Tractors and Fields, Guns and Geese, and a Jogging Goat

I was late for work today. Got behind a tractor. It was an old-time Massey Ferguson- with faded red paint and tines on the back. Those tines were so wide I didn't dare to pass him. So I poked along behind and decided that rather than to get all stressed out- I might as well enjoy myself.
     "After all," I mused, "A tractor is a sure-fire sign of spring. He's going to plow a field nearby. Thank God that there are fields nearby instead of gated condominiums. And fields mean corn and raspberries; Holstein cows and quarterhorses. And local food. And that is good."
    That's just one example of living in a farming town. I thought of others as I drove.
    Like hunters. I hear them early Saturday mornings shooting green-necked mallard ducks in the cornfields down by the Nooksack river. Now personally, I prefer to do my hunting with cameras and binoculars. But nonetheless I can respect a person who hunts and fishes legally. And  I have to wonder if a person who has looked into the eyes of the creature he just shot might have more respect for the life he's taken than the guy who buys his meat at Safeway and pretends that it was never really a living, breathing, cud-chewing cow. Just a thought. But back to my story. Karen and I were driving through my town (a four or five minute trip except on Sundays when the town's closed down...then 3 minutes tops.) Did I mention that Karen is my beautiful daughter-in-law from Portland? Well, we had to stop for 2 guys on bikes in the crosswalk with camouflage jackets and guns slung over their handlebars.
    "Those guys have GUNS," Karen shrieked.
    "Oh yeah, I guess they're going hunting," I reply rather nonchalantly.
    "But you can't just ride around on bikes with GUNS!" she hollered.
     I tried to calm her down. "I think it's ok in Lynden; they're just going down the road to hunt in those fields by the river."
    "No, that's not right!" She was adamant. "You have to tell them, Debbie. They shouldn't have guns in town."
    "Karen," I reasoned gently, "You can't just go up to someone with a gun and tell them that they can't have a gun. It's not a good idea."
   "Ohhhh, yeah, I guess not!"
   We both still laugh about that.
   And in Karen's defense, when I walk around Portland with her; I want to scream, "Tattoos! Mohawks and Piercings!" But she doesn't seem concerned about those crazy looking dudes, so I  just I follow her lead and walk past them quickly-and don't look them in they eye. I'm much more wary of goth-types than Schwinn-riding duck hunters!
   Hunters. That means we have wildlife. Ducks and honking Canadian geeses, trumpeter swans--they fly right over my house as regularly as a Boeing 747 scheduled flight to Vegas. But they're much prettier to see.
   I don't know where it came from; but one day a turkey walked into the street and made me slam on my brakes. My daughter was along. "That's ridiculous!" she snorted. "We had to stop for a turkey!"
   I thought it was fabulous.
   And what about the day my teenage neighbor girl came jogging down the street with her spotted Alpine goat in tow? (It was an FFA project.) Anyone would have to concede that that's a perk of rural life!
    So I finally made it to work, 10 minutes late, but with a smile. I marched up to my boss and said with pride, "Sorry I'm late. I got behind a tractor..."