The sun rarely shines, these days. The rains have set into our valley and don’t know when to stop. Farming chores are carried out in quick bursts between downpours, and plantings are postponed until a day when the storms finally subside.
Something doesn’t fit, like a key in the wrong lock. We oversow our pastures with cool-weather grasses and legumes, then plan for another round next month with warm-weather seeds. We wait for the sun to assist, but it demurs. The sheep stand at the barn door and look longingly at pastures denied. “Have patience, girls. The sun surely will come out someday,” I tell them. They are not to be convinced with words.
I call some of our elderly neighbors to ask if we can get them anything at the grocery store, hoping to spare them the risk of exposure. It has been, shamefully, a year since I last spoke with most. “My wife has been diagnosed with lung cancer,” I am told by one, deepening my embarrassment and my fear for them. Cindy speaks with another couple, both in poor health. They are good neighbors who share a fenceline. The man, a farmer who has never stinted on labor or advice for these past 20 years, is in his 80s. Cindy promises to visit and extends the same offer of groceries and other supplies.
I use FaceTime with my aunt. She will turn 100 come July. She looks at the phone, at my face, turns to her caregiver and says, “Isn’t it amazing?” Locked down in assisted living, she recalls the stories told to her of the 1919 pandemic. She understands. My father will celebrate his 93rd birthday in a few weeks in reduced company; our annual crawfish boil, with the extended family in happy attendance, has been canceled until better times. I wonder, is reducing the risk really worth the sacrifice of touch and companionship?
Friends and colleagues are furloughed, giving me more time than I have had in years to farm and garden. Yet what should bring me joy merely makes me sad. There is hope, I know. But there is also an awareness that what has been squandered lies rusted on the ground and what has been shattered doesn’t fit back together the same, if at all.
These are the cycles of history. Just as our generations no longer grieve at past horrors recorded in seldom-read books, in a hundred years hence, only the bore or the academic will find interest in this age when our little drama all fell away.
Still, with hope, I wait for seeds to sprout.
Just enjoyed a bowl of micro greens, thinned from the rows of cold weather greens planted in early March and dressed with salt, pepper and a bit of white balsamic, Feel more hopeful already. The very wet ground did make it easier to thin the small plants.
Fantastic, always exciting to have the first greens of the year.
What a fitting essay for this strange time we find ourselves in, Brian.
Two observations: My son Dave and I were driving through our small town and it was nearly deserted and he said, “This is just surreal, like some old black and white movie. It just feels strange.” And he was correct, something is not normal.
But then I talked with an older gentleman who said, “Just imagine being born in 1900, and living through WWI, then the flu epidemic, then the Depression, then WWII, then polio.” A life of uncertainty. Maybe that’s a lesson. Life will go on regardless, maybe a bit more uncertain than in the immediate past. But, life will go on.
Yep, Don, when you cast your mind over what has transpired over the life of someone truly ancient, it really is quite remarkable. And the uncertainties that they grew to accept as normal are like an alien life form to us today. Thanks for checking in this week.
As for the weather, Greg Judy’s current run of wet weather grazing YT videos are just excellent.
And if you fancy a change of mood, I can supply you with a mixture of merriment and rage.
I am offcially surrounded by idiots, making bad decisions with uncanny precision.
From a peasant’s perspective, and if they were held to his standards, everyone of them would be a goner, certain not to survive the winter.
I’d like to extricate myself and leave them to it for a while, but will need a positive test result for that. Working on it, naturally, with those kinds of morons around me.
And yet this is all very funny. Not since the days of the plague have we had this much reason for carnival.
Well, Michael, we certainly have our fair supply of buffoons. Fleming really nails the idea of carnival. I had not really given it much thought before his Lean Logic.
Cheers,
Just whipped out my copy and had a read.
You might not know that an example of the sort of sanitised modern carnival we’re currently suffering from was actually a source of a sort of North Italian cluster of infections here early in the process; a giant boozefest held when the threat could still be ignored, the fallout of which is still threatening to overwhelm local resources.
Interesting. BTW I pulled my copy out and threw it in the “to peruse again, pile”.
It is a strange time. On one hand I question if our society will ever be the same. On the other hand, life goes on on my Idaho mountain top. The wild turkeys amuse me with their gobble while the chickens berate me for not being quicker to let them free from the coop. They have a busy schedule you know. Plants are started and peas and onion sets are waiting on deck to be put in the game. Life is pretty much the same here as it always is.
TS
TS,
Good to hear from you. We ended up with two days without rain this weekend. Although sunshine was rare I got my potatoes in the ground, turnips, chard, kale, and Napa cabbage. It improved my mood, until the floods began again overnight. Sigh.
Cheers,
I do envy your earlier and longer growing season. We’re in for a week of rain. We’ll play hide and seek with the rain until the 4th of July, taking any chance we can to plant between sogginess. At least with the warmer temps it might melt the three foot berm of snow in front of the house by the middle of next month and the mini glacier down by the creek.
I have never grown Napa cabbage. I will have to hunt down some seed because I really like that stuff, lol.
We have satellite internet/phone and it’s been crashing big time because of the amount of people on the system. Crazy!
Take care
TS
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