A PHOTO + A LIST

A photo (or two) from the last week

A farm list

I have been exposed to a new uniform for men since I’ve been living in the country.  It is quite a departure from the button-down shirts and fancy jeans of my last neighborhood.  This one is far more functional, far more conducive to allowing others to admire the wearer’s biceps.  It is the self-made sleeveless tee shirt (that is, superfluous sleeves expertly cut away by the wearer himself).  And it has visited the farm many times since we have arrived.  Here are some of the more memorable times this noteworthy country garb has come to call:

1. Men seeking fish.  Not long after we moved in, two teenagers rode up the driveway in a golf cart equipped with two fishing poles and a case of refined pilsner.  They asked, biceps blazing and apparently a few beers deep, if they could fish in our pond.  Fearing for the safety of our fish, we declined.
2. Man on steed.  People in the country don’t call first; they just show up.  One night during our first spring here, our neighbor came to introduce himself.  That spring was uncharacteristically warm, as was the night he rode up through the middle pasture on his Tennessee Walker, Stetson hat cocked downward and biceps blazing.  He introduced himself and asked if we would mind if he rode his horses down our creeks to his parents house a mile away (he and his 12 siblings all live within a ten mile radius of him).  Of course we did not.
3. Man seeking buried treasures.  It was last fall when my belly was at least as big as the barnacled Galeux D’Eysines winter squash in our garden.  A young man knocked on the door to ask if he could traverse our property with his metal detector.  Being such an old house, he reasoned, it was bound to have some treasures underground.  But his gentle demeanor and blazing biceps were not enough to convince us to make a deal with him.
4. Men seeking Easter lilies.  We were having family photos taken upstairs earlier this spring when we heard an aggressive knock at the front door.  There stood two twenty-something men, four biceps blazing.  Could they cut some of our Easter lilies?  Most certainly.  So they made their way out to the hay field, where a cluster upon cluster of daffodils (not Easter lilies) had recently bloomed.  Back upstairs, we watched as these two men merrily picked impressive bouquets of the flowers.  About 15 minutes later, they got in their metallic ocean-blue pick-up, bearing the handwritten message “i luv you” in its road dust, peeled out, and drove away.

Why wear a standard short-sleeved tee shirt when a DIY sleeveless tee has so much more country swagger?