When the sounds of an army ...
...of lawn mowers, tractors, and other assorted farm and estate equipment fire up and assault our hearing nonstop from dawn to dusk, you know Mother Nature has turned off the incessant rain here in Northern Vieginia and turned up the heat to t-shirt "outside" weather, signaling it's time to get ready for Summer to hit hard, hot, and soon.
And so it was that the long awaited warm spell was all I needed to encourage me to go AWOL to escape the clutches of "farm life in the Springtime". After having spent the last two weeks moving 400+ strawberry plants from an old, messy bed to a newly created, regimented one, it was time to take to the gravel roads for a much deserved ride. This past weekend I enjoyed a similar escape by joining the local bike shop group for a 22 mile paved and quite civilized ride to a nearby farm market. T'was great fun, got to reconnect with old cycling friends, browse an endless deployment of vendors at the weekend market, pet a million friendly pooches dragging their proud parents along on leashes while said canines worked the crowds for pets and adoration with the self assurance of experienced politicians. (I do declare that there were almost as many expertly groomed and highly pampered dogs in the crowds of people wandering the shops as there were people themselves. Not a mutt in the entire assembly. Every last one was a purebred in an astonishing number of different breeds).
Sadly, I didn't manage to find any farm fresh cheese, as my hubby had hoped I'd procure for him, so I arrived back home, a bit chilled and a bit damp from the intermittent sprinkles and minus the cheese, but still basking in the joy of just being able to finally ride the bike and not be forced yet again to stand at the window watching the outside world suffer the onslaught of perpetual rain and bitter cold.
I do have a 33 mile ride coming up this Saturday in Maryland with the ebike group, hence my need to put in some saddle time ASAP, especially now that the heat and sunshine were in full regalia, all the strawberry plants that could possibility fit in the new bed had been moved, and the other beds (veggies and corn) were waiting for seeding.
Last week the road crews had planted a warning sign that my gravel road across from my farm, my adopted road, would be closed for road repair. Seems like the road crew decided this "first warm day of the season" would be perfect to block the road midway by digging up and replacing a 75 year old culvert worn out from decades of seasons and routine flooding of a major creek that used the culvert to get from one side of the road to the other. I wasn't sure how extensive the road blockage would be, but I soon found out.
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It was a complete closure. A trench across the entire road flanked by large machines on both sides like opposing armies. An endless convoy of official trucks sat quietly off the sides, surrounded by an army of men in blaze orange and hi-viz green vests and hard hats supervising the operation of extracting the old metal culvert before a platoon of new plastic culvert could be deployed in the stream bed.
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There was no way around for a car or bike. Maybe for a person on foot if they felt willing to wade into the wide, muddy, quickly moving stream to attempt an advance to the far side. It was a blockage that would halt anyone. Anyone that didn't know the horse paths through the nearby woods that circumvented the big stream and could work around the blockade by sneaking through some private property, that is.
Since I knew the surrounding landowners, and all the ways through the surrounding woods, I set off on my bike as if it was my horse from years past. Down the nearby old road that had long devolved into a woodland path for horses and the foxhunt, through a stream that insisted I get my feet wet as payment for passage, up the increasingly wild path which required some negotiating with the littered remains of tree limbs lost in recent battles with the March winds that now semi blocked the muddy path, and up into an open field that was already flush with new growth destined to be hay by mid summer.
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I followed along an invisible route that only I knew from years in the past, memories tracing the way from an entirely different saddle on an entirely different conveyance, and then through a break in the woods bordering the field that also bordered a friend's property. I kept my bike moving beneath me, past my absent friend's back field, past her back yard occupied by a friendly curious and very vocal retired foxhound, and down her driveway back to the road on the opposite side of the breach.
I turned my bike back to the platoon of road department trucks lining this opposite side of the road breach, as well as several generators which filled the air with the roar of their ear splitting motors as they pumped massive volumes of water out of the big stream upstream, through a series of large fire hoses draped across the road to the downstream side where the water rejoined the stream bed to continue once again on its woodland run. I snapped a photo of one of the crew waiting to help deploy one of the new plastic culvert. He was already tired, hot and a bit grumpy, so I left him to his job while I watched the action from this side of the road.
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Across the breach the one big machine on the far side was busy systematically pounding a major offensive assault attempting to crumple the ancient metal culvert into a mass of smashed corrugated pieces. It was a hard fought battle as the old metal put up an impressive defense, refusing to yield its massive round shape until the fatigue of the constant onslaught of the machine's heavily fortified front digger slamming down again and again just proved to be too much. As the destruction took place on the far side, in the near side a new culvert piece was already being moved into place. I watched silently as pieces of the old world slipped away in advance of the new.
As the new culvert piece settled onto the creek bed, aided by the men and the machines, I took that as my cue to wave goodbye to some of the guys watching me from their vantage point in the stream, and headed down the uninterrupted road into the more peaceful countryside. About a mile further I did have to pull off the road momentarily to allow passage of two monstrous road department trucks making their way to the front line. The drivers happily, with big smiles, returned my friendly wave. After they had passed in a loud rumble of tires and dust, I reclaimed the road to continue on my journey.
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The rest of the ride was lost in the peace of the countside, the old gravel road taking me past elegant estates, down narrow steep declines and up slightly wider inclines, always offering beautiful views no matter which way I looked. Paul Simon accompanied me, singing a delightful ditty through the earbud snugged in my right ear about the time he and Julio were down in the school yard while my left ear, free from musical interludes, enjoyed the sounds of nature and the crunch of the gravel beneath my wheels. It was heaven. 9 miles later I was back in my own neck of the woods, stopping to chat with a neighbor "up the road a piece" whom I haven't seen since last Fall. As is typical of "country folk" we stood in the middle of the road, sharing the local news, discussing world news, and only stepping off to the side to exchange friendly waves hello to the cars and trucks that passed now and then, each vehicle slowing respectively as we yielded them enough room to pass before reclaiming the road to continue our conversation. After an enjoyable repast just gossiping and sharing funny stories I finally had to say goodbye to my neighbor and get moving because I had promised some of my extra strawberry plants to my son who had driven down from his place to ours and was waiting for me to get home.
And thus I found myself off my bike and back in the old strawberry patch, digging up strawberry plants once again. Deja vu, but this time in the sunshine.
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