I made my own butter today on my walk. I took the dog’s leash in one hand, and a wide-mouth mason jar half-filled with sweetcream in the other and walked down a new street I just discovered last week. The new walking route is a treat for Boss because he likes to run at full leash extension and smell everything in our sweeping 16 foot radius, and this route takes us along the backs of the Maple Street houses. It’s an alley that neatly divides the cultivated family yards from the fields along the railroad track. Almost no one drives through this alley and by the time Boss and I take to pounding the pavement in our daily ritual, most of the families are inside together.

I shake the jar as we walk, jumbling up the dispersed fat particles. Boss sniffs and sprints, sniffs and sprints.

It’s a little chilly out tonight, as it has been the past few nights, but I just can’t abide putting a jacket back on. One taste of warm summery-spring nights and I’m hooked. It seems almost unfair to suffer this cold. I am thinking about how beautiful this walk is with the glowing lights of the houses pooled on the lawns in squares and the whooshing of the train rumbling past just beyond us. The train looks like some kind of wild forest creature the way the trees all crowd along the tracks and all I can see is the glint of the top and the shadows cast by the front light.

Still shaking the jar, we pause for a moment to let Boss investigate some fascinating bug along the road. OK. He’s over it. Moving on.

We reach the end of the alley and turn around. I can see the roof of Stanson Hall above the trees and the smaller houses and it looks like it’s just a few steps away. We walk back past the chickens that one of the Maple Streeters is keeping in a small coop at the back edge of their yard. As we walk behind the church, people come spilling out after some kind of evening service or study and their loud chatter is breaking up the still night and silencing all the insects. I must look totally crazy carrying this jar around.

We get back to the house and Boss leaps up the stairs to my apartment two and three at a time, smiling down at me from the top landing with his tongue bobbing in and out. I am still shaking the mason jar when suddenly its swish swish sounds muted. I hold it up to my ear and shake it tentatively and hear a sudden wet thunk.Opening the jar, I peek in to find a thick pale yellow ball at the bottom of the jar. I do a little dance in the hallway and Boss joins in, jumping at my legs and sniffing for the jar.

I am woman. See me churn!