Chapter Four

The main vegetable garden was a sight to behold. Thirty feet deep and forty feet wide, tilled to resemble soft mounding rows of coffee grounds, black and loamy, aromatic. There is an sorcery that calls me to the garden every spring that I could no more ignore than to breathe or drink. The days would always start as an invitation by the sun and warmth and light, with birds singing and flitting and building. Everything was alive in anticipation of what was about to happen. The bucket of sticks and strings would be resurrected from the basement, powdered and sandy from last years excavations, happy to be remembered and included again. The map of what was planned held in inescapable proximity with a ignoble rock, placed in service for the greater cause. This event, the beginning, is always, at least in our minds, a great celebration. Seed packets, some displaying works of art, some plain and simple with hardly a word from the serious seed houses,were gathered from near and far, by foot or venturing or mail, and splayed on the ground, ready for disbursement. Deep consideration was given to each and every placement. Beans, by the outside edge making a marked distance of the corn, keeping it from the horses will to eat what is over the pasture fence. Pumpkins to the back reaches where they can sprawl and spread while basking in the full heat of the sun,  performing the magic they do, to become monstrosities for our halloween pleasures. Trickier were the watermelons. They needed lots of room to roam, yet could not be near the pumpkins or they would mutate to some inedible gourd de jour, deformed in color if not shape adding to our holiday festivities, but only in the form of entertainment. The same was true of the other gourds, the butternuts, the spaghetti squash, the zucchini and the cukes. All related in ways only they understand and are happy to inter-marry when given the opportunity. Just like the civil authorities, I must enforce the laws for the good of all. It is a thankless and difficult job that no one, seemingly, willingly, signs on for. The great corn wall, planned and executed in it's design, placed down the center, keeping hidden all the pheromones, temptations and perversions the gourds could muster.
Sticks were pounded, strings were strung. If you could not have an orderly garden who knows what would happen. The sticks went in, easily because of the soft earth, on one end of the garden . Tie a string to the stick and pace out to the other end, a line to attach to another stick. This will keep the rows nice and tidy. Using the long, master stick you make your row. The depth of the seed is directly proportional to the size of the seed. Larger seeds need to be planted deeper or they would bolt out of the ground once the plant reached maturity, leaving what was produced, to lay in a heap, withering in the killing sun. The sun, another example of what is good, very good, can also be bad, very bad. But, I will not digress.
Row after row, stick after stick, string after string, the garden is constructed. Concentration is consuming in it task. Order and discipline. Do this. Do that. The dirt covers your knees and cakes to your shoes. Your hands and nails are no longer recognizable as something belonging to you but some man from some hard place who never rests or washes. When you are done it is difficult and painful to stand erect. It is a tired of the best kind. You have created a masterpiece.You have given birth. It is there and its name is hope and future. Prouder is something you could not be.
Just add water and wait.
Every spring, this is the scenario that played out. The winter spent planning and buying all for the spring. The hope for hope. New life. Continued life. Just as if we were expecting a child we are giddy with the anticipation of all that is possible. Now we wait.
It seems an eternity for those virgin fronds to break through the soil. Some take longer than others, as is meant to be. But, oh how exciting when they start. Here they come. Look everyone, look. It's growing.
I only have eyes for my new prodigy. It will feed me. It does feed me even now.
As summer matures, we tend, mostly I tend, as is understandable, to the needs of this fledgling before me. Weeding, watering, feeding, pruning is all so automatic and, mostly when I have had enough sleep, done without complaint.
Some years there were great wire cages constructed, with hinged plywood tops and wooden sled bases. We would put a wooden dowel through the center of the cage across its width to hold ropes that dangled water and food cans. On one end, we would place two or three wooden dowels a foot apart, one over the other, for the chickens to roost when the instinct appealed to them. The plywood, hinged doors afforded much needed shade and protection from the elements and prey and allowed access to the chickens and the food and water. These frameworks were eight feet long by two and a half feet high and one garden row wide. We deposited them at one end of a row in the garden, stationing the previously unrestrained chickens into their new, mobile cloister, gave them the unique opportunity to scratch and forage, unchecked on the hallowed ground known as garden. This oracle would be their home until either the roosters were of age to leave for seminary, of a sort, or the pullets were beginning to deposit their leavings of miniature eggs in and around the cages. The roosters left in the early summer and the chooks did their penance all the way up to the harvest and beyond. Insects and weeds were handled, without unhappiness, by all parties involved. Prayers were answered on so many levels. Bellies would be full, minds satisfied and a hearts turned to God.
There were years when the chicks would come and the weather was uninformed as to the timing of things, not cooperating, leaving us no choice but to incorporate their little lives into our home, just to keep them alive. Out would come the baby pool, a formed plastic bowl with a flat bottom and happy dolphins. Situated under a hanging heat lamp. we arranged food dispensers and water dishes, all swimming in a tide of sawdust. The chicks would crowd around the buoy of food, grow and eat and grow and eat, never stopping to tell everyone who would listen, "Come in, the water is fine." When the weather decided to hold its temper, we would move the toddlers to the barn to wait for their graduation. During this time you become attached to these birds and their well being. So it begins, the stresses that come with being responsible for another life. Happiness is a state, balanced, between worry and dread. What choice do I have then to be happy? To worry? Why do I do this to myself? It is life in its most basic form.
Some years, when,weeding the garden,or harvesting , we would tumble and roll gargantuan, yet to be split, logs of wood from the neighboring wood pile. These would serve as seats, saving our backs from an eternity of bending. At the end of the weeding sentence we would take ourselves for sustenance and rest, securing the chickens in their cages. Occasionally, a chicken would manage to free itself from the cages, unbeknownst to us, only to be revealed the next morning by a macabre warning from the local owl gang. Our innocent charge, left, in part, to live eternity on the seat of judgement in the garden, that once served as a seat of harvest. "What a stupid girl", is our reaction for our mistake. Sorry and more diligent in caring for the flock in the future.
Great and beautiful owls have taken many animals from us in the years we lived here. We could not guess at the strategies and plans they have constructed in order to survive in this world with us. There is a price we pay. A toll. We pay it to the owls, the hawks, the fox and the occasional skunk. No one gets an easy pass.