This was a weekend for projects on the farm. It was supposed to rain, and it did, like gangbusters on Friday night, complete with wild electrical flashes. But Saturday dawned crisp and clear and new-washed, and it was time to get back down to the farm and see what the Autumn had dragged in.

It was delightful to see the place, and daunting to pick up the mail and see four issues of the local mullet-wrapper stuffed into the mailbox. I had an ambitious scheme to go through all the assorted paper and dispose of it. I did not reckon it would be hard, since most of appeared to be solicitations to refinance the place on a special one-time good deal from a variety of companies masquerading as the Veteran’s Administration.

I sighed and prepared to go through a month’s worth of waste-paper, but that is what passes for mail these days. The news that the Post Office was going to default the next day made me optimistic that the junk would not be coming on Saturdays any more.

I got the cushions out of the closet and set up camp on the back deck to look at the trees around the pastures. The tips of some were just going orange, and I saw the first of several tasks that were definitely going to go on a list, right after all those plastic tubs of precious family records were removed from the back of the Panzer and placed in the garage-office. Two hawks, one in low orbit and another wheeling majestically high above the trees on Combat Air Patrol station, provided top cover against daylight rodent attack.

When I was about half-way through I saw a black shadow dart out of the barn. Heckle the feral cat had not only survived the last winter, and this past summer, but apparently had taken up digs in the hayloft of the barn. Good news. Between the raptors in the daylight sky and the tactical feline capability, the rodents don’t stand a chance.

I made plans to continue to feed him from the dry-stores in the office garage.

Add to list. Crap, I thought. I needed to actually make a list.

When I got to that moment of decision after the mail about what to do next, get to work or open the bar and continue to gaze on the splendor of the season around the green fields below, I split the difference. I made two piles of mail, the stuff that could be trashed immediately and the stuff that could be trashed later. I took the shopping supplements out of the Culpeper Star-Exponent and decided to pour a glass of the Old House Chardonnay I purchased at the winery last month. On the way I got a pad of Post-It notes and actually start to collate all the deferred projects for action, and actually have it at the vast Howe’s Home Improvement Center to help me stay oriented in the vast and quite overwhelming sea of good ideas.

Cleaning gutters requires a ladder. So, on the list goes “ladder.” That means the truck has to be prepped and oil changed- it has been a year, right? Replace the grill that got crushed by the tree in Snowmaggedon two years ago. Replace the log-round circles that mark the nature walk with masonry pavers. Truck again, and isn’t there a fuze or something burned out? “Find honest mechanic” went on a Post-It, along with “bed,” since the steep staircase to the master bedroom is still daunting on the bad leg, and I am going to convert the television lounge back into the master bedroom. That means clearing out the room, so “move a bunch of crap” went on the list.

This was exhausting to the point that I decided to have another glass of wine.

Almost all the projects required getting back into one of the vehicles to go to the big-box store end of town, and the last thing I wanted to do was get back on the road.  The one thing I thought was going to be possible this weekend was to install something that might save my life. I was pretty sure that whatever killed Ronald and Dave, whose first names are on the little cross where County Road dumps into the Zachary Taylor Highway.

I confess that I have been apprehensive about the end-of-the-driveway issue. The little country lane in front of the property leads down to Summerduck Run Farm, where Rosemary the Owner has several dozen ponies and a lot of weekend equestrian activity. The trucks hauling horses in for the weekend begin flying down the road early on Saturday, and reverse course Sunday afternoon.

More than once I have edged the nose of the Bluesmobile out far enough that I could see what was roaring down the lane toward me. Regrettably, that means that the first third of the venerable police cruiser is in ongoing traffic, and the first real knowledge of what was coming was liable to be in the front seat with me at higher velocity than I would like.

There is hard evidence about that. The Russians next door have some spectacular skid marks where the same creeping out had nearly caused catastrophe.

I vowed that I would never blink in horror at how close the steep sides of an F-250 or Ram pickup truck were to my windshield, and in the car this trip was a box containing a 30-inch concave mirror that would solve my problems.

Well, I hoped so, anyway. All I needed, I realized, was a charged battery for the DeWalt cordless drill, which in turn, required the drill bits which were in Arlington (damn) and some appropriate mounting wood screws. And a wrench.

I decided to drink wine and talk to the cat instead, and it was a fine choice that devolved into campfires and an outdoor meal with the neighbors.

(This is the largest rock I have ever owned. Photo Socotra).

Since I was going to blow off the afternoon, I caught up on Culpeper’s month and let the cat rub my leg and purr in satisfaction that the meal ticket was still good.

They say life is quiet in the country. I am here to tell you it isn’t necessarily true. First up in the Star Exponent was news that eleven citizens on the special investigative jury handed down four indictments- including murder- against the Culpeper Town Police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 54-year-old woman in downtown Culpeper last winter.

That was too weird when it happened, and it being murder and here, the story ran through all four issues of the paper. The story got stranger and stranger.

Daniel Wayne Harmon-Wright, formerly Daniel Wayne Sullivan, of Gainesville, is accused of first degree murder in the malicious shooting of unarmed Patricia Ann Cook.  The paper reported he turned himself in last week- the shooting happened in February, so this is a long drawn-out process- and it turns out that his mother was the former administrative secretary to the Culpeper chief of police. Apparently one of the things she was into down here was forging public records to purge Harmon-Wright’s personnel file of negative information.

Apparently young Daniel was a bit of a loose cannon, and he screwed up before in ways that did not quite make it to Murder One. It occurred to me that he might have been the officer I saw acting really agitated on foot on the highway bridge over Rt. 29 when I first moved down to the shoulder of Mount Pony. I made a note and checked it off.

Yeah, I know, but sometimes you put things on the list just to make it look like you got something done.

I am glad I didn’t have an encounter with Officer Harmon-Wright-Sullivan. He supposedly shot Ms Cook in broad daylight after getting his arm caught in her window. The circus will go on for a while. Cook’s husband is pressing a five million dollar wrongful death suit against the now-suspended without pay cop.

It was purely in the interest of public safety that I dragged my butt out of bed after first light the next day and mounted the convex mirror on the mailbox. It only took two shims to firm up the mail box, one axe, a hammer, a nail, in lieu of drill, three screwdrivers and a perplexed look. Then I stood for a moment to admire my handiwork, not to mention my gaze in the fish-eye of the reflection.

A project completed. What a delight. It is completely different than the administration of justice to criminal conduct, the latter of which can happen in the blink of an eye, and former play out across the seasons.

I wonder if the cop can go for manslaughter. I am glad he is not still driving around armed and angry. But I was able to cross something off the list besides running into him. And now I can see what is hurtling down the road toward me and that has to be a good thing.

I wish there were concave mirrors for other things in life, too. I may have to put that on the list.

(Side Yard.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com