![]() ![]() I think of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” whenever I see it. Of the thousands of books I own, perhaps the most prized is one given to me by my mother when I graduated high school, Webster’s New World Dictionary, circa 1970. I have a small bookshelf containing reference books to which I used to refer often. Research once required access to reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. I did a bit of research on the Iowa snapping turtle after my encounter and learned that she can live to be a hundred years old, but not if she continues to cross country roads. I stopped in my lane of traffic, turned on emergency flashers, put on the leather gloves I keep under my seat for just such circumstances, lifted the big girl by her tail (this made her very unhappy), and carried her to a grassy area near a pond, which is likely where her journey began. On a recent late afternoon I was traveling a hard-surfaced two-lane near my place and up ahead I could see that something quite substantive was in the middle of my lane a large, ancient-looking snapping turtle. Many of the creatures that walk the earth with me out here are, like mice, are uncomprehending when it comes to our world. My tractor’s diesel engine throbbed, cutter blades whirled, and brown field mice took cover, scampering through the grass, unused to the implements of a modern world. For an assortment of reasons, it has been a few years since the field has known a cutter, but this old man is back on his tractor, earbuds blasting tunes from the likes of the Eagles, Sade, and Todd Rundgren, singing in full voice, not concerned that someone might hear. As I write this, a small herd of six deer is hanging out in a field in front of my house, a field I mowed yesterday.
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