Our place is just a short walk down the road from what used to be a dairy farm. My grandfather owned and operated the farm 70 years ago, and there are still a few features on the landscape that might be familiar to him if he were alive today.

The farm pond is still there, along with some stone rubble where his milk house used to be and a few feral lilacs that used to flank the house. But the house and the farm buildings are all gone. Most of the old farm now has corporate owners who built their headquarters on the hill and spun off some of the pastureland and fields to residential developers. There is now a cluster development of $600,000 homes on the eastern end of the property, bearing the name of the farm, Avalon, that is now long gone.

Over generations, this accelerating transformation of meadows, pastures, and cropland into houses, lawns, and cul de sacs has pretty much changed the nature of the people living here from farmers to suburbanites.

In these early fair days of June, when spring feels the full weight of its maturity and growing things are moderating their sprint into being to a steady summer stride, we office dwellers don’t feel so smug about our climate-controlled status. The outdoor occupations look pretty good to us now.

The carpenter brothers, Ray and Ron, who are repairing our barn, bounce on the balls of their feet as they hitch up their tool belts and prepare for yet another day in the choreography of their trade. Today they will work on a stage of shifting sun and dappled shade. Landscapers at the service station top off their various tanks and scent the air with the shimmering essence of gasoline and cut grass and jumbo java. The crossing guard in shirtsleeves unleashes the invisible force of his peculiar brand of tai chi in traffic, paralyzing in place SUVs, tractor trailers, and Harleys so that he might bask for a few moments in a warm, bubbling cross-current of kids and backpacks.