Category Archives: Farming

The Anti-Farmer

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3

Who needs internet dating, all you really need is a giant garden bordered on one side by the road.

Boobs, sundress, tattoos… and they drop like flies neatly along my fence line.

I spent 10 hours in the garden yesterday, with the sunburn to show for it; and it was insanity. The women smile and wave, generally saying something nice about my garden or muttering about my mental stability under their breath.

The men stop.

The older retired set compliment me on being a good woman, and we chat for a while about how women don’t grow their own food anymore and how sad that is. He leaves with more compliments, referring to me as Sugar, Honey, or Sweetheart as he walks away. He always tells me he’ll be back when the tomatoes are ripe… and he always is. I have at least a dozen older neighbors that wave dollar bills over the fence every September.

The married men… and these are the worst. The big bad wolves of the neighborhood. I could tell you every single husband that cheats on his wife within a mile of my house. They leer at me. they make comments about my appearance. They start running daily during garden season. They come late afternoon to catch me rinsing off. I know these things because they tell me. Eww. There’s really nothing worse than being hit on by a guy, only to sit next to his wife at PTA meetings. Some men are just snakes…

The boyfriends… and these are the best. They talk about their girlfriend’s garden and ask me for garden advice or just tell me they think the garden is beautiful. They usually make the effort to stand my fence up a little straighter too. They’re the good guys, the helpers. Aw. There’s about one a week, so don’t get too excited.

The single men. The most challenging. Don’t get me wrong- I’ll be damn happy if my very own Prince Charming walks up to the fence to hand me a shiny 3 carat princess diamond. Yeah, sign me up- but it just isn’t that easy. These men range from absolutely repulsive to hot 23 year old half naked college student home for the summer. It’s either light hearted flirtation with a side of compliments- or outright whistling, followed by a request for my number.

With a nice exception yesterday.

I was roasting in the mid-morning sunshine. Spreading newspaper and straw mulch in between the rows to keep the weeds at bay. I’m determined to pull off this garden and work full time, and enjoy the summer with my daughter. I’m trying to cover as many bases as I can to make this as easy as possible. I heard someone at the fence and looked up.

Bald.

I laugh at myself because it’s the first thing I notice and acknowledge it silently in my head. I start walking over, smiling and melting at the same time.

Cute.

He’s cute, cute. I think I’ve seen him somewhere before. I’m not sure. Damn cute though- granted his shiny head is only helping him with me. What a weakness… good Lord.

C- Hey, this is quite a garden you have here. Is it a city project?

J- Nope, just mine.

C- Well it’s beautiful and I love the round paths, it’s very feminine.

J- I suppose that happens when there’s not a man demanding straight rows? I like it curvy.

C- It looks that way. Here’s my card, I just moved to town and I’d love to help sometime if you want. I’d like to know what makes an anti-farmer start farming.

J- An anti-farmer?

C- Clearly you’re a girlie girl, but with tattoos and 8 times an average vegetable garden?

J- Pretty much.

C- Call me if you want, I want to know more.

He smiled and jogged off and I laughed…

Perhaps I should make a poster and announce it to the masses. I’m not dating… which is precisely when they all come flying at you. I’m too happy not dating, though I’m definitely wound tightly. My life is a douche bag free zone. It’s complication free, stress free and happy. My biggest concern is a slug eating my cucumber plants. I have a new job I’m really excited about.

I have time with my daughter and my garden is going in quicker than ever before this year. I’m moving my own mountains, instead of wasting time getting my feelings hurt. I crave bad habits like everybody- but I’m finally at a point that the cost is too high for me to consider. I know that I can’t have what I really want in my life if I’m wasting time doing what I know doesn’t work.

Tempting… oh so tempting… but no.

I have tomatoes to plant. A fence to rebuild (ugh…) a yard sale to put together, a new job, etc… I don’t have time for a potential douche bag- so as sweet as they all are- and as easy as it is in the garden.

I’m throwing the number away. Sigh.

I know myself too well…. and he’s gonna look better and better while I’m doing that fence.

It’s so BIG.

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4

Yeah if I had a quarter for every time I said “That’s what she said” yesterday? I could retire.

Sigh.

My darling chosen father showed up with a rototiller at 10 o’clock. He’d driven by a week ago and saw me weeding in the garden and I got a call later.

B- Hi Jen, I drove by and saw you trying to do the impossible. Call me. I’ll go get the tiller.

I couldn’t ask him to till it again. He did it last year and I let it go to shit with my terrifying water bill and full time job. All that work and I didn’t even pull it off. I couldn’t call him back.

So he showed up with it anyway.

My Bill. My dad, as I’ve taken to calling him. He’s been there for me since I was a kid.

When I was 14 or 15 he met my mom and offered to help. He drove me to school for years. He’s always been there for me and has taught me a million things. He taught me how to install insulation, how to drive a snowmobile and a boat. He’s happily married and a complete pervert. He regularly comments on my boobs, as he always has.

B- When are ya gonna take that rack out and get a husband, this is ridiculous to do alone and you shouldn’t be single.

J- I have horrible taste.

B- Obviously if I’m the one driving the tiller.

His youngest son died suddenly last summer. It’s been a hard year… and yet?

He’s always been there for me.

He loaned me the money to save me from getting the water turned off after the leak from hell and when I had nowhere to turn and no idea what to do.

He gave me a car when mine broke and it was too expensive to fix it.

He tilled my garden, for the second year in a row… and he’s picky like me so he went over it twice without me asking. He paid for it, wouldn’t take a dollar and came and left like the real dad it feels like he is to me. I tell him every time that I love him. He’s not one of those guys… but as long as he knows I do- we’re good.

Beyond all the help he gives me, and the real support he’s always been to me?

He calls me on my shit.

B- Time to get that hibernation weight off you. It’s high season in the lake and you need someone to help you around here. Time to get out there and find a nice husband.

J- What if I don’t want one of those?

B- Maybe I should buy a tiller.

For all the shit he gives me, he’d kill a man for being disrespectful to me, he destroys the undercarriage of his shiny new black Corvette to come down my driveway to check on me… and he shows up for the worst of jobs… like climbing under the house. Ugh.

He puts the time in. He get’s his hands dirty… hell he gets cut and bleeds over this damn garden every year- and yesterday was no exception. He got here early- around 9:30… and I was still in my bikini and a nightgown. I threw on my garden boots and raced out to the garden to meet him and he started laughing.

B- Trying to drum up more volunteers?

J- What?

B- Oh hell are you gonna start doing yard work in high heel shoes again?

J- If I do, I expect you to support me.

B- I’m not a hippie. I’m not worried about hurting your feelings. I’m going to tell you when you look like an idiot and when you’re tromping through the soil with your heels sticking into the mulch? You look like an idiot.

Which is when another person walks up to the fence and says…

L- It’s SO big!!!

he laughs and shouts back..

B- Thank you, but I’m afraid I don’t remember our night together.

She frowns and walks away.

J- You. Behave… these are my neighbors.

He laughs and goes back to plowing. I’m in full fledged suffering mode. Shoveling huge garden cart loads of compost and spreading it over the entire garden. Every muscle in my body is screaming out and begging me to reconsider this enormous commitment.

I can feel the sweat run down my spine. My eyes are burning from my epic allergies this spring and the tires are flat on my garden cart. I’m absolutely knee deep in purgatory. I can feel every single thread of every muscle running from my tailbone to my neck.

I’m reconsidering every inch of this garden… not to mention that it’s nearly an acre. The blisters on my hands from pulling the cart are breaking against the dirty cold metal handle. Ouch.

Which is when the hot bald volunteer shows up.

D- Hey. Jen?

I look up and die a little… and have to laugh. My pops turns the tiller off and comes to stand next to me when he sees him jump over the fence.

B- Are you a Jehova witness? We don’t need a watchtower, we need tilled soil and a fence.

D- Oh I offered to help her fix the fence.

B- Great. Follow me.

J- Slow down. How about you meet each other first.

D- Hi, I’m,

B- She needs a fence, so thanks for offering. Let’s get you all set up, come here I’ll show you the wood.

So this is what it’s like to have a dad. I feel like I’m living my own version of Meet the Fockers. He’s not usually like this, but he’s not fucking around and when the shiny volunteer starts to balk, my Pops laughs and walks back to keep on tilling, shaking his head.

D- Maybe we could get a beer next week?

J- No, but thank you.

He made his excuses and exited the line of fire fairly quickly. Pops was all over it the minute he drove away.

B- If he was serious he would have come dressed to help.

J- I know.

We finish out the day just dragging through it. Exhausted on a level I haven’t known for a while. I’m sunburned, I have dirt in my hair and an acre of bare soil staring back at me, daring me to pull off the impossible, yet again.

Standing back to survey the absolute lunacy of growing a garden this big, alone… an idea hits me.

J- Maybe I’ll make it into a rainbow this year!

B- I don’t think that’s a good idea.

J- I think it’d be beautiful!

B- I think it would attract the wrong guy.

He’s my Pops…  and we laugh like hell when we’re hanging out. We had to rinse all the dirt off the tiller before returning it and it hit the wrong piece of angled metal on the tiller and I sprayed him full force in the thigh. He left, soaking wet & laughing… inviting my daughter and I over for a martini and a soak in the hot tub. At this point breathing hurts and every muscle in my body just wants to hold very, very still. Ouch.

He hugs me goodbye with the most amazing sentiment.

B- Let me know if I can help you with anything else. We’ll get the fence figured out, don’t worry.

J- I love you Dad.

He smiled at me and threw a piece of dirt at me.

B- I love you too, good luck planting all that. You need to make friends with some hippies that don’t have a garden or start wearing less and wait for a nice guy to volunteer.

I stood there in an acre of open dirt and laughed. Here… look.

Any suggestions? I like it round but it’s a bit of a pain to navigate with hoses & weeding. Hmm…

Scary Happy

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9

I’m back to my infectiously happy self. I’m beaming. People everywhere tease me and ask about the new guy in my life. I blush.

Nope. No guy. No man. Nada, nada, nada…. No gracias.

It’s me, I’m back.

I’ve missed me. It’s like coming out of a fog. I’m baking. Sewing. Planting. Transplanting…. and walking the five minutes to my daughter’s school every day to pick her up. I’m so filled with joy at having these moments back that my chest aches a little. We’re cooking dinner together and taking bike rides afterward.

I’ve lost 12 pounds not being surrounded by fried food. I have a lovely tan from spending so much time in the greenhouse. My tomato plants are thriving and I spend my mornings dancing in the greenhouse in a swimsuit, watering my little green children. I’m beside myself with joy.

My finger & toenails are painted. My dishes are done and the laundry is clean, folded and put away. I’ve had time to go to the grocery store and I’ve been making marshmallows for the market this weekend. I’m getting ready for a yard sale. I’m working with what I have until I start working again.

Not dating, and more importantly taking the time to actually write about my Puerto Rican nightmare. I’m taking the next two weeks offline. Unplugging the computer and shutting off the DirectTv. Diving in to this rare opportunity to be the housewife I used to be and get my own home and life in order. Building fences and baking cookies. Slipping back into a dress and heels, my uniform of choice.

I’d gotten lost. I forgot to do what really makes me happy and the rest falls into place. I don’t want to date some idiot. I don’t want to drink after work with coworkers every night my daughter is gone. Yeah the house is empty but it’s also a pretty cool place to hang out, and I’m happier at home. I’ve been sewing curtains and diaper covers and monsters.

I’ve been getting rid of the excess in our lives and in our house so that we have less upkeep.

and I’ve been spending some serious time playing Bejeweled.

Unemployment is absolutely terrifying when you’re a single mom, and it’s going to be another 5 weeks before my unemployment starts to come in. Yikes… but I love a challenge and I’m resourceful as hell when it comes to being broke. I dated an unemployed hippie for 7 years. I could impress the world with how many things I can do with rice. :)

I’m living my life again- and not someone elses. I have clean sheets on my bed and clean socks in the drawer. Homemade spearmint soap in the shower and freshly bleached towels.

I’m a domestic hurricane of happiness, and it feels SO fantastic.

I’ve lost some friends, enemies and a job… but I’ve gained my life, my happiness and my self respect back.

Life is uncertain, but it is so good when you’re living true to yourself. It’s a scary good change and such a blessing in disguise.

This too shall pass, so while it’s here I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it. ♥

I’m spending time with dear girlfriends- and you know what they say… you find out who the real ones are when the chips are down. I’ve heard from a few of my favorite customers expressing their appreciation and someone left a six pack of beer on my porch the other day.

Simple kindness and delighting in the simple things in life reminds me what is truly important.

We’re going to go see the new baby chicks that hatched in my mama’s chicken yard this week and to collect eggs. I’m begging little red to let me go along on the field trip with her school tomorrow. I realize all the things I’ve missed that are so important and so vital to life being worth anything at the end of the day.

I’m breathing again, smiling and I’m grateful. It’s good to be back. ♥

Hope springs eternal… again.

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3

On a day that started too early, too sadly and in full on pity party mode… I took a shower, took my naughty mongrels on a walk and filled a mason jar with ice water and indulged my favorite habit…

Gardening ♥

A pair of bikini bottoms, a towel and my quart jar of water…. combined with 100* of heaven in the greenhouse- and my smile reappeared.

I have one thing that I don’t ever give away… my faith. I know that good things will happen. I know that I am surrounded by amazing friends who truly love me and a family so close we begin and end our conversations with “I love you”.

I have it all- including the freedom to choose what I want to do with my life, with my body and with my future.

I had so many lovely kind messages from friends near and far- little love notes via email or text- all day. I love all of you- and if I don’t express it often enough or so that you feel it, let me take a little moment to just say…

I love you, I appreciate you, and I must be doing something right to hear those two phrases from so many fantastic people when I need to hear them most.

I caught a few rays of sunshine. I fell in love with my baby tomato plants which have all sprouted in the last few days and are a lovely verdant variety of potential deliciousness. I stopped for an hour and coated my feet in cocoa butter. I painted my nails. I did my very best to find the goodness in a day that could have crushed me.

Warm and snuggly, smelling like chocolate and coconut suntan lotion- nothing can feel too horribly overwhelming. I sat down to work on my resume and realized it is missing in action…. and instead of putting off the inevitable, I took a shower, blew my platinum self dry and put my face on. Dressed, painted and nervous- I drove out to fill out an application at my job of choice… shaking in my shoes a little and doing my best to fake the confidence my friends think I have…. and I filled out the application and realized I know a helluva lot. I’m a farming, graphic designing super-server… I’ve got this. If not at my first choice? Somewhere else.

The woman at the restaurant was wonderful and kind. It was like a Bandaid on my nerves- and I left with a permanent smile, knowing at the very least that everything will work out just as it’s meant to, and relishing the thought of being appreciated at work. What a novel idea?

It was raining lightly as I crossed the bridge into the beautiful small town I live in, and the first thing I saw crossing our beautiful lake Pend Oreille? A rainbow.

Then another one.

I had just enough time to stop and get ice cream for my little princess, only to get a call letting me know that they’d closed work for the night due to some flooring issues and I would NOT have to work my least favorite shift on my poor damaged toe.

Did I say this was a bad day? This day is turning out to be downright fucking amazing. An impromptu night off with little red, ice cream in the cup-holder and hours ahead to lazily make dinner and take a bike ride if the weather cooperates.

Caprese salad and beef satay for dinner, because moms that get the night off ACTUALLY get to cook for fun. Coffee Haagen Daaz, the new Footloose movie and nothing but hope coursing through my veins on a day that started so dimly.

God bless Redbox, God bless a surprise night off…

and God bless the people in my life that remind me not to give up and feel hopeless.

Little Red smiled at me and giggled.

R- We should buy some scratch tickets, crank the music and dance. We should eat dinner in the greenhouse, take a bike ride and paint our nails.

And that’s exactly what we did.

Icing on the cake of a day that started out badly and ended with the two of us in PJ’s, planting basil, nasturtiums and bells of Ireland…

Singing at the top of our lungs and dancing our hearts out… ♥

NO. No. no…. um…. maybe?

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5

I’m in full on love affair mode with my iPhone. Those of you who haven’t gotten one yet, just cave in already and make your life better. Succumb to the goodness.

With the magic that is iCloud, all my iTunes are on my lovely phone. It’s downright fantastic.

I devoted this day to gardening and fucked around instead. I got some things done, but by the time I got back from running errands and paying bills, all the landscape cloth had blown to the back of the garden.

Ugh.

Farming is not easy… which is why we have Farmer’s Markets…. so that we can exploit the laziness of the people who want the joy of fresh picked veggies without the back breaking work of it all.

Don’t cry about paying $4 a pound for my divine heirloom tomatoes… they’re worth every penny and at the point I’m selling tomatoes I’ve been fighting everything since February to keep them going. Be thankful and sink your teeth into edible heaven.

At this point though? It’s overgrown and out of control and I look like a woman running uphill, chained to a bus trying to get it all to the point it can be planted. It’s going to be a push, to say the least. I really let shit go last year.

I slip into my uber-sexy garden gnome red rubber Croc boots and head out to face the music with a cocktail, my new garden gloves and my darling iPhone, earphones in- my favorite music loaded.

I get to the gate, which is a little diagonal… and realize this fence issue is going to be next on the list. Slipping the earbuds in and my phone into my bra, pulling on my gloves and setting my drink on the one straight fence.

Ok… now I want a boyfriend. I want a big stupid one too. One that has a tractor, a backhoe and muscles to hammer in my fence posts.

Build me a fence and I’ll blow you’re freaking mind….. Either that or find the damn charger to my cordless drill. Ugh.

I sat to pull weeds in my linen pants and decided I was not dressed for the job, and took them off. I have cute little boy shorts on, I can pull it off as bikini bottoms and it’s sunny. I pulled the landscape cloth back over the garden- and I’m well aware I look a little ridiculous in boy shorts and gigantic red rubber boots, but oh-fucking-well, this is my garden, not a club. I’m not looking for compliments or a date, I’m avoiding the creepy mice that keep running out from underneath the cloth, which makes me scream instinctively.

J- AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

J- Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!

J- Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so….. I nearly fainted when baby mice went tumbling across the cloth when I pulled it out of the corner of the garden. Tiny little pink mice without their eyes even open yet. I felt horrible. I stopped and collected them, scared to death of their mother but absolutely NOT ok with being the cause of any tiny little baby’s death. 9 in all, and so cold. Aw. I’m scared to death of mice, but these are babies and I feel horrible. I can feel their tiny heart beats and they’re chilly. I took them inside and found a styrofoam cup, cut half of it off and lined it with some fuzzy soft yarn. I’m a pushover for a tiny creature- even mice. Now to locate their antichrist mother. Ewww. My maternal feelings wear thin when I think of that furry grey thing coming anywhere near me. I set the cup down by the hole dug in the soil that looks closest to where they must have been- and went back to work.

Corn stalks to pull, hoses to check… omg… I must be out of my damn mind to want to do this again. Here’s an example of what it looked like in it’s heyday, and what I’m determined to have it look like this summer.

Yeah… Epic.

But? Absolutely worth every minute spent. It’s the heart of my happiness and the key to my joy. My legacy from my beautiful mother. She gave me a happy smile and a heart that’s happiest in the garden. We call it the Yarden, because it’s nearly an acre. It’s daunting… to say the least.

The best things in life always are. You really can’t know joy until you dig potatoes. I believe this with all my heart. So perhaps the 800 pounds of potatoes I grew two years ago is a bit much… but seriously… it’s like digging for treasure, veggie style.

My daddy is a chef. He created a monster when he taught us what tasted good. We have discerning palates. We are not afraid to get our hands dirty…because our mama is an organic gardener.

Hence the 8 rows of specialty potatoes I’m planting.

I’m giggling over my type A obsession in planting my circular garden in graduated heights so that it’s as beautiful as it can be… when I hear a voice over my seriously challenged fence.

C- Hey… you have quite the undertaking.

J- Yeah, while you’re talking, pull some weeds.

I looked up to see a very hot, very bald… very cute guy… walk over my fence and toward me in the mass of weeds that is my garden.

I should remind you of a few details at this point.

I’m in black panties and red gnome boots…. and my “Jenius” sweatshirt. My hair is in a ponytail and I’m praying to God that the clouds above me will open up and strike me dead on the spot with a bit of mercy lightning.

No luck…. the sun actually starts shining. My sweet Sober One Kenobe is making dinner and I’m already late leaving. I’m panicking over the baby mice… but more than anything… I’m dying over my panty-clad reality.

C- Hi. Where would you like me to pull some weeds?

He sticks his hand out and smiles.

C- I’m McHotter-Than-Hell-Pants.

and I’m Mc-want-to-climb-under-a-rock-because-I-have-no-pants.

He pulled a beer out of his pocket and handed it to me. I grinned at him.

C- You don’t remember me, do you?

Uh oh.

J- Yeah, I do.

Not really… but…

C- Art class? Freshman year? I taught you how to draw trees.

Art was not my strong point. I had Mr. Anderson, some crazy ass old man with a toupee who adopted kids purely for the check from the state. Not a good guy. Not a good teacher…

and I can’t draw a tree to save my life… but I can sweet talk a beautiful man with my hands tied behind my back.

J- OH MY WORD! How have you been? It’s so good to see you! Sorry I told you that you had to weed….How are you? How’s life? Fill me in.

Please… cause I have no damn idea who the F you are.

C- Evelyn and I had two kids, both girls, and got divorced. I’m an accountant and out celebrating the end of tax season tonight. Are you finished here? Wanna catch up over dinner?

I looked to my left… and to my right. Weeds for days. I looked at him and realized I’m completely over it.

J- I have plans, but thank you. Have a great night, and congratulations on finishing out the season.

C- Would you like to have dinner some other time?

Deep breath. One quick glance to the baby mice tucked in my favorite cashmere yarn and styrofoam cup.

J- No, but thank you. I’m taking a sabbatical from that sort of thing, but if you feel like taking your dress shoes off to weed with me, come on over. I have Thursdays off.

C- I’ll see you next Thursday night.

J- No, you wont. Perhaps the week after?

C- See you then…here?

He hands me another icy cold Red Stripe out of his sweatshirt and I let myself grin over his shiny bald head.

I thank God and myself for having the self respect I deserve, finally.

J- Two weeks… and bring your gloves… I’d hate to destroy those pretty hands.

He walks away smiling, and gets to the edge of the garden and stands my fence back up where he walked over it previously.

C- I could help you with this fence.

Now you’re talking.

J- Bring your drill too, then. <grin>

Date the need…. right? If this man can build a fence with his hot bodied bald-headed goodness, I just might have dinner with him.

Right after a background & credit check.