The crowd is nodding at all of this, confirming the tale.
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Many in the crowd are nodding vigorously at this comment. Eyes rolling.
The goat-herder faces Finegan, raising his hands up and grinning.
The goat-herder turns back to the task at hand, pulling the roasting
pumpkin out of the oven and testing it with a long pronged fork.
______________________________
The next morning the goat-herder is silhouetted against the orange dawn
sky, seated on a stool next to a goat milking station, milking one of
his goats. He swings to the side to pour the milk from the milking
bucket into a milk cooler, tall and with handles on both sides at the
top. Finegan’s bare feet are sticking out of the houseboat. As the
goats bleat, greeting their herder, Finegan’s feet twitch.
______________________________
The goat-herder is squeezing whey out of cheese curds using rough cloth
squares to hold the curds. The whey is being saved as a drink, nothing
wasted. He slams the curd bag on the table to flatten it and form a
rectangle, flips the cloth this way and that to form a package, and
places the curd in a cooler to cure. The goat-herder, who has been
concentrating on his work, has just noticed that Finegan has quietly
arrived. He flashes a quick smile over his shoulder.
Finegan says,
______________________________
Finegan and the goat-herder are approaching a collapsed barn, caved in
at the center, the roof shingles mostly missing. Farming implements are
here and there in the tall grass, devices meant to be dragged behind a
tractor – a raking device meant to collect hay, and a plowing device
with sharp tines meant to plow several rows at once. Finegan and the
goat-herder stride across the barnyard and into the doors of the barn,
now askew due to the collapse.
______________________________
Finegan is walking through the barn, used to house implements rather
than house cows or horses. He is walking slowly along a workbench at
the side, looking at tools laid out or hung on the walls. Several bikes
36
have been tossed into a corner, tires deflated or missing. The old
tractor stands in the center, covered with dust and a few splinters of
boards from the collapsed roof. Some chickens have been roosting in the
barn, and take off squawking as the men make their rounds. Finegan
asks,
______________________________
Joey is tossing some nuts and bolts back into a box, one of many that
has been brought from the houseboat, and placing the boxes back into
the old rusty wagon from the houseboat. Finegan is sitting on a stool,
hunched over what looks like an assemblage of junk, making his final
adjustments. He stands up and stands back, a look of satisfaction on
his face. The goat-herder and the suburbanites are walking up at one
side, and stand in a group, expectantly. Finegan says, proudly,
The group does not react, is unimpressed and confused. What does this
contraption do?
Realizing they are not following his genius, Finegan gives a
demonstration. He climbs into a bike seat, one of a pair for a dual
pumping operation. He pats the other seat and motions to the goat-
herder to hop on.
Each seat has a lever, so the contraption can turn by one bike seat
disconnecting while the other stays connected. Thus, the contraption
can turn 180° to the left or the right, depending upon which seat has
disengaged. Finegan waves the watching group away.
Finegan is murmuring instructions to the goat-herder, then pushes a
lever on a control panel between the two bike seats. They both start
peddling and the contraption takes off.
From front to back, it is a multistep operation to clear, plow, and
plant. At the front of the long contraption are lawn mover blades,
recently sharpened, turning round and round. They have been lowered by
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the lever on the control panel, and turn as the contraption moves,
cutting any weeds on the row about to be planted. Next, along the
