It was early and the small bedroom was dark and cold when she awoke. Fall weather seemed to be coming early this year. Looking at the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock she saw it would be going off in just a few minutes, so she got out of bed.
In the kitchen she fumbled through the heap of dirty dishes in the sink and pulled out a coffee mug. After blasting it with hot water under the faucet, she found only half a spoonful of instant coffee was left in the jar on the cluttered counter top and mumbled soft curses about having to do the morning chores while only half awake. It would not be the first time.
Zipping herself into some worn brown coveralls and tying her long thick dark wavy hair in a yellow bandanna, she stepped out onto the porch of the tiny cottage and pulled on a pair of floppy rubber work boots.
Walking through the early morning darkness, she saw a few warm lights were on in the big house across one of the pastures, but her destination was a single point of harsh blue light, the mercury vapor lamp mounted high on the gable of the horse barn.
The usual morning of feeding and watering the horses, and then turning them out of their stalls. Some neighbor kid would muck the stalls out later in the day, a task he did in exchange for riding lessons.
"Hey Julia, I heard you teach barrel racing," he had said to her one day, and asked how much she charged for lessons.
"You need more experience riding first," she said.
Somehow over the few years she had lived at the farm, she had become the barrel racing instructor. No one ever stuck with it for long, but teaching was always a good way to pick up extra cash. Otherwise barrel racing had never been kind to her, despite trying so hard to compete in what seemed like a long time ago.
Walking back to her cottage, the sky now starting to brighten, she smiled just a little bit, knowing that she would be meeting Steven later in the morning.
They had met last weekend at a festival that she attended every year. Julia had caught a brief glimpse of him and that was all she needed. The young man however, could not keep his eyes off of her.
....
Earlier in the week Steven had been flipping though radio stations on his drive home from the office when he was intrigued by a commercial on a country music station. It was for a festival a few miles outside of the city. Old machinery would be on display, and there would be homemade wines and live music. Having nothing better to do, on Saturday he took a drive outside the city limits to a remote corner of an adjacent county.
It seemed like there were hundreds of old tractors lined up in rows. He knew names like John Deere of course, but there were others here that had probably been out of business for over a hundred years. There was other farm equipment as well, though he couldn't have guessed what most of it was used for.
Some of the tractors and other equipment were rusty and broken as if they had been recently dragged from overgrown fields on an abandoned farm, while others were gleaming like restored museum pieces.
There was a monstrous steam powered tractor, looking a lot like an old locomotive, that was set up with a wide flat belt to power a dangerous looking sawmill. Steven had seen it running in the distance when he pulled in, but once he finally made his way to the exhibit, he found the giant circular saw blade had stopped, and the tractor was venting steam in places where it probably shouldn't.
A young man was looking out from the cab of the tractor and trying a few of the controls with a look of frustration on his face. A group of old men stood around, trying to give him advice or instruction. Then he saw her, a stunning brunette that might have been about his age, fearlessly standing close to the steaming boiler.
