Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Flat

Over the weekend I returned to the area where I grew up, country squares (one mile by one mile), flat fields of wheat and corn, and long roads, like gigantic yard sticks of asphalt or dirt drawn at precise intervals across the gridded landscape. Roads that neither curve very often nor change pitch to accommodate hills so slight, so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. Western Isabella County appeared especially flat to me on this visit.

We occupied most of the time before and after the anniversary celebration at D.'s brother's house. An idyllic two-story farm house, it stands on a lot at the edge of a corn field, near a barn. The road is gravel. Cell phone signals are intermittent. Only two neighboring houses are visible, and those are at a fair distance, mere specks on the horizon at maybe half-a-mile. My nieces and nephews (the fifteen of them on D.'s side of the family) played in the pool, bounced on a trampoline, and played various yard games--badminton, horseshoes, and bolo toss (ladderball). Here, nephew K., Ph., brother-in-law E. (from Colo.), and father-in-law D. were throwing a couple of games of bolo toss.

Posted by Derek Mueller at June 27, 2007 9:25 PM to Under a Bushel