Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Gardens Don't Read Books

Every once in a while I read a book that changes my life. That happened to me a few years ago when I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Barbara Kingsolver’s a biologist by education and in her early career, but really, she was a writer, and has written bestselling novels of fiction and nonfiction with a strong component of environmental conservation and social justice.  Some of my friends say she’s too preachy, but I find her writing to be funny, human and inspiring.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is about her and her family’s move from Arizona to her husband’s family farm in Southern Appalachia in Virgina, and their attempt to eat only food that was grown so locally that they actually knew the producers. In many cases, it was them as they grew vegetables and raised livestock.

I was completely captivated and wanted to do the same thing. We would eat like royalty all summer, then can and freeze and dry our huge bounty of vegetables! They would taste delicious instead of the bland and poisonous stuff shipped into the grocery store from around the world.

My husband read the book,too, and it wasn’t hard for me to talk him, a life long gardener, into digging and planting a huge garden, and plan to grow as much of our food as we possibly could.


So we did. And immediately discovered a few things.
  • The lot had very little topsoil, and lots and lots of thick, heavy clay.
  • You can’t work full time, bike, hike, go camping AND expect a weed-free, healthy garden during the summer.
  • Everything ripens at once, and it happens when you’re busiest at work, just want to come home and relax, it’s about 95 degrees out.


Many things didn’t grow: the peas just couldn’t get started, the lima beans were missing in action, the onions were the same size when we harvested as when we planted. The urban deer herd ate all our lettuce, chard, and spinach, and nibbled the tops of everything else. Something took huge, messy, chomps out of each ear of sweet corn the night before we were going to pick it.


However. We persevered, and enjoyed a Technicolor harvest of zucchini, green beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes—and more tomatoes. I took picture after picture and we ate like field hands.

I sweated through the late summer evenings and weekends, canning jars and jars of tomatoes, which were delicious. We froze everything else…and it all tasted…not as good as what’s available in the grocery store.

That winter was a time to regroup and rethink the purpose of the garden. Aside from the hard work, we loved planning it, looking at it, talking about it, harvesting from it—even the work, if it wasn’t too hot and buggy and we weren’t already exhausted.   I can’t explain how therapeutic it was to simply go out and work in. One beautifully sunny, cool day, when I couldn’t make up my mind which competing chore I should do—I thought, “what if this were the last day of my life? What would I pick?” That made it easy: work in the garden.

At the same time, I was pretty disillusioned with our ability and circumstances to grow our own food. The garden not only didn’t read the book, it had its own program, called “nature.” 

Since then, we’ve struck a compromise with the garden.  We won’t hold it completely responsible for feeding us, and in return it offers what it can. That means I have free therapy, and we have plenty of stories to tell; every year is different as to what foods we harvest. But what we mostly plant now are rows and rows of flowers: zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, bachelor buttons. Just because we like them, and we feel rich when we go outside and cut baskets full of them whenever—and if!—we want.




Thursday, March 7, 2013

Highlights from Classic Wave 5 at the 2013 Birkie


  • The cute young man skiing past as I tried to surreptitiously (and safely) slow down at the bottom of a hill and turn to see if my husband was still behind me. He said “Your dude fell,” then gave me a smiling, sly little sideways glance. “I know you didn’t want him to.”
  • The man off his skis, posing at the 13K maker, taking his own picture of his face right next to the sign. I wished I had the generosity to hop off my own skis and do it for him. But I didn’t.
  • Skiing next to Jacque Lindskoog and seeing the look of determined concentration on her face. I wanted to yell “I love you, Jacque Lindskoog!” but couldn’t bear to bother her.
  • The music booming out over the slope where the 39K club hangs out. It lifted me up and carried me and I had tears. I vowed to remember the song but of course I’d forgotten it by the next hill. You know which one it is.
  • The woman dressed as a leprechaun, dancing in the middle of Bitch Hill, and the woman handing out pins who laughed as she chased us to zip them right into our pockets.
  • Skiing up Main Street, side by side with my husband, the sidewalks lined with people cheering us on, me smiling so hard, having no idea how I was managing to do that and keep moving without falling down.
  • Crossing the finish line and skiing up to the tall and skinny young man, with clouds of hair and beard, who stapled our 4 year pins on our bibs and told us “Congratulations!” with
    whole-hearted sincerity
    .
2013 finishers
  • The young man working at the bag pick-up who expertly watched people approach, dazed, wearing their Birkie bibs, looking around, trying to make sense of a sea of numbers and white bags. He came up and put our bags in our hands, calling out our numbers with the authority of a professional announcer but the face of a high school sophomore.
  • Walking unsteadily into the changing tent, knowing I could never manage getting out of my wet clothes without a chair to sit on, but seeing they were all in use. Just standing there, trying to make my brain work, when a young woman in the corner gestured me over. She said “Ma’am, you can have my chair!”

    I was so grateful, and tried to think of what to say. “So you skied the Birkie!” is what came out. She lit up and said “Yes! My first one!” I said “Were you happy with your time?” and she looked at me, uncomprehending. “I’m just happy I skied it!” Which is exactly how I felt the first time. I was so tired I forgot about the point of the whole thing.