Before the sun peaks up above the forest to the east, it’s time to go out and weed the corn and beans. The chickens are taking it easy … wondering when they are going to be served morning coffee and toast. Often they come out of their covered chicken yard and take a perch. It’s as if they need to take a moment and plan what to do today.
The posts for a new fence are drying nicely. Soon they will be in the ground and support wire fencing to protect another plot from chickens and wild rabbits.
The sun comes out while I am weeding the beans and corn. This is my office, a riot of green and brilliant flowers. There are no desks, no chairs, no sitting, no telephones, no office gossip, just the sound of leaves growing and birds singing. But in the distant there is the rumbling of traffic in the valley, a constant reminder that I’m barely a stone’s throw away from freeways and shopping malls and endless ribbons of concrete.
The urban sprawl of Seattle, 75 miles to the south, keeps metastasizing, spreading closer and closer to this bit of paradise. It used to be 40 miles away. Now it is just 30. How long before it is lapping at my door?