As I was mowing our pasture a few days ago, two barn swallows worked alongside me – they at their task, me at mine. As I cut the grass, they caught insects to feed their young hidden somewhere in our barn. When we work together like this, as we often do, we do so in a sort of aeromechanical symbiosis – me absorbed in keeping the tractor carefully to its lines and turns; they delighting in swooping, diving, dipping, sideways-twisting flight. Nothing is more free than a swallow on the wing.
Barn swallows always find more joy in their work than I do in mine. They mind no straight line: they go where they will, go where the hunt or sheer joy takes them. Their work is their freedom, while I am subject to heat, wind, sunburn, sweat, and an occasional mouthful of dust as I turn back after passing over a molehill. They are supple in their flight, returning often to the barn as they feed their young; I constantly fight the tractor’s wheel, clinging to its side bar as I ride out the pasture’s bumps, holes, and hilly, uneven surfaces. I am stiff and sore as I walk back to the house when finished with my work, while the barn swallows fly on behind me at theirs as joyfully as when our conjoined efforts first began.
In the midst of my work, one of the barn swallows flew straight at me, only to turn away a foot or so from potential impact. Perhaps in turning away, it meant to offer me a glimpse of its cobalt-feathered back in thanks for my part in our joint work; perhaps it came so close in an attempt to understand why so large a creature as I always feels obligated to toe the line.
You are stiff and sore because your an old fart.
We have a different swallow in our front deck area. The smaller cliff swallows have white underside and light grey on top. The’re swooping and carefree flight also nets insects of great variety.
Not only am I an Old Fart, but I take pride in the distinction. And I am safe in the knowledge that you’re an even older one. Other than the swallows, how’s life up north?