Countryside drive

 With an early winter chill hanging in the air, I watched the scenery flash by in a series of brilliant autumn colors and blinding streaks of sunlight. The afternoon sun lingered as it set, slowly sinking behind the hills which I had somehow found myself within. 

 I was driving home from tax school, headed west through hills which seemed more appropriate to the New York countryside that I left nearly two years ago. As the sun played peek-a-boo through the trees, I spotted a gas station which sat surrounded by farmland. The oddity of it sparked the ongoing thought that had been repeating lazily in the back of my mind - have to get gas or end up coasting home on fumes today. 

 After quickly purging my car of the donut box riding shotgun with me, I waited for the pump to slowly fill my tank. Motion from the farmhouse across the highway caught my eye. A older farmer tilted across the farmyard, his joints stubbornly abbreviating his range of motion. Swing, tilt, swing, tilt, swing, tilt. I gazed at his sheer determination, wondering what task took him away from his comfortable chair inside the farmhouse. 

 The white dog following at his heels, and the red farm truck parked inside the barn made me think that it was time for some evening errands. Then I looked at the dog more closely. The tail wagged  in a short, stumpy, erect manner that wasn't a dog's wag at all. It was a goat. The goat was joined by a trail of lumbering cows and weaving cats. (The cats obviously well accustomed to walking amongst shuffling hooves and switching tails.) I shook my head as memories of my father leading a parade of animals through daily herd checks flashed through my mind. Was the farmer preparing for the evening milking? Did he have afternoon hay and straw to distribute? 

 As the gas tank neared full capacity, I jiggled the handle until my "lucky" number slipped into place. Looking up one more time as the printer slowly produced it's record of my purchase, I saw the farmer oddly bobbing up and down in his new position across the highway. Seeming to fight something that was just out of sight amongst the milling bodies around him. The movement suddenly became recognizable. He was running a hose into a cement water trough. Pulling on the hose and coiling it into the trough so the force of the water didn't shoot the hose back out of the trough. 

 As I reluctantly prepared to slip into the car and drive away,  I let my perception expand and take in all of the hillside scene. The sheep cropping the short grass and the cows entering the shadows of the alleyway. Standing on the hillside, placidly watching the scene unfolding below her, stood a solitary cow. Her swollen belly hanging low and wide. Her coat shining in the impeccable way of a Jersey cow who is near her calving date. Her smooth coat proof of the care and husbandry that her farmer is still honored to give.