Discovering My Inner Farmer

Discovering My “Inner Farmer”

I’m turning into a farmer.

Lately, at the store, I find myself in the garden section of the only variety store in town, or looking for obscure items, like a brush to scrub out the dirt under my fingernails, or peat pots, or labels for seedlings.  I spent a number of cold wet February days engrossed in seed catalogs.

I even bought myself a straw gardener’s hat, and am looking for some lightweight overalls to wear out in the garden this summer.  I already have the pitchfork and the banjo, and the rocker on the porch, er, deck, ready for my American Gothic moment or my Deliverance cameo.

My new favorite store in my small town is the farmers’ co-op store.  I’ve been going there for years, as it’s the cheapest place for gas in town, and my favorite drive-through latte place is next door.  But, now, I’ve discovered they have great prices on tools, and odd bits of garden and farming stuff I’ve been needing.  They have all the cool farmer stuff, including eight kinds of fence posts and woven fence wire, and baby chicks for sale.

The toy John Deere tractors look like fun, but I haven’t had the courage to play with them yet.  But, I think my time is coming.  I’ll just tell the clerk it’s for the grandchildren.

Today, one clerk helped me find the weird little clamps to attach wire to metal fence posts, for my brand new baby vineyard.   They have five kinds to sell, and the clerk directed me to the cheap ones, for fences not challenged by cows or horses.  Baby grape vines should be a bit more docile.

The co-op is one of two places in town you can get metal fence posts.  I’ve been finding them handy for staking up trees and shrubs (so they can withstand the typhoons we occasionally have around here) and also now for the garden, now that I am chief gardener.  (That reminds me, I need to update my resume and my Link-In status.)

And, they give me a ten percent senior discount.  So, who can resist.

Today, as I was waiting to check out with my exciting purchases of screwdrivers and fence wire holders, I had a bit of time to kill as the guy ahead of me was ordering baby chicks.  The store had some baby chicks in a cage along the back wall, and he was  wondering what kind of chickens he needed for his chicken yard.  Apparently what he needed must be special ordered from Baby Chick Warehouse.  

I’d been wanting a decent pocket knife for a couple of years, one that was simply handy for mundane tasks, such as cutting the twine I use to stake up my trees and plants, and to open bags of fertilizer and seeds.  The supermarket store had the spendy $50 kind, but I just wanted something handy to rip open a bag of fertilizer or whack off a hunk of twine.

As I’m standing in line waiting for the chicken farmer to make his decision, I spy a nice display of very handy, single bladed pocket knives, for $4.  When it became my turn to make my exciting purchases, I quickly added a knife to the loot.  The clerk asked me if I just wanted to throw out the box and put the knife in my pocket.  She knows farmers well and knows we don’t need any packaging materials.  In a minute, I was out the door with my trusty new pocket knife in my pocket.

I think it will work.  It is a Navy Seal brand.  But, somehow, I don’t think the commando teams use the $4 version.  It will work just fine with my garden twine and that sack of lime I need to get out to the vegetable garden next week.

My last stop was the local plant nursery that is a loosely guarded secret around here.  They don’t advertise, except for a little sandwich board sign by their mailbox, six miles out of town on a country road leading nowhere.  It’s a couple of miles from me, who lives near Nowhere, so they are like neighbors to me.  But, everyone around here knows that is where you get the good starts of veggies, and flowers, and herbs.  The place sells to the bigger nurseries, but, the best prices and the best quality is found at the other end of their driveway.

So, on my way home, I stop at the place.  I’m the only customer, but then, it’s Friday afternoon, and I guess people are doing other stuff today.  Stuff like work, or mowing their lawn just a few hours before the next series of spring rains move through the area for the weekend.

Me, I’m retired now, and I really do have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. When every day seems like Saturday, the forty hour work week loses its importance.  Maybe that’s one reason I read the morning paper.

We just had an entire week of rain and the calendar says it is spring, so the grass production is in high gear.  And, today, some of the dairy farmers are spreading their “liquid gold”, which they always do just before it rains.  We use our noses around here a lot to predict the weather.

The owner greets me by name, and asks if I have anything in particular I need.

“No, just browsing,” I say, not very convincingly.

No one leaves this place empty handed.  It’s one of the reasons I have a good sized sheet of plastic in the back of the car, for the box or two or three of plants I’ll find at a nursery I just might stop by and “browse”.

Four tomato plants call my name and demand to be taken home.  Now, mind you, we had a good frost this morning, and the next few days is supposed to be rainy, windy and cold.  And, maybe some more frosts next week.  Definitely not tomato planting weather.

Still, plant lust is part of my psychology, and we do have a greenhouse.  The owner asks me that, as he rings up the sale.  We exchange nods of understanding, of our addiction, and the basic primal need to buy tomato plants in April an hour before a cold front moves on shore.

Back home, I find myself in the greenhouse, gathering big pots for my tomatoes.  I shovel rich soil into the pots and am soon tying up the new guys next to the bamboo stakes I’ve found in the garden shed.  I get to test out my new pocket knife, cutting off a hunk of twine, and helping the tender tomato stalks stand up in their new home.  The Navy Seals and Rambo would be impressed with how I skillfully whacked off the lengths of twine and brought order to the tomatoes with my maybe official Navy Seal $4 knife.

We used to buy garden soil by the plastic bag.  But, a couple of years ago, my wife got smart and simply ordered a truckload of the stuff from the local garden soil and barkdust wholesaler.  (Yeah, we have a big pile of barkdust, too.  My back muscles wanted me to mention that.) That’s where I get my dirt now, and, amazingly, that big pile is doing down a bit, a bucket here and there for the roses I transplanted, my grapes, and my new seed plantings I’ve made. The greenhouse is now half full of my fledgling, soon to be, vegetable garden and I have a basket of other seeds sitting on the dining room table, waiting for that warm week of May that is seed planting right in the garden week.  It is coming in May this year, right?

I’ve even gone so far over the edge of garden madness to fashion a little nylon holster on my belt, so I can tote around my trowel and my hand pruners.  I’m ready for the noontime showdown at the OK Corral, if the Earp brothers need some landscaping done.   I’m thinking of adding a little hook for the container of slug bait, but that might have to wait until slug season moves into high gear.

This morning, I could be found in the back of the garden, happily putting together the planks of my newest raised bed, using serious metal screws in the planks, thinking the new raised bed would be a good place for all the squash and zucchini seedlings emerging in the greenhouse.  And, maybe, that heirloom Ukrainian melon seed  and purple tomato seed from the heirloom seed company in Missouri I’m trying out this year.    “Thrives in cool climates”, the catalog boasted for a lot of what I bought.  I’ll put them to the test.

Yesterday,  I was pounding in metal fence posts, and digging holes.  Soon, my new grape vines were sticking their toes into the ground, all staked and tied, and labeled with special copper labels I’d found on Amazon.  The little vineyard of six vines had been on my project list for years, and the spot was the most sheltered and warmest, most grape friendly spot on our place.

My mind’s eye could see the grape-laden vines handing heavily down along the trellises on a warm summer evening, with me out there clipping off clusters of sweet table grapes.  Oh, probably not this year, but the project now is well under way.

I’m still looking for that pair of comfortable, denim coveralls.  I’ve got the straw hat, the pitch fork, and the banjo.  But, maybe I need a jug of moonshine.  That might be the next project around here.


4/10/2013 Neal Lemery

Cleansing

Cleansing
--by Neal Lemery

It was a day to clean out a closet, to purge old clothes I hadn't worn for ages, to remove items I no longer used, to literally clean house.

Soon, bare hangers and a full garbage bag resulted, even the basket of newspapers was in the car, ready for the recycling truck in town.  The closet now had room to breathe, and the washer was making some old, dusty clothes ready to be used again, at the front end of the closet.

It was like a shopping spree, with old friends, friends who had gotten misplaced, forgotten.  Yet, room to breathe, too.  Lighter.  A good feeling, freeing myself from some clutter in my life.

With the car full of treasures I no longer wanted,  I headed off to the recycling truck, leaving a month's worth of old news behind.  The quiet whoosh of  piles of newspaper sliding into the town's mound of last month's news mixed with the steady rain that had moved in, another sense of cleansing, renewing.

The second hand store guy eagerly helped me unload the box of old vases, bottles, and lamps, and my garbage bag of clothes.

"This will really help us out," he said.  "We were getting low on men's clothes.  And, this pair of boots will help someone get ready for a job."

He didn't mention the other bag, filled with about three dozen ties.  I'd kept a half dozen of my favorites, ones I might wear to a wedding, or for a special evening out.  But, ties were part of my old work life, and whatever lay ahead didn't include a huge selection of neck nooses.  All those ties would fit in better in the men's section of the thrift store, and out of my closet.

My cleaning and purging project was gaining steam.  It was a part of being alive in my community, making a contribution, being of service.  I drove away feeling tieless and unburdened.

The second hand store would be making some money off of my cleaning project.  And, the truckload of newspapers would be sold soon, putting money into the hands of a local service club, and spent on scholarships for kids' field trips, or feeding the hungry, or some other project that needed some cash.

My next stop was all about me.  It was time for a visit with my acupuncturist, some "me time", part of my inside work this month, getting me settled down and moving on with the next step in my life.

"Retired", that is my status, I guess.  It is what people ask me about, in the grocery store line, or at the post office.  For me, it is a renewal, and a time of self exploration, the next phase in life.

I am not idle, and I do have a new schedule.  For once in my life, what others want of my time is not much of a priority, and "empty" days are filled up nicely, thank you very much.  Including this day, this day of cleaning and purging, and time with the acupuncturist.  This renewal work is right on schedule.

Already, eating better, without sugar, exercising vigorously most every day, spending more time with my music and nature, even some good hours on the river bank, fishing for more than just the elusive steelhead on a sunny, cold January day, were already making my jeans a big baggier, and giving me deeper sleep.

Yet, I'm a work in progress, and I still need to put one foot in front of the other, and move ahead with my life, cleaning out my closets, in every sense.

Soon, I was lying down in a warm and dimly lit room, as the acupuncturist did her magic, finding just the right places to stimulate some of my pressure points, and move my energy around, cleansing, renewing, reinvigorating.

The Chinese call it "Qi" or "chi", the universal life energy force that flows within all of us, the foundation of all of our creativity, and our very essence of being.

Western thinking would want me to analyze it, measure it, describe it, and test out various theories of what is and what it does.   And, my analytical mind is drawn to such work.

Yet, instinctively, I don't go there.  This is something to simply acknowledge, to honor its existence in myself, as a fundamental, essential aspect of my very being, and be accepting.  I need to put my Western mind into idle, and simply lie here on this table, in this warm and safe room, and be.

Now, I need to remind myself that I am a human being, not a human "doing".  This is not the time or the place to "do", but, instead, to just be, be in the moment, to accept this gift, and to let my chi flow.  What is, simply is.

This is "me" time, "being" time.

Soon, all the needles are in place, stimulating and opening up gateways and paths.  I feel the current of energy flow through my body, along all the paths.  This is dynamic, the current and the sense I get from all of this changing, moving, within me, and of me.

I breathe in and out, feeling the leaving from me of things I no longer want, "stuff" that is cluttering me up.  Darkness and crud and the dust bunnies of my internal being leave me, in each breath, in each awareness I have of the chi circulating within me.

Soft Chinese music plays in the background, something I am sometimes aware of, and sometimes not.  The real music is in this flow of energy, and in the breathing in and out.

This is closet cleaning work, too, getting rid of the old newspapers and unworn clothes cluttering up my life, and my soul.  All that "stuff" is going elsewhere.  I am done with it, and moving on, carrying a lesser burden.

I lie here in a halfway world, half awake, half somewhere else not of this world, the music and my breathing and the sense of this flow of energy being my metronome for this space I am in.

Purging, cleaning, throwing away, putting in order, getting lighter; this is my task for this day.


1/25/2013