One of our drivers called off sick today (and I'm not sick! . . .yet, that is), so I drove his rural door-to-door route. It was nice getting back out on the road again, after having been in the office for a while.

While I was out there, in the wilds of the county, I remembered something. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to live on a farm. Not a big factory farm, or a farm that always had to produce something. I'm talking about a chunk of property with a small barn and a nice house. I'd have a couple of horses, a cow, a goat, maybe a sheep and a pig, some chickens. Maybe even a small pond with koi and some resident ducks. Swans would be nice, but they get territorial.

I'd have a nice-sized vegetable garden. I'd grow tomatoes and cucumbers and pumpkins. Spaghetti squash. Green peppers. Rows and rows of string beans. Strawberries. Watermelons, perhaps. I've been told those are easy.

Apple trees and asparagus. A row or two of grape vines. Oh, and a thick patch of raspberries and blueberries in the back. Might as well stick an elderberry bush in there while I'm at it. And of course I'd have a block of corn.

(Why a block? Why not just a row? Well, corn is crappy when it comes to self-fertilization. If you've ever grown corn in your backyard in suburbia you know this. You end up with some nice ears of really tasty corn, but there huge gaps between the kernels. Those spots didn't get fertilized. That's one reason that farmers grow corn in vast fields. Now, if you grow your backyard corn across the street from one of those vast fields, you'll probably have nice corn, because the pollen will make its way across the street. But if all else fails, you can always use the corn stalk for decorating in the fall.)

And speaking of fertilization, I'd try my hand at bee keeping. It would benefit the plants, and I'd have honey for my oatmeal in the morning.

Of course, that was my fantasy on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I'd dream about living in a really chic warehouse loft apartment in Uptown Urbania. Decorated in black and white. White carpet, black leather sofa, black kitchen fixtures. A balcony with a view. A great big fluffy bed with a black comforter. Walk-in closet. A German Shepherd who was perfectly trained and never shed. The dishes all matched one another and were always clean.

On Sunday, I rested.