The Farmer in the Dell

The Red Dart bus dropped Geoffrey Granger off at the foot of a long dirt lane leading to a cozy farmhouse. He stood there for a good five minutes sucking in all the sensory stimuli of this bucolic setting. Manure, fresh-cut hay, ozone from a recent thunder storm, and the flowering privet in the hedge-row all contributed to the aromatic melange that Jeff used to resettle his mind into a yeoman’s serenity. A nearby plowed field steamed slightly as it was being plucked over by a troop of magpies foraging for a late lunch. The L-shaped road ahead was paralleled with a phalanx of tall maple trees that swayed in the slight breeze like a line of ballerina dancers at the practice bar.

As he turned and trudged up this rutted path, he gauged the caliber of the herds of sloe-eyed Jersey cows, Black Angus steers, and milky-white Marino sheep grazing in separate, movable pens on the lush alfalfa and clover fields. The husbandry prowess of this croft’s owner was evidenced by the well-fed sheen on the bovines’ hides and the length of the ovine wool. A gaggle of Canada geese paddled noisily in the nearby irrigation pond which was reflecting the increasingly bright August sun and random, racing nimbus clouds throwing crisp shadows across the huddled water lilies.

As he approached the enclosed barnyard he noted a parcel of piebald Guinea hens and russet Rhode Island Reds pecking and scratching and throwing up the afternoon dust. Ten Poland China sows and one enormous boar rooted in the mud of a pig sty attached to the side of a carmine-red barn and their communal grunting created a soothing background cadence. To the side of the white clapboard farmhouse, the kitchen garden was overflowing with lush red tomatoes, purple-black eggplants, vermilion and verdant peppers, and a wide range of salad greens.

Just as Jeff was turning by the silo to enter the straw-filled upper barn his whole world went blank, mute, and odorless. It was quickly clear what had happened. Jeff’s black Labrador, Flatulence, had tripped over and, consequently, pulled the plug to his Dell, Studio XPS 9000 with Windows 7, personal computer system on which he was running the virtual reality software “Agra-Views.” Jeff removed his wrap-around, viewing and smelling, acoustical-helmet and gave his now hang-dog pet a swift kick to the solar plexus.

© Copyright, George W. Potts