With a cloud of wasps buzzing around our heads, Cole, Glen, Tony, and I were half an hour deep in a tractor training — safe removal of the offset flail mower and safe installation of the backhoe — when Teddi sent me this snapshot of a White Prickly Poppy ‘Carolina’ (Agremone albiflora) blooming in the “ice garden” northwest of the icehouse. Now that’s a welcome distraction!
Habitués know that I’m a serious sucker for poppies. Seriously smitten. Since I was a wee lad I’ve been drawn to these delicate-yet-resilient beauties. Pulchritudinous poppies! 
And like some sedative elixir, the vision of this exquisite Prickly Poppy ‘Carolina’ bloom soothed me. Stilled my racing heart. Soothed my wasp sting nerves. Reminded me that redirecting my attention from the swarming wasps to the tangible challenge of attaching an awkward steel “arm” onto another steel-and-wheel contraption would serve me well. Would serve Glen and Tony well. After all the goal was to transfer knowledge and safety protocols from Cole and me to Glen and Tony.
The White Prickly Poppy ‘Carolina’ petals, pleated crêpe fluttering in today’s warm September afternoon breeze, faintly ruffled, so delicate, drawing my vision inward toward a miniature copse of egg yolk yellow stamina (aka stamens), and then, at the hub of this meditative mandala, a purple stigma, a sensuously sculptural embellishment as intriguing as it is unlikely… My heart rate has subsided, my nerves have calmed, and the wasps — still swarming menacingly but not landing, not stinging — are inaudible above the purr of the tractor. All four of us are focused on hydraulics and alignment, on deft communication and subtle adjustments, on piecing together two mechanical puzzle pieces, on transforming a mowing machine into a digging machine.
And then we were done. The tractor was turned off to rest up for tomorrow’s labor. The wasps, now audible once again, still frenzied fiercely nearby. Three of us began walking back to the gate into the orchard, and then through the orchard toward the carriage barn. The fourth drove the Gator back toward a rear meadow to retrieve chainsaws and other equipment where he had been working earlier in the afternoon. Then thank you’s and goodbyes as we went our end-of-day ways, the others toward home, and I toward the icehouse flowerbeds to admire the most recent bloom.
What do you think?