A Row of Craggy Apple Trees in Snow

It was a Monday, and so I was working at home. My husband left early in the morning to take my 1998 Mazda Protege to Dave the mechanic, in Huntingdon, to get the timing belt replaced - finally! I know it's only been a bit more than two weeks since I last drove it, but it seems like forever!

My wheels are my wings; they take me everywhere. I really miss them when I don't have access to my car. In taking the bus these past few weeks, I've seen lots of town and campus. But I miss the places I can't get to without my car: Spring Creek, Millbrook, just to name a few.

My husband and I are big patrons of our local Bookmobile, and it stops at Way Fruit Farm, not far from our house, for two hours every Monday. I received an alert a few days ago that several books were waiting for us.

It's usually my husband's responsibility to go up and get the books, but he wasn't home, so I did it. I didn't have a car, so I walked the mile or so to Way Fruit Farm, where the Bookmobile was waiting.

I returned several books that were due, picked up the new ones, and had a little lunch at the small cafe at Way Fruit Farm, a thing I have somehow never done despite having lived so close for the past going-on-12 years.

And then I walked back home along the edge of the fruit farm's apple orchard, with its rows and rows of craggy trees. There were many rotten apples still on the trees and on the ground surrounding the trees; plus footprints of many deer. It was not an arduous walk by any means, and I got to make plenty of tracks myself in our most recent round of snow.

My husband returned around mid-afternoon and reported the good news: the Mazda was back in working condition! Dave (who also, on occasion, works as a mechanic on a NASCAR crew) took one look at the old, dry, cracked timing belt and pronounced it "the worst timing belt [he'd] ever seen in 40 years of working on cars."

Dave removed the offending belt from the car and threw it on the ground as though it were a serpent - or a demon - being cast out in their midst. "You're lucky you even GOT HERE with that thing," he told my husband; "you're REALLY lucky it didn't break on the drive DOWN!" So yes, it was a sound decision on our part to park my Mazda and bus it all this time.

Dave pronounced the inside of the engine to be clean as a whistle, however; he said it looked like an engine that was only 3 or 4 years old, not one heading closer toward 20. All of the old men gathered around (for every mechanic shop around here is a drawing spot for a gathering of old men) and looked appropriately disapproving of the old timing belt; and appropriately approving of the shiny, clean engine.

And so it was an interesting and profitable day, all around. I savored a lunch I did not try before. I played my husband's role, and met the Bookmobile guy, whom I have not seen in years. I strolled along a craggy apple orchard I have not walked along before. And I got my car back! Hooray! I've got wheels!

I wanted the song to accompany this image to be about trees, and here is a favorite: Peter Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour, with Shaking the Tree.