in a day's work

When I tell people that I work on a farm, four out of five dentists reply, "But what do you DO?" I explain the planting, harvesting, weeding, et al, but people often don't get it. Understandably. To assist, a list:

1. If it rains, I get wet. Like today, for example.

2. I mess things up. Like today, for example. Sometimes I really should know better. Sometimes I follow directions but people change their minds about what they really want. Sometimes I get bad directions. Sometimes I think I know what I'm doing, but one factor has changed--the price of weenies, for example--and what I thought I knew no longer holds. As much as I've learned this summer, there is so much more I don't even know that I don't know. You know?

3. I pull large quantities of things out of the earth, like potatoes, beets, and carrots. I also cut things off plants, such as arugula, swiss chard, eggplant, peppers, edamame, and melons, for example. Then these things get hauled around in wagons, weighed, washed, and stacked into attractive piles.

4. I kill bugs. Yesterday I likely caused the demise of zillions of brassica-eating cabbage worms. No one mourns the cabbage worm.

5. I spend a surprising amount of time washing buckets. Although this gets old fast, my hose skills have come a long way since May.

6. I explain to many people why I'm doing this for the summer.

7. Planting and weeding. Lots of it, but never enough.

8. Chatting, bitching, and laughing with coworkers, CSA members, or the voices in my head. Banter gets us through many a tedious task.

9. I pray for rain and set up irrigation systems when it doesn't come.

10. I breathe fresh air and suffer the stink of compost. My skin drinks in vitamin D while I swelter in the heat. The rain, the dew, the birds, the bugs, and the afternoon breeze--I take it all in.