Filled Out

Full sun all the way through, the temperature stuck around 75F.


I met Gizzie down in the barn this morning-- today was his first field day. We carried up a few trays worth of tomatoes to round out the store, then got started. Newport joined in with us and we cut 3 buckets worth of zucchini and 1 1/2 buckets of summer squash from the rows along the side of the greenhouse. We piled everything beneath the back awning, then gathered up 20 buckets/3crates/shears/elastics and hiked up the road to the forest field. Newport and Gizzie got on surprisingly well-- now that the summer help is gone everyone has dropped their guard. We cut another 3 buckets of zucchini (these rows are starting to die down, we've been cutting them since the first week in July), 5 buckets of summer squash, 1 bucket of kousa and 1 bucket of patty pan. Time was flying by so we got busy and stuffed 3 crates full of basil bunches, finishing just in time for lunch.


After lunch we got an emergency order from the wholesaler-- they were completely out of tomatoes, and tomorrow is pick up day for their restaurant customers. They wanted everything we could sell. We ran down to the barn with the boss and foreman-- packing 10lb boxes as fast as we could go. The truck came in an hour later-- but we had 100 boxes ready (CSA is tomorrow and that's all the boss was willing to part with). We'll make a good chunk of money on that one.

It was finally time for the big job of the day-- digging potatoes. We needed several hundred pounds worth for the CSA/markets. The boss drove us up to the hilltop with buckets and hoes-- we all pitched in and got moving tubers fast. The foreman came up to help and we really chugged along-- filling 15 buckets in a couple hours. Gizzie and I loaded everything into the tractor's front loader-- back to the store. We scrubbed and piled up a produce wagon's worth of potatoes for tomorrow. Day was done.


Gizzie and I set down on the harrow in the grass field for soda and cigarettes. He was tired and sun burnt, his hands chewed up with broken blisters from hoeing potatoes. Gizzie shook his head and said it was quite a day-- definitely a little rougher than market. He hasn't been bit by the farm bug yet, but he's been surprised. Gizzie has worked a lot of retail jobs before, most have been just short of soul crushing. It's different, he said:  the boss immediately trusted him with a lot of money and responsibility at market yesterday; noon meant lunch, closing meant go home (no one asks permission to eat or leave); no one asks to go to the bathroom, you take care of your own business (if you're far off in a field, you just walk into the woods); if you want a cigarette, you light up; you are trusted to write out your hours yourself; if you need water you get it; the boss talks to you and all the boys like combination sons/business partners/frat brothers/draft horses. Gizzie is in the middle of a little culture shock. As he said last night over some drinks-- it's surprising to feel human while at work, work is supposed to be some other life where we aren't ourselves. After a few weeks or months of feeling human you never want to go back, fortunately/unfortunately most literally can't. It was strange to think-- we've both lived only a few miles from this farm for most of our lives, but from the world we lived in (up till now) the farm might as well have been across an ocean.

So Gizzie got a lot to think (or not) about. Today was, admittedly, a great day-- the work wasn't too rough, the weather was perfect, the boss was on top of the world and nothing went wrong. 2 weeks. After then he'll have toughened up or have already left-- knowing my friend, a stubborn mule like myself, I think he'll stick around. We'll see what happens.

Aside:
Some of the day's work joy was soured this evening. This town is sinking-- the buried seams are buckling. Real young kids and even adults around my age are everywhere-- they gather by the 20s, 40s and 60s standing around their cars lined up in parking lots. They trickle in around noon and are still there at 4/5am, standing around. They stand around all day and all night. While they stand there, old retired folks line up at the convenience store buying scratch-tickets to pass their time. These old folks sit in their cars around the coffee-chain-store and days must somehow pass. Before writing this post, I went to buy a fresh pack of cigarettes. A "back-in-5-minutes" sign hung from the store's door and a man was sitting nearby in a lawn chair. He said he'd been waiting 2 hours for those 5 minutes to be up. 7-8 old folks milled around smoking and the parking lot kids came to try the door from time to time. An old woman lit up, talking aloud to herself/everyone, she said-- I don't give a shit, the store could burn for all I care, I am far past the point of caring about much of anything, I didn't have the sense to be dead young. She hobbled over and strained, sitting down next to the door to wait. I left without buying any cigarettes. There is a lot going wrong in this place/world and it isn't enough. It isn't enough to try and make yourself happy, it's not enough to pretend everything is for the best, and it's not enough to ignore all that's going from bad to worse. It's not enough to pout, it's not enough to despair saying there's nothing to be done and it's not enough to run. Seems to me there's nowhere left to run.

For now there is sweat, friends and thinking to do.

Take it easy.