As a fledgling farmer, I'm starting to feel oddly self-conscious about who I am becoming. Ever since I first sunk a shovel into this earthbound incarnation, I have noticed a change in my appearance. The tidy J. Crew shorts, vacation and regatta T's I wore last summer are now faded, frayed and shabby... with the shmutzy stains of the blood of beetles, cukes and tomatoes. There is soil and chlorophyll goop embedded in the skin covering my fingers. Debbie insists I need a manicure.
Although I am still passionate about my mission, I wonder if I've been on a three-month acid trip. The field has started to talk to me. Of course, there are the hawks and their bottle rocket whistles. Then there are the yellow finches feeding on thistles, bathing in the dusty,diffused afternoon sunlight, chattily chirping. These are the sounds that lull me into the land. Once there I enjoy a deeper dialogue with my garden.
Like a good friend, this garden is a great listener.
This afternoon, I was crawling through the cucumbers, picking and piling them until I couldn't stand it. There are skeletal remains of turkey parts in the field. Farmer Brown raises the tasty gobblers for Thanksgiving. The seasonal production creates a wonderful mulch. I have found the mummified remains of many turkey feet and heads during the course of my farming apprenticeship. Debbie calls the feet "mojos." I usually toss them to the side, and over the wall when I can.
Sometimes this field tells to me to be careful. It warns me not to go beyond the wall, that giant stone wall that separates this small field from a woodland swamp. The entrance to the swamp is a tangled wall of bittersweet and giant weeds whose broad leaves mimic our friendly sunflowers.
I meant to ask the field where all of the toads have gone. Might they have been eaten by our resident black rat snake, all of seven feet in june? How big is that snake now, and could it come to me in the barn basement, as a giant serpent, as I attempt to turn on the water? We talkin' Garden of Eden?
The field warns me that there is terror in the pumpkin patch. This impenetrable system has revealed only one gourd, a big one which started coloring today. Where are all of the other pumpkins, and why do the looming vines and their creepy tendrils choose to crush my gentle cosmos? Why, in this peaceful environment, must they crowd my corn and convert two rows of bush beans into has beens?
This field, this sharecropper's paradise is shrouded in deep mystery. Perhaps the turkey compost is the cause of the tomato blossom end rot... too much nitrogen in the soil. Hmmm... Maybe the reason for my whimsical ruminations.
The field tells me, repeatedly, that I am here for a reason. It is up to me, of course, to figure it all out. In my daydreams, every split tomato can be an alien embryo, and sometimes when I cannot stand another end-rot tomato, I throw it to the ground. As it smashes, I fully expect to hear the hiss of poisonous gas. While I'm at it, maybe encounter a giant tomato worm. As I prepare to do battle, or run like hell, a giant wasp chooses this ugly worm, with its toxic horn, as an incubator.
I have come to believe that this garden is paradise. It is a heavenly shelter, beyond biblical proportion. Like life incarnate, this task is worth the ardor, the travail, the constant heartache.
Seems there's a magical measure of fantasy in this plot. If truth be the antithesis of fantasy, then let this be fantastic.
Acid test? Far out!
Dear Ben,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. You have a beautiful and humorous voice. I'm glad your J crew clothing is wearing out. My first husband tried to make me wear something from their catalogue once so I divorced him. As far as black rat snakes go, I don't think they eat toads. The juveniles sometimes eat frogs but the adults tend to stick to rodents. I like having animals around that eat rodents.
Please put some more info. about yourself in your about section.
It would be fun to read.