The Only Way To Grow

On the corner of the cherry bar in our kitchen is a pile of notebooks. We have a few years of date books, just in case we need to look back for some reason, a six slot wire holder that is stuffed with business cards, pamphlets of places we have been and places we would like to go, pads of paper for writing notes and a ceramic chicken that holds pencils and pens. When May begins it seems that every day we dig into that plethora of papers to make a list of things that need doing. Each of us jots down things as they come into our minds, and as they get done, we scratch them off. In the spring that list is never ending. Sometimes it feels as if we are chasing our tails.

Pre-farm that would have driven me crazy, I would have felt the need to have all things done, preferably by the end of that day.

Our new (to us) greenhouse needs to be skirted and the beds (still-to-be-made) filled with soil and manure so that we can take all fifty of our tomato plants that are apartmented in compostable paper cups down to be planted in their permanent place. We watch the weather out two weeks, if there are no frosts or very cold nights predicted we will try to plant the take-in take-out vegetables.

We need to build a new roost in the Youth Hostel to make room for new chicks that will arrive in June. The bench in the garage needs to have a large box made into a brooder, the heat lamp hung and I need to climb the teetering wood ladder up above the chicken coop to get chick feeders and waterers.

Flowers are planted. Lemon yellow Tuberous Begonias this year. I think I have planting done but then I drive past a nursery and pick up just one more plant or vegetable flat. Each day I find myself dragging out another clay pot. Today I brought home Ruby Swiss Chard and tucked it in around the baby lettuce I have in a pot in a sunny patch on our stone wall.

We looked at the calendar book this morning and figured out that we had one open day until into mid July. While Paul worked on the greenhouse I drove up to Ferrisburgh to look at spring lambs. It felt like another job on the list until I drove through the Champlain Valley. There was a break in the trees, the sun was reflecting off the lake, and the Adirondacks, in shades of green, loomed above. I stopped at Cookie Love and bought Kelly and me coffee milkshakes. I spent the next two hours slurping it while month-old lambs climbed in and out of my lap, chewed on my boots and practiced head-butting my knees. I chose three wethered lambs in various shades of brown to be delivered later in the summer once weaned from their mums. No ordinary job on the list.

When I returned home Paul waved from the garage where he was sawing lumber for more garden beds. Bronte lay dozing on the cool large stone front steps. I used the weed whacker to take down some errant spikes of grass growing in the moss of our front yard, planted yet another Begonia and tiny pink and yellow Million Bells and stuffed the Chard in around the lettuce. I had to be at a former student’s college graduation party in less than twenty minutes. I looked at my overalls with their stripes of lamb poop, grabbed the loaf of ramp bread I’d made earlier, jammed my feet into my neon yellow crocks and left.

A week earlier I took packets of seeds to the garden. I stood in front of the gate and listened to the Cardinals whistling to each other from our apple trees. Once inside, I knelt to begin committing tiny slivers of carrot seeds to the earth. Until last year I had never been able to grow carrots. I thought I had done everything correctly- I’d taken a yard stick and carefully dug in perfect straight lines. I tediously separated the minuscule seeds and placed them, one by one, along that straight line. I labeled the rows and watered faithfully. Not a carrot grew. Year after year I did the same thing with the same fastidiousness. Nada.

Last year I sat in the warm soil and watched worms corkscrew their way through the dirt. I saw small ants carrying large pieces of one thing or another on their backs. I just watched the earth. Finally I took my finger and began drawing concentric circles. Starting in the middle and working my way out. I tore open the package of carrots, sprinkled some, tossed others like carrot confetti. I covered them with dirt, stepped on them for good measure and shut the gate.

We ate carrots every meal into the fall.

What I had done was to stop thinking in straight lines. I needed to re-direct my neuropathways. All I needed to do was to begin to think in circles.

The only way to grow is to change.