Wonderoom

One summer, when I was nineteen, I stayed at an organic farm. Theoretically, you could say that I was working on the farm, but I was, alas, a lazy farmer. If I had been a fairytale character, something awful would have happened to me as a result of my sloth. The farm was owned by a woman who had dreams of creating a farm collective of like-minded women. Staunch female organic farmers, carving out their place in the wilderness of modern life. It was a nice idea that just didn’t work out, ultimately. Anyway, I was there for a summer.

During the course of the summer, I discovered certain things about myself. For one thing, not only do I love fried okra (always have), but I love the okra plant. The okra flower is a delicate, pale yellow blossom that is best viewed early in the morning, like morning glories. Soon nudging from underneath the flower is a budding okra pod that you have to admit looks like a pointy penis. The little penis pod rapidly grows, as those sorts of things often do, and within two or three days it is ready to pick. Or I should say, it is ready to be cut off. You don’t want to wait too long or the pods will become stiff and woody. No, I am not making this up. Farms can be very naughty. Just ask the cucumbers. Anyway, if you have no clue it’s possible to mistake okra plants for marijuana plants. They both can grow to be quite tall (5-8 feet in the right soil/conditions) and have somewhat similar leaves if you squint really hard. This might explain why we had helicopters continually flying over the farm all summer long. Round and round. There was no marijuana cultivation occurring on that particular farm. I have heard, however, that it is a popular North Carolina cash crop. Just ask any old Appalachian farmer whose granddaddy used to bootleg during Prohibition.

Okra was not my only source of joy that summer. There is absolutely nothing like biting into a perfectly ripe tomato that is still warm from the sun. Basil is also a favorite of mine, not just because of it’s many cooking possibilities, but because one of my jobs was pulling basil flowers off the plants. You have to remove the flowers so that the basil will continue to put out leaves and not spend all it’s energy going to seed. The lovely part of this is that even though your fingers turn brown from the effort, they smell wonderful. An aromatic perfume for the confirmed non-perfume wearer.

There are certain things I discovered a keen hatred for during my farm time. Vine borers, for instance, are the insect equivalent of pure evil. One day you’ve got perfectly healthy squash plants, and then with horror you watch as one plant after another keels over in the course of a few days, victims of borers sucking the life from within. They are not content to simply gnaw on leaves as so many other insects are, no, they eat away at the very heart of the plant leaving a pitiful wilted remnant. I am also rather adverse to squash bugs because I was given the Sisyphean task of trying to remove their eggs from the undersides of countless squash leaves. This probably contributed to my borer abhorrence, as all my egg picking was completely undermined by their scorched earth policies. By the way, if you put out Japanese beetle traps, be sure they aren’t actually attracting every Japanese beetle in the county.

Somewhere in between love and hate was my feeling towards chickens. I appreciate that they wouldn’t be too happy with some giant hand reaching under their stomach to steal potential children, but I had to deal with the daily fear of getting nipped. It’s not that it hurt much, it’s just the randomness of the attacks. You never knew when they would try to take a piece of you with their toothless beaks. It’s like people who are afraid of balloons. It’s not that balloons can hurt you, it’s the suddenness of the way they pop. Or peck. I had no desire to be part of their pecking order. I mean, as the one taking their eggs, I was automatically king of the chicken coop. I was bigger than they were, and could easily have arranged chicken and dumplings for dinner due to some “mishap.” They just didn’t understand this fact, or chose to live in denial.

I learned many things that summer. I learned that my favorite part of the day really is first thing in the morning, even if I do hate getting up. I learned that I enjoy nude sunbathing as long as there are no helicopters flying overhead (nevermind Google Earth). I learned that organic farming is a pain in the ass, but also a feast for the senses, and the soul. Finally, I learned that if you accidently drop burning cinders into a huge, well established compost pile it can burn a pretty blue color for days and days and days.

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