“Yesterday’s thermos of tea, a mix of throat comfort, ginger & tumeric is still there for me today, & still warm. I balance the cup on the tailgate of my truck, and pour. Not quite steamy, but filling, I look up at the sky, while drinking, smelling the herbs, noting the clouds, wondering what it could all possibly be about, this world of nature colliding with technology. I pull off my boot, to shake it, & bark falls out, something small, yet annoying. There are so many nuances to outdoor work, and being comfortable is one of them. I take note of how many broken tools I’ve been limping thru November, making work or not, with varying degrees of success. My “new” Agway rake, the cheapest, bought last spring, now cobbed together with a nut rammed onto a bolt I found in my garage. The long handled claw, also purchased new in spring, bereft of its center tine, snapped off for no reason I can fathom, months ago. The rusty file for sharpening; the scissors now stiff and in need of oil, as I put them to use, over, and over, and over, to cut smallish stems. I pass by the pile of white iris, dug and separated and de-grassed, but not yet replanted, because i can’t make up my mind whether they should just be gone. There’s a life span for plants, and planting design, and a time for change, to allow for new ideas. Part psychological, from the gardener’s point of view, part science, but mostly, for me, an art. An art I will always, deeply, love and be grateful for, as an occupation. To the west, the same hill I’ve paused to look up at, recently let go of its oranges, yellows & reds, stands stark and commanding in its winter reveal. I’m suddenly wondering how to climb it, or if private property will forever keep me out. I find this profoundly frustrating. To not be able to get closer to or understand what you’ve grown to love, is an abomination. There are just too many fences. As if mocking those they shut out, their material has degraded to plastic in many cases. As I slowly pull out at twilight, steering left onto the quiet dirt road, I feel the oppression of hundreds of privately held acres, badly framed by ugly, expensive junk. At the same time, I feel reverence. What I stumbled onto so many years ago, the fabled lands of hidden Vermont, those twisted, hillock farms & remade farms, whose owners knew to preserve the mystery, they can still be found, they still hold out & hold down their corners of intense and rugged history, against impossible odds. I salute them. I work for them, and with them. At the three corners, where Sayers Road meets the Royalton Turnpike, I know to stop and take my time. The lilacs that round the corner of the classic old cape with weathered siding, are completely wrong for safety. They block any view of what is coming, be it pickup truck, milk tank, or ostentatious Humvee. It’s a turn I’ve practiced and perfected, and one that slows my race to get home. I’m happy for it tonight. I wonder at the lack of lights, in the farmhouse; probably summer people but I’ll likely never know. I watch myself, as from above, looking left, looking right, creeping forward, looking left again, then looking right, then venturing a guess as to traffic conditions on this almost moonlit night. I don’t see any vehicles, not one, until I get to the store. And as my phone begins to ping, calling in all the messages I’ve received during the day but was unable to get, I feel myself lifting off, and rising into that beautiful, original, unscripted, unnoticed portion of my egress from the town. I might stop to pick up a loaf of bread, or six-pack, or just decide just to wing it home. It’s not a short drive. But its a drive I love, and cherish, and repeat. For everything its ever given me, and for everything in its wake, I’ve foolishly, innocently, loved to my core.”
