Just Another Day On The Farm

I.

Those winter winds are comin’ – the garden tarps are blown all over. The blackest soil sits exposed, waiting for snow to cover the worm castings and rotten roots from yesteryear’s crops. It waits for its farmer to spread the silage tarp back over it. C’mon, Rich. Get out there and fix it. It takes ten minutes....

It’s amazing how many things we put off that only take ten minutes. Get out there and do it! I’ll fix the tarps tomorrow – I’m writing about it, so now I’m accountable. Tuck those little wormies and billions and trillions of soil critters to bed for the winter. Cozy and warm with the garlics and the voles. They’ll all hunker down in the deep powdery white, they’ll cuddle and sing songs and tell each other stories about the good things to come: sun and warm and green. Glory!

It’s not like the cold is keeping me indoors. On this farm, we think 37 and sunny is a beach day. Training for the White Lake Ultra, I run laps around the lake with my running friends and the dogs, and Wilder jumps into the lake with the vigor of a twelve-year-old cannonballing off the dock. Meanwhile, the wind blows so harsh the pines shatter, crack, shimmy, and wiggle. We duck for cover. Back to the farm! Nothing like chopping firewood or flipping the compost while the mountain air crashes upon us. Wilder digs himself a little hole and stares at me with the knowledge of ancient beings. The grass remains green. Winter may be coming; this farm will go down swinging.

The garden is 100% harvested, with the exception of some carrots. They sweeten in the ground while they wait to be picked. Their greens are long gone, in the belly of some deer. The only other green in season is wintergreen, a wild groundcover you find on trailsides all over the area. Grab a leaf and crumple it up beneath your nose. Inhale. Deeply. Think about it. Deeply, I insist. Take this seriously. The wintergreen is there and waiting for you. The oncoming of winter is hard for some folks. The holidays are hard for some folks. Yours truly struggles this time of year, as well. Wintergreen is an emotional salve that nature has placed out there for us. Pick some up and put it to work.

Desi, Nonny, and Yours Truly

This fall, Mom visited the farm with my 9-year-old nephew, Desi. He comes up now and then, a cute city kid, and we slap some over-sized muck boots on him and an old pair of work gloves, so he can touch the dog’s slobbery toys without dying violently. We visit the Squam Science Center and watch the fox try to escape its pen, we hang glide across the zip line ride a million times while no one else is around, we stare into the soul of the mountain lion from six inches away, protected only by a chunk of glass. Some of us ponder the fragility of life; some of us think the chipmunks are cool. We return to the farm, loaded up on Wild energy. We make lunch – tacos! Desi thinks grass-fed beef is delicious, but the shredded cheese in a Lunchables is better than any cheese I can provide, he insists. We will go to our death beds in disagreement. I will fight this kid over this. Nine-year-old logic is made of crumpled paper; I will persuade him someday, though, I am patient. I let the dogs lick sour cream off the spoon, then I stick the spoon in my mouth in front of Desi to freak him out. We play Scrabble, and Mom drops TOILE. I bow gracefully in defeat. We have much to learn, Desi. Trust me, kid.

We go back outside for more adventures. Desi and I collect cool leaves from the farm and feed the baby chicks and toss the dogs their favorite toy, an old glove. We pass by the raised beds and I show him the peppermint patch. Grab a stalk, kid, and take a whiff, I say. He grabs some and inhales. “Peppermint calms me down,” he tells me, with the wisdom of an old man. He breathes it in. There is quiet in the pasture. My old uncle heart swells. I send him home with a bottle of maple syrup and a bunch of fresh peppermint. The next morning, Nonny (my beautiful mother has many names) sends me a photo of Desi eating pancakes for breakfast with Something Wild Farm maple syrup poured on top and a big cup of peppermint tea. A year’s worth of effort for a lifetime of purpose.

It's just another day on the farm.

II.

And yet another day comes.

I drive down to Somersworth and back my truck alongside Dad’s house, through juvenile Japanese maples and rhododendrons, beneath ancient pines that promise someday to destroy whatever lies beneath them. My destination is the corner of the workshop in the old barn, where a certain pile of cherry lumber lies. Years ago, my family moved to Somersworth from the city of sin, itself, Lynn, Massachusetts. My folks bought a little Victorian on the Hilltop, just behind the elementary school. As we three springy children got too large for such a small house, we moved around the block to a more spacious colonial. A few years after I moved away, Pops (the beloved old man has many names) received a call from our old neighbor around the block – a cherry tree on his property had fallen, and they milled the tree up. Dad got a big old pile of cherry lumber and tucked it in the corner of his workshop.

And it’s sat there since.

And you know what I need in my humble little farmhouse? Shelving. In the kitchen, in the parlor. In nooks, in crannies, all around and in between. I sit at the island in my kitchen in the morning, sipping coffee, and I think that cherry would make just the right shade of shelf. Capitol white walls, hunter green cabinets, maple floors, and cherry shelves. The steam of coffee from the cup, the morning sun filtering through the ferns and herbs in the windows. The smell of bacon. Mason jars filled with mullein and chamomile and creatine and protein powder on shelves made of cherry.

For now, the dream lies in the back of my truck. I poke into the house to sit with my old man for a bit, while his little Yorkshire terrier, Mia, jumps upon my shins and tries to high-five me. I tire her out while he tells me how he plans to fix the broken freezer with a heat gun – he will duct tape the pull-out drawer to catch the melting ice. He shows me the part he bought on Amazon. The fridge is twenty years old. He keeps it going with Yankee ingenuity. He tells me how he plans to duct tape the wheel on the grill so he can roll it into the barn. He shows me the duct-taped mower deck on his lawn tractor and tells me how I can have it in a couple years when he retires. I’m a farmer, I’m a Yankee son, I nod in peace and prayer: God bless duct tape!

Beautiful cherry lumber

He points out to the yard and tells me of the next phase of his landscaping vision. The yard is tiered; it has been since God knows when. They call it the Hilltop for a reason. If it’s flat up here, it’s been sculpted. There are three levels to the yard. Over the years, my dad has been piling brush, leaves, and loam to build out one of the tiers. Maybe he’s tossed some scrap metal or trash in there – shh, don’t tell. Over a decade, he’s built out so much space, that he’s been able to grow grass, plant trees, and raspberry canes. It sinks in a bit, and he’s been debating adding loam to level it off. But he laments with the love of a steward of the land: he will need to move the raspberry canes to the edge of the tier. The poet comes out….

And the violets!

Let me tell you, my old man is as Yankee as they get. He shops the sales at Market Basket. The closets are filled with cans of tuna that were twenty cents off. And someday they will be twenty years old. He follows you around the house like a ghoul and shuts the lights off. He tells you what things cost in casual conversation, the New England version of emotional connection. The man is hard. But he has a twinkle in his eyes, like all good Yankees do. And when he mentions the violets, I love him more than I’ve ever loved him in my life.

He doesn’t want to put loam down yet because last year the violets came.

And the violets will come!

Next year, the violets will come again. And my father wants to spread the loam around them, so they can keep growing. This is important to him. The man who wants to retire to North Carolina next year, who wants to flip this old house for half a mil and GTFO. He wants to pour a drink, flip on the Sox game, and let Mia crawl all over him. He wants me to take all the cherry lumber, all the tools, all the furniture, as much as I’m willing to make disappear. He doesn’t care anymore about that stuff. He cares about the violets, though.

And I’m willing to bet, whomever buys this house, won’t. They will trample and mow, or ignore completely, the poems planted by the old man whom a few hundred miles south, pours himself a tall one. The bitterness of the Yankee runs strong within me whenever I drive south of Ossipee. I don’t miss the Seacoast; I don't miss the sprawl. I sound petulant when I talk to my friends who still live down there. Sprawl hasn’t spread into our little pocket of mountains and lakes just yet, but it’s coming. I see it from the mountaintops. I hold my breath....

I drive home with a twinkle in my eye, though. This cherry in my truck bed, the joy of my old man in my soul, the sun setting over the Ossipee range…. God, I thank you for today.

But the violets will come!