《海外文轩》红花:去科罗拉多山区当农民（九）

去科罗拉多山区当农民（九）

Kelly is a dreaming man. He has big plans for his farm and a lot of work has to be done. He wants to build a sauna in the back acreage of his farm and create a locally legendary gooseberry farm on the land that is now just weeds and dirt. He wants many goats and chickens in a pasture northeast of his home so that they can begin eating and de-weeding the area. And that is just his backyard. His front yard needed a lot of landscaping work and gravel needed to be moved.

It all seemed so grand to me and I was only going to participate in a short four week project with him to get as much done as possible. I could see the determination in his face as he explained the future of his homestead and that gave me the vision to begin working. I was ready to begin my first day of twenty eight days of hard work.

I have already gone into much detail of my first glances of Colorado and the life there to give a setting to the reader. The bulk of my experiences I will summarize because if I were to write in rich detail everything that occurred, I would be sitting here until 2014. Amongst the things that I did were gardening, goat wrangling, fence building, pasture irrigating, rock hauling, truck driving, landscaping, gravel shoveling, posting, sewing, tailoring, cooking, exercising, exploring, canoeing, learning, speaking, talking, teaching, observing, touring, learning, growing, and changing.

I star gazed，I drove around the countryside, I was taking in the aroma of the land untouched by machinery. The sky was untainted, a swallowing blue with the fluffiest white clouds I have ever seen. The rainy days were even more dramatic; the grey monoliths of clouds would hover in the distance, perching themselves over the dry land and releasing their much desired water. It was as if someone held a large sack of water over the land and another just took his knife through the bottom of the sack cloud. Seeing the curtain of water fall in the distance as I stood dry was probably one of the coolest things I saw.

凯利是一个爱做梦的人。对于他的农场，他有一大堆计划要付诸行动去实现。比如，他想在后院空地建一个桑拿浴室；还想把那块杂草丛生的废弃地利用起来，开辟成传说中的猕猴桃园；他还梦想开辟一个青草遍地的牧场，放养成群的牛羊在山坡吃草。这仅仅是他的后院计划。对于前院，他打算设计成园林风格，这需要搬运大量碎石。

对我来说，这些似乎都是浩大工程，而我呆在这里的时间仅有四个星期而已，看样子我只能在有限的时间内尽力而为。当凯利给我讲述他对农场的远景时，我从他脸上看见了坚韧不拔的神情，这种情绪传染给了我，让我也视野大开，摩拳擦掌，跃跃欲试。

我准备从第一天开始，就勤奋工作，大干二十八天，体验一种全新的农场生活。

我在科罗拉多山区生活的体验，点点滴滴，对读者而言，在细节描述上似乎连篇累牍。说实话，若是允许我把这次旅行中获得的丰富经历一项项都描述详尽、面面俱到的话，恐怕我坐在这里写到明年也写不完。我做过的事有：锄草，放羊，修建栅栏，灌溉草场，搬运石头，开卡车，修剪树枝，铺碎石，踏缝纫机，裁剪，做饭，健身，探索，划独木舟，学新东西，学讲话，学交谈，观察，体验，求教，成长和改变。

我仰望星空，我驾驶卡车走遍乡野，我嗅闻泥土地散发着芳香。天空纯澈，一尘不染。幽蓝洇浸，白云松软，令我难以忘怀。阴雨天气更富有戏剧性变化，灰色如巨石般沉重的云层在低空回旋，干裂的土地如饥似渴张着嘴巴，等待一场酣畅淋漓，大雨倾盆。这就好像一个人拿着一只装满水的袋子兜在空中，另一只手用刀猛力一划，云层便撕裂开来。站在干地看雨水如水帘如柱而下，真没有比这更酷的事了。