The road north

In mid-January I began working three mornings a week in Woodland. It's only 13 miles from my house, but the drive has been possibly the job's best feature. Three miles north, five miles west, then north again, past fields and orchards that every day look different than the day before. Sometimes the difference is big (one morning, bare ground, the next day thousands of tomato plants have appeared, seemingly sprouted overnight but actually having been unpacked from the large, white boxes that had been sitting in that field); other times, what I notice is just that a particular field is being irrigated that morning. In January, an entire orchard went in. I noticed the field because it was filled with low, regularly spaced mounds which one day sprouted white tubes, acres and acres of them, so uniformly set that it reminded me of Arlington National Cemetery. There were sticks in those tubes, and as the weeks have passed, those sticks have gotten taller and sprouted leaves. The two established orchards across the road from one another have gone from winter-bareness to pink blossoms to full leaf. The earth beneath the orchard on the east side of the road is clean, brown soil, not a weed or any other vegation to be seen. The orchard on the west, though, has grass and other green plants growing under the trees. Is one an organic orchard, I wonder? Or is it just the personal preference of the orchardists? (is that a word, orchardists?)

Then there are the mountains to the west, always different depending on whether the light on any given day is harsh or mellow, sharp and clear or hazy with windborne dust. I've seen some spectacularly beautiful skies on days when we've had rain showers; the rain stops falling but the clouds stay around, sailing through the vast expanse of Yolo County blue. Hawks, sometimes two or three a morning, each sitting atop his own utility pole. 'Good hunting!" I say to him, "mazel tov!"

When the wind is at its fiercent, blowing from the north, it's difficult to keep the car at 55 mph, it's so strong. And now that it's spring and planting season, no day goes by without encountering a piece of exotic farm equipment trundling up the road. I have no idea what their functions are.

City streets are dynamic with traffic, people, and the cacaphony they create; country roads are quieter but no less dynamic than their city cousins. Friday was my last day at that Woodland job; I shall miss the drive the most.