yesterdays...

it's been more than a host of yesterdays since i last sat on the metal seat of my dad's old john deere.  afternoons like this one take me back to that time.  mowing my lawn in the heat of the day is not the smartest thing to do but i have just enough of the farmer mentality left in me that's when i choose to do it, as often as not.

                                                                  

as in those days, today the sky was dotted with popcorn clouds. cumulus to be more precise, or the cumuli as i've taken to calling them most recently.  out and back and out again, the rows are a lot shorter doing the yard, still i found myself hoping the sun was up for a game of hide and seek.

i think my new mower could take that old deere in a quarter mile, that is if i could keep up with the craftsman for that distance without a stop.  full throttle, it runs almost too fast to walk behind it but not fast enough to make me break into a jog.

today, as in those days, the sun did it's best to wring  from me my last drop of sweat.  before i left for the field i'd fill a gallon jug with water.  my mama had carefully fitted several layers of cloth to the outside which was wetted through. the idea being evaporation, and carefully moving the jug into any available shade at the completion of each round, would keep the water "cool".   by quittin" time, the cloth was mostly dry, the jug was close to empty, the water tepid at best.   what i wouldn't have given for and "igloo", if there was even such an animal in those days. 

but you go with what you know.   necessity may be the mother of invention but my being here today gives testament to reality.  a cloth wrapped gallon jug can keep a dry land farmers kid from turning into a sun dried prune.  thanks mom, if i forgot to tell you back in the old days, many thanks. aio