#Writephoto: Farmer's Revolt, Part 2

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Photo by KL Caley

Posting for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com.  Read all about it and join in at the WritePhoto site. 

This is a sort of continuation of September's story about the tractor in a field, and is a very short 330-odd words, since I'm working hard at hitting my ambitious NaNoWriMo goals and haven't time for additional short stories!

 

Farmer's Revolt, Part II

Matt watched his sister drive the tractor off into the fog. Dad had reamed her out over cutting the hay in sweeping curves instead of neat lines, so she was keeping right to the path. Dad hadn’t taken away the tractor, though. Jane Amelia still got to drive it most of the time, while he, Matt had to drive the hay rake, or, worse, get down and pick rocks from the field, which was today’s job.

 

How could a field that had been farmed for as long as this one still have rocks poking up all the time? And why couldn’t he drive the tractor down to the new field and do the fall plowing instead of his sister?

 

The tractor reached the trees and passed out of sight. Between them, the mist and the trees made everything vanish except this one bit of field he was picking over.

 

Matt moved the ATV with the rock trailer up a few feet, climbed back down, and loaded on a new pile of rocks. Then, his mind full of Jane Amelia and imagining what she might do with such a boring job, he drove over to the fence line to empty the trailer. The rocks were meant to pile up around the base of the fenceposts, helping keep them upright when snow piled up or the wind blew.

 

Dad taught him to scoop the rocks quickly into a heap around the post. Just this once, he’d be like his sister. Just this once, he’d do something the way Jane Amelia would.

 

One stone at a time, Matt picked up the rocks and begin building his stack. It sort of looked like a person, so he added a rock to serve as a head, put a stick against it to be a sword, and started on the next one.

 

By the time he went in for dinner, a small stone army guarded the posts all down one side of the field.

 

“I guess I could get to like this work,” Matt told himself as he revved the four-wheeler down the path to the machine shed.


 

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2022
 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.
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Comments

  1. Jemima PettNovember 8, 2022 at 3:19 PM

    Well done, Matt! Get creative with your farming 😉

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 8, 2022 at 3:31 AM

    Great story - Well done! Especially on a nano month. I'd love to see the little stone army. KL <3

    ReplyDelete

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