Our New Winner!

Announcing the final winner of The Writers Toolbox Flash Fiction contest. Congratulations to Mary Pauer!!! 
She will receive a gift copy of The Writers Toolbox. 

 

Here's her lovely story, below, based on the prompt:

 

"Farming, it's sexy business."

I ride a John Deere 6420 – one of the few women who do. The rear tire and fender are higher than I am tall.  

I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, known for big hair, thick eyeliner, and black mascara. Snapping your chewing gum was optional.

Now I ask myself why I am living on a farm. I love the immensity of the land, the feel of my feet sinking in soil, the aroma of rain. I love messing with the tractor’s gearshift and the power take-off, which urges the implements to do what they do.

            Augers, bush hogs, box graters, rakes. Now, roll the sounds of crowfoot packer in your mouth and look behind the tractor as I lap the land contouring a pattern as precise as a quilt.

Other people drive, we farmer-women ride.

And we wear cut-offs and cowboy boots and mow the fields while gulls chase down the furrows.

And we push back potato-chip rolled straw hats, and wear Oakley sunglasses and Carhart jackets.

When I need a part, I drive, (not ride) up the road a piece to the John Deere store, and talk to my mechanic, knowledge glowing from my lips. I mention the crowfoot packer because I love the poetry, and its dust prints looking as if I’d danced a conga line in my stiletto heels.

Farming - you work in a man’s field yet you are of the earth, planting and harvesting, sowing and reaping, riding your sexy John Deere green.   

--  Congratulations to Mary Pauer!!!!

 This is our last flash fiction contest for the year, but please know you can always buy a copy of The Writers Toolbox on line.  It makes for a great holiday gift for anyone who likes to write or tells stories or does improv!