Monthly Archives: July 2019

The Things I Know I Don’t Know

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Two decades have passed and it is hard to recall the precise moment when we decided to move to the country. The decision wasn’t arrived at because of any book read or any cultural force stirring in the zeitgeist. What I do remember is that one Sunday afternoon I made an innocent comment that we should find some land and get out of the city.

Two years and many hours of searching later, on another Sunday afternoon, we landed in this valley. We closed on the property in short order, locked up the house in town (eventually selling it), and moved to 70 acres of minimally improved property that we christened Winged Elm Farm. It was the summer of 1999, 20 years ago come September.

While Cindy already had farming experience, my own skill set was limited to what I had learned in running a satisfying yet low-profit bookstore. We started out with only the typical toolbox of an inner-city homeowner — screwdriver, corded drill, hammer —which left us trying to build a farm operation from very modest resources. We had to decide with each paycheck what was most important to purchase. Today when I look around the outbuildings of our well-provisioned setup, it is hard to imagine the time when we didn’t own a shovel or mattock, hoe or tiller, axe or chainsaw. Each of those acquisitions was a hard-won addition, but each allowed us to accomplish an important task in the building of an infrastructure.

We were both fortunate in having full-time jobs, albeit modestly compensated. Timely for our needs was that we began in an era of low costs on weanling steers and high prices on beef. Putting cattle to work on the land, we agreed, should be one of our first priorities. It was a good call: it put money in the bank and paid for most of the big-ticket purchases. Without the cattle there would be no orchards, house, barns, sawmill, tractors — or 20 years to look back on.

A farm is such a wonderful place to discover the limits of one’s hubris. I easily entertained a certainty, thanks to an article or book I had read, that I Know Better how to do something that others have been doing for generations. Nevertheless, over time, I discovered that the seasoned farmers around me were knowledgeable, resourceful, and frugal. And if I was willing to admit and embrace my own ignorance, heck, I might even learn a thing or two, or lots, from them.

True, the lessons learned were not always pretty, and in some cases they were pretty damned frightening. An afternoon spent in the company of an elderly neighbor helping dehorn and castrate his herd of cattle was thrift personified: his tools were piano wire and a pocket knife (not an experience I recommend or wish to repeat).

Another “memorable” afternoon, the same neighbor asked me to assist him in separating a grown mule from the family jewels. The mule was fairly determined this was not going to happen. Several hours and many well-placed kicks later (in spite of repeated attempts to restrain his legs with ropes), we finally turned the mule back out to pasture … still intact as the day he was born. (The lesson learned: Know when to let it go.)

Getting rid of the I Know Better instinct was possibly the hardest and probably the most important lesson I’ve learned these past 20 years. (Eventually, you really can knock some common sense into even the hardest of heads.) Not that I’ve become a sponge for what others can teach, mind you, but I have come to appreciate the value of accepting my own ignorance, and occasionally of listening to and accepting advice from others.

Donald Rumsfeld (that great agrarian thinker) distilled into one beautiful quote the essence of what I’ve learned over the past two decades: “There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.” Amen, Brother. Amen.

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Reading this weekend: My Bookstore: writers celebrate their favorite places to browse, read, and shop.

It Ain’t the Heat, It’s the Tomatoes

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“When your first tomato is ripe, take salt and pepper to the garden. Pluck the fruit from the vine. Cut into quarters, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, and pop it, a quarter at a time into your mouth. I shall be listening to your sigh of contentment.” Angelo M. Pellegrini

During a casual walk by the potting shed, I lean over and gather a cluster of Sweet 100’s and pop them, as instructed by Mr. Pellegrini, into my mouth. Later, that evening, Cindy makes a B.E.L.T. for dinner. That necessitates a quick trot out to the garden for a Cherokee Purple or perhaps a Sudduth Brandywine: constructed with two slices of thick homemade bread, Bacon, fried Egg, Lettuce and Tomato (B.E.L.T.). On another night it is a few Mr. Stripey’s, some wine, green pepper, onion, a handful of oregano and garlic, all in a slow simmer for a couple of hours, resulting in a terrific silky sauce for meatballs and pasta.

Yesterday, five gallons of Rutger’s thickly sliced, placed in the dehydrator yielded ten baggies of sun-dried tomatoes for the coming winter (with temps consistently over 90, I did so want to remember Mr. Winter). Over the past two weekends we have put up 20 pints of tomatoes, the aforementioned Rutger working best, with just the right ratio of pulp to juice. We have learned over the years that two people need about 40 pints to get from December to May, so we are half-way there!

Tonight, should it be cold tomatoes, basil, and garlic, tossed with olive oil and hot pasta… or, should we consider thinly sliced Early Girl with chunks of mozzarella, basil, and lots of crushed garlic on our pizza? Maybe, just a simple salad of thick slices dressed with salt and cracked pepper, with bread to sop up the juice? Then again, perhaps Cindy will make her gazpacho soup, served cold, composed of tomato, cucumber, green pepper, garlic and onions?

God, we do love the tomato and the season that brings them fresh to the plate.

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Reading this weekend: Another work by A. Pellegrini, Wine and the Good Life.

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(The above is a reworked version of an older post)

Saying Grace

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The man was the last one on board the plane. With everyone else seated, he walked almost to the rear to stow his bag before taking his seat back at the front. Once the plane landed, the man fought the current of impatient passengers like a salmon swimming upstream to retrieve his bag. For whatever reason, it popped into my head as I watched him that pausing before a meal, whether to say thanks or wait for all to be seated, has become an act that goes against the course of our culture.

Like many, I grew up saying grace before the meal. In my house, we sat down together for dinner or supper, then paused. A prayer was offered by a member of the family before all began to eat, the words always including a thanks for the food that was before us. No one ate before everyone was served and the blessing was said. Of course, a nibble from the plate was fine. But it was not only a household offense but also a violation of cultural mores to grab a fork and dig in before each member was ready and grace had been said.

Blessing the food, saying a few words, is a ritual as old as our race. It crosses all religions and backgrounds; it is one of the most elemental of our sacraments. Acknowledgment to whatever creator or force one believes in seems one of our more beautiful and beneficial rites. An exercise of thanks for what is before us, of gratefulness for the bounty; patience in waiting until all have been served; humility in recognition that others may be doing without; and pleasure that there are guests, a community, with whom to share the food — all are rolled up in those few words said at the start of a meal.

Today, unless I am sitting down with people who share a common cultural or religious background, I find that offering thanks has become an awkward rite in both its recognition and its execution. To sit still and refrain from eating till all are served — it is a custom increasingly ignored. Witness adult men and women, greedily shoveling food in their faces, plates already half empty, who then look up at a waiting table and say defensively, “Well, I’m not waiting!” It’s a statement that neatly sums up the narcissistic spirit of our times.

Among a certain group of moderns, the actual offering of a blessing or thanks now seems artificial, like passing around an artifact of carefully chipped flint, a relic of another age. Yet the sentiment lingers, even if manifested in a simple raising of glasses.

My religious friends and family can still roll out a beautiful and meaningful prayer at the drop of a hat, one that includes each of the four points of the ritual: thanks, patience, humility, and community. The words offered are still unencumbered by loss of faith or tradition. My own utterances, meanwhile, seem stilted, unpoetic, and rusted from ill use and the lack of expectation from listening ears. Those spoken words of mine float about, against the crosscurrent, searching for a cadence and rhythm, searching for a home, trying to express humble gratitude for our rich existence on this planet.

The Return of the Doldrums of Summer

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We seem a little too happy for being so miserable.

There is a moment that comes every year, usually about this time, when the heat and humidity kills all ambition on the farm. We stage a coward’s retreat to the inside, where the air conditioning wages war with the mighty forces beyond the walls.

The humid furnace outside is best experienced with quick forays and small bursts of committed energy. Our own response to the heat is mirrored by that of the pets and livestock. The cattle emerge from the woods just long enough to traverse the pasture for a much-needed drink in the pond. There, the catfish have given up emerging from the cool bottom muck until the seasons change.

Upon hearing the door to the house open, Becky, our farmdog, leaves the cool concrete in the workshop to stare out the door and assess. Do they need me? She clearly would rather stay put. But should I be an Englishman who ventures out into the midday sun, she will gladly be my mad dog and join in the folly.

The hogs, even the ones in the woods, spend their days lying on the cooler dirt under trees or in the wallows. Mud coated, they seldom arise even when we come bearing buckets of feed. A snort of acknowledgment, a shrug of massive shoulders, and they burrow deeper into the mud with a reasonable confidence that the feed will still be there when the sun goes down.

Confined at night, the sheep have little choice but to graze during daylight hours. But gone are their enthusiastic bursts from the barn in the mornings. Instead, they cluster in cliques at the door as I open gates to fresh grass. “After you, no, after you” they bleat before grudgingly crossing the corral to the pasture. Once there they feed in brief gorgings before falling back in a controlled withdrawal to the shaded sanctuary of the barn. Their pantings, like so many muffled drums: humph, humph, humph, humph, are steady and insistent and do not subside until long into the evening.

Heat-sapped hens, with parted beaks, panting, stand in the shade of the maple. They mirror most closely how we feel, their wings held out from their sides, much like we would flap a sweaty garment to stay cool. The rooster, his heart not really in his job, makes a few obligatory attempts at coupling. No doubt firing more blanks than bullets in the heat, he finds few partners willing to submit to his brief embrace.

Meanwhile, in a clever adaptation to this misery, the red fox in the nearby woods has taken the opportunity to pluck an unsuspecting young chicken from the pasture in broad daylight. Armed with the instinctual knowledge that all domestic life is locked in a listless stupor, the fox takes advantage of the situation and provides a nice meal for its kits. A minute later, my obligatory dash from the house with shotgun in hand ends with a random desultory blast into the undergrowth, the fox no doubt long gone.

Like the catfish retreating to the muck, I return to my cool study, where, with all ambition withered, I check the calendar, willing it to be any month later than July. I close the shades and lay my head on the desk, and resolve to hibernate until fall.

(This one is from the archives: after the past brutal week of 90 plus days, 3-4 shirts by early afternoon, we are ready for cooler weather…even if it is found inside. This post captures how we felt most of the week. The fellow with me in the picture is one of my nephews. For some strange reason he comes back each summer for this type of punishment.)