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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
June 8, 2008
Previously unpublished fiction.
© 2008 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Farmhouse Window, 1979
© 1979 by Bud Grossmann
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A JUNE DAY IN
GALLOWAY COUNTY, WISCONSIN
Oh, dear! So sorry to hear about the barn. Is that the farm you grew up on?
As of this evening, power was off at my parents’ farm.
A million oak twigs and leaf clusters are scattered over my folks’ driveway. On the rise by the barn, a dead locust tree blocked the road. I cut it and cleared it.
For about fifty yards along the driveway, a little ways into the field, a path of flattened winter wheat snakes from east to west. Before the locusts and big oak by the barn the path makes a sharp turn to the north.
A maple, not the biggest, but big enough, slammed flat upon the north face of the storage building roof. The damage does not appear bad. A few shingles are scattered on the lawn.
Six feet of aluminum flashing was torn off the east side of the house. It hangs from the fascia and is slapping in the wind against the dining room window. I could see no way to get a ladder to it in the afternoon drizzle, no safe way to approach it from the roof.
Between the old farmhouse and the pole building, two tall locusts were uprooted. They lie across the old driveway. A third locust, nearby, toppled into what we call the pickle patch.
As I drove out from town to have a look, and to pick up the mail and take it in to Mom and Dad, I stopped on Waters Road to admire a snapping turtle, bigger than a dinner plate, immobile but very much alive, facing to the west on the pavement. I looked around for a fallen branch that I could use to persuade the turtle to briefly say Aaah! but I didn’t find one. So I kept my distance and stared until the turtle blinked. Then I got back into my Subaru and cautiously drove past the reptile. Later, when I headed back to town, the turtle was gone.
Around the corner, before the second bridge on the little creek, a dead oak lay across all but a foot of the roadway. Muddy tracks showed that other vehicles had been by, detouring onto the shoulder.
I expect to spend tomorrow morning clearing branches and twigs from where Dad mows, but if I am lucky, we’ll have enough rain to postpone that chore. Tomorrow afternoon Dad (reluctantly) and Aunt Jeannette (cheerfully) plan to attend a high school reunion in Ninian. I’ll keep company with Mother.
♦
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