeds to be planted. Others are yellow with uncut hay Farm houses dot the countryside and large round hay bales line the fences. In summer, the fields change color again. From the heat of the Texas summer sun, the milo turns a golden brown with reddish brown heads rising up over the leaves of the plant, nodding in the ever present breeze. The harvest begins in the fall and the farmers struggle to keep up with the work as time is short to complete the job. After the crop is in, the farmers have time to plan for winter and the cycle begins again.

As the road is in a transition and modifies the speed of the traffic and equipment passing the house, the speed of my life is also modified. I am now retired and have the time to do the things long put off because of a hectic fifty year career in high-tech sales. The trucks plunge ahead, the cars turn around and the tractors plod along: which do I follow? I think I’ll be a truck and dive into the opportunities now available to me on the road ahead. I am fortunate to be able to pick what I will do. Art, public service, hobby farming, or just reading the books I have set aside for so long. I have a place set up with an easy chair and lamp next to my book case for this occasion. I have a studio at the back of the house for drawing, painting or pottery. Of course the requisite refrigerator and TV are also there. I could help my wife with the greenhouse, the chickens or the horses if I am in a helpful mood.

This transition may be at the end of the pavement, but there is lots of gravel to go.