“Tammy showed up with her tractor about noon, roaring up the slope, with a bucket ready to work. Her crew appeared shortly thereafter, with acetylene torches, and muscle. It’s always a crap shoot as gardeners, not knowing who will populate the landscape zone, nearby our flower beds & shrubbery, on any given day. Granted, we’d been warned it might not be a quiet day for us. But I guess I was curious, based on the rock pile we shared, to meet the legendary mason, hired to move the bigger pieces, beyond our ability. We can roll rocks by hand, and do simple walls, and stepping paths, but the heavy lifting is always left to those who run machines. At our site, this was Tammy. By break time, we were best of friends. “Here’s what we’ve been doing,” she said, standing next to her tractor, scrolling though photos on a hand held device, her cell phone. We crowded round, to see. A series of shots, featuring neat & symmetrical patios, connected by a series of formal steps, leading up to an Italian style fountain. Her project down in the valley, one she hinted, had been ongoing for six years. By 5 pm, her crew had pulled out but we were still raking up. In cooler weather our eagerness to put finishing touches on the beds, to make ready, for snow, is steady, and strong. Gone the summer urgency, replaced by a poignant desire to stay connected to the dirt, while it still remains supple and unfrozen, and giving. The next day, I was stationed closer to Lake Champlain. We pushed our shovels in, followed by smaller tools, wiggling out the nefarious roots an invasive charmer, lily-of-the-valley. There is nothing not to love about this plant, until it outgrows its context, and becomes a bully. In the midst of this eradication, our conversation turned to politics, as we pondered friends who seemed so sure of their affiliation to this, that or the other. “What irks me the most,” I said, “is knowing that we could come to terms on most of the basic issues, given the opportunity to meet face-to-face.” I reached out to grab a pitch fork, and stuck it firmly into the tender soil. I was relieved by the physical emphasis I could stab into something inert. A healthy alternative, to spouting off, on social media. The damn memes were getting to me, I could own that. But I would be nobody’s fool, nor be baited by silly, mindless reductions parading as “wisdom”, purporting to address complex situations with equally complex historical roots. ”I admit, I have this one issue I’m passionately involved with,” she replied, “and I’m appalled by the lack of awareness out there, amongst so-called friends”. We continued to dig. It was turning out to be an incredibly beautiful, mid-October day. The sky was clear, the view of the lake, unparalleled. In the sky, the honk of geese traveling south rose on the air, as local crows flapped and cawed, and a train rumbling south tooted its horn, an Amtrack on route to New York city. I realized that I hadn’t eaten my sandwich, though lunch time had long since, passed us by. Not taken a drop of water, or stopped for a break. That’s how beautiful it is, I thought, and I can’t break the spell, not for 15 minutes. If you love what you do, there is often no reason to stop.”
