a good pluck

To understand carrot weeding, imagine tweezing a 200-foot-long eyebrow. You're uprooting tiny, unwanted weeds by the root, listening for that ripping sound that signals you got the whole bugger. One by one, the strays are eliminated, revealing a clean, straight line. At the end, there's an undeniable sense of satisfaction that exceeds even the stinging, burning redness that accompanies a job well done.

Except carrot weeding is done on all fours, with the weight of the upper body resting on the forearms and the head no more than 10 inches from the ground. The stinging and burning set in immediately, as the hard clumps of dirt under your knees make themselves known. Neck and shoulder muscles complain. The back protests. After an eternity passes, you look up and realize you have 199 feet and 10 inches to go--on the first of three rows on the first of three beds of carrots. You do the math: If breaks for the cigarette habit you vow to adopt are kept short, you might finish by Thanksgiving. You'll look like Quasimodo's lactose-intolerant sister, but won't the carrots be delicious in a butter dill sauce.

Somehow, incredibly, it gets done. Members show up and help out. Coworkers distract the mind with debates about flight vs. invisibility. After many hours and several days, the three beds of carrots start to look like nine very long, fresh-from-the-spa eyebrows.

Though I'm sure my sister, the patron saint of the flawless brow, would still find strays to criticize. For that is what she does.

sleeping disorders

I had thought that, working on a farm, my work would stay at work. That I wouldn't bring anxiety home. There'd be no fretting about deadlines or unfinished work or what's waiting for me tomorrow.

And I was wrong.

In the middle of the night, in my mostly dream state, I spend the wee hours rooting around my bed looking for lost tomato plants. I plant potatoes. I weed. I harvest cabbage, collards, and chard. Under my pillow, on top of the covers, on my nightstand--I pat everything down and try to just get the job done. And I have thoughts like, "How did I get out here in my jammers? How can I do the harvest without bending over?" I walk over to the bathroom and put on my robe, thinking that will make my lack of clothing less embarrassing for me and everyone else in the field. I see the light from my laptop and wonder what I was thinking when I brought that out to the field. I see Burton's sleeping body and wonder why he's being such a slouch when there's so much work to do. Sometimes I even put on my Cartharts before I figure it all out.

And then, feeling like a total ass (again), I crawl back into bed and try to get some sleep before the next harvest.

highlights of my day

1. Lunch conversation that brought to mind Eddie Murphy's classic, “Boogie in Your Butt.” Take a hot cup of Brim, fill it to the rim, and put it in your butt. To the beat. Two sugars, not too sweet.

2. Shoving the little kids aside so I could run through their sprinkler.

3. The splat of a juicy rotten tomato, thrown by one coworker, as it slapped my arm and splattered all over another coworker.

4. Okra flowers.

5. Put a moat in your butt. Put a mink coat in your butt. Put everything in your butt. Start to sing about your butt. Feels real good, when you sing about your butt.

tomato juice

On the farm's to-do list, tying tomatoes never goes away. Earlier in the summer, we planted more than 1,500 plants, all of which are getting taller by the moment. The crew spends long hours stretching lengths of string down the rows, looping it around the stakes that mark every other plant.

When done well, tomato tying looks like a ballet for two. While one person winds the string around the stake, the plant-picker-upper moves to the next section, leans over to retrieve the droopy plants from the ground and lift them just as the other person pulls the string taut under their weight and secures it to the next stake, together forcing the plants into the discipline of the stake-and-string system. Working closely together in pairs, we use the time to have either very deep or very trivial conversations. Sibling rivalries. Coastal preferences. Beloved movies. Good books. Bad jokes. When available, rotten tomatoes are tossed around.

At the end of it all, the plant-picker-upper wears the badge of her work on her hands: a dry, caked-on coating of green film that, when washed off (to the extent that's possible), creates a brilliant yellow foam. Like the color of Mountain Dew. Or caution tape. Who knew?

please pass the salad

The other day at the farmer's market, someone asked me if there was any dog feces in the lettuce. I thought about all the times crew members head out there with a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and a roll of TP. But she asked about dog feces, so I didn't mention it.

empty nester

The swallows all flew the nest on Saturday last. I haven't seen them since, at least not to my knowledge. It's not as though they wear name tags. Though they absolutely should.

sunset somerville

It's not exactly Kauai or New Zealand or even California, but it has some sort of appeal. If you like cables and telephone poles--and who doesn't?

baby steps

After a long afternoon spent thinning corn, I stood in the far field with two fellow farmers. The sun was late-afternoon golden, and our shadows were getting long--signs that we'd likely finished our work hours, though no one was wearing a watch to confirm. So we stood there, busy with conversation but no more energy to work, and watched the swallows in full swing.

They like to perch on the stakes that mark every other tomato plant. The babies, who last week had fuzzy heads and chests, now look just like adults: black, shiny, and alert. But still they sit on the stakes and wait for someone to come by with a bug, mouths open and wings flapping as soon as they spot a parent in nearby airspace. When they get tired of waiting, they take flight themselves, little one-ounce acrobats bug hunting.

On the other side of the farm, a nest high above the barn door is bursting with four baby swallows. Hatched last week, they've been swelling up daily. Two busy parents seemingly spend all day swooping in and out of the doorway with beakfulls of bugs. Someone predicted that they'd fly today (not a bad guess, since they're running out of space in the nest). It just seems so improbable that they would leap out of that nest, so high up in the air. But I suppose that's the whole idea of forward progress: taking the leap. Next week I hope we'll find them out on the tomato stakes, over on the other side of the farm, ever bigger still.

i'm rubber, you're glue AND you work in a hardware store. so there.

On Sunday, people were feeling ambitious. The strip of crabgrass and cement crumbs that we call a garden was finally tended to, after weeks of neglect. Drainage pipes were purchased and installed. People were acting like real-life homeowners--the kind that start AND complete projects. In that spirit, a rocking chair (someone else's trash, now our treasure) was stripped of its peeling paint, and I was sent to the hardware store for fresh paint.

In the paint department, I found a bazillion varieties of paint and primer, but none called Paint for Your Outdoor Chair. So I went to the counter for help. An employee, without looking up from the can of paint he was wrestling with, said in the most half-assed way possible, "You need something?"

I explained my situation (bare wood chair, outdoor furniture, need paint). He came back with: "You need to prime it." What ensued was a series of failed attempts (mine) to figure out what KIND of primer and paint (latex vs. oil?), received by irritated semi-responses (his). When I asked what the difference is between the two, he hissed, "Do you want me to just PICK one for you?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to figure out what's best for this project," I said. He spun on his heels, took three steps away from me, and choked, "I cannot wait to get out of here."

"Excuse me?"
"That's right. You are ugly. You are ugly to me."
"Um, exCUSE me?"

At this point I was just talking to his back, which was walking away from me with the rest of his nasty self. I caught up with him, read his nametag, and marched my ugly self over to the nearest manager.

After a little time passed and my blood cooled, I realized Christopher C. was probably just having a no good very bad day, and I was standing between him and closing time. Fine. But what I want to know is this: Why does it always take 10 minutes too long to think of the good comebacks?

mucus

If he were to ask for my last bite of my mom's best flourless chocolate cake with raspberry couli, fresh whipped cream, and a sprig of lemon verbena, I'd hand it over powerlessly. Fortunately for me, he hasn't figured out the finer points of spoken language.

let it rain

The weatherpeople predicted floods. The newsmakers were ecstatic--violent weather heading our way! Raincoats were donned, duck boots pulled on, constitutions hardened. And there was rain--at least an hour of it. Not enough to send you inside to look for your rain hat [who wears rain hats?], but enough to make everything dampy. Enough that, when walking between rows of tomatoes, your pant legs get rain-soaked. So when The Internet predicted heavy rains for the rest of the afternoon, we cut out early. I was home by 11:30. Since then, nary a raindrop has fallen.

It's the same principle that governs the irrigation-rain rule, which goes like this: If you spend at least an hour in 90-degree heat, hauling 30-foot irrigation pipes around the farm on your shoulders, preparing to water up to three areas of the farm, go directly home and close all the windows because, as sure as tomorrow will come, rain will fall tonight.

Anyway, no complaints. I got the afternoon off and made Strawberry Fool. And there was a dampy day off yesterday. I could really love rain.