I have all the typical preconceptions about other parts of our country that a northener has.  Moving south by car, through Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas, I tried to pinpoint the moment when I knew I had entered The South.  Was it when I saw a recliner sitting in a family’s front yard?  A horse farm bound by a split rail fence?  A roadside stand selling boiled peanuts?

Somewhere in Delaware a new, more open landscape emerged.  And in every field there was a crop sprinkler, one of the long, low irrigation contraptions that roll and pivot to cover the ground.  When seen in motion, in action and up close these devices look like, well, sprinklers.  But when seen from a distance, at rest, spanning the width of a field, they have a delicate, spectral presence.  They’re terribly pragmatic things, but the gentle curve in their arms gives them the grace of flying machines.