On a sunny day last August at the farm, our family took a stroll through a wildflower meadow to the Oconomowoc River that skirts the property. My daughter-in-law stepped down the rocky bank just as a snake came poking out of a hole. She screamed and lurched backwards, reaching instinctively for protection from her loyal and rocklike father-in-law behind her. But he was gone, a mirage, an arrow shot from a bow, halfway back to the farmhouse.