The villain:
The Hero:
One tree at a time, we say.
It was supposed to be hot on Sunday, as in the 90’s. A rare cancellation of Larry’s weekly golf game, coinciding with the acquisition of what we now know to call a “brush chopper,” allowed us the opportunity to get down to the farm and try out our shiny new implement.
Up early (we farmers like to get busy before the sun is too hot), we skipped breakfast, picked up our lattes, and headed south. The uncertain wind, the confused clouds didn’t look like a morning before a really hot day, and by Salem, there were raindrops on the windshield. But by the time we turned onto Llewellyn, the rain had moved north. We unloaded our lunch cooler, the canvas chairs we meant to haul up to the house site for our picnic, and of course, the chopper.
Larry strapped on the harness, tried to start the little engine. This required some time and a few choice bits of intemperate Minnesota language, but soon he was happily decapitating thistles and blackberry brambles. My job was to clear the dead-fall limbs to a pile in what I guess we’ll call the meadow. This area is still on the flat land, separated from the road and the flood-plain pasture by a row of trees we later identified as some variety of thornless Hawthorne. I know, it says “thorn” right there in the name, but by every characteristic, the shape of the leaves, and the berries, Hawthorne they remain. Our first tree stands sentinel to a grove of oak that begins to climb the hill to the south.
The clouds gathered and dispersed, and a few rumbles of thunder threatened rain, but for a couple of hours, we worked, smelled the oxygen, felt the sun when it appeared and thought OMG. This is it.
Full disclosure: By the time I was old enough to know better, I did not love my life as a farm child. Hated the chickens. Stupid cow. No horse? Seriously. Picking strawberries and beans, crawling around in the mud? Then, when I was thirteen, or so, a girl moved into a home up the road newly built by her family. Her mother did not amuse herself hauling dead branches to a burn pile, and most certainly did not tie a scarf under her chin like some Polish emigre. Did not milk the cow, as did mine, for God’s sake. This mother got manicures, knew what a martini flag was (what a martini itself was), drove a Buick, had nervous breakdowns and smoked cigarettes. I became ashamed of my peasant-like mother, who canned tomatoes and sewed all our clothes. (Who also graduated Ohio State Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in mathematics, by the way.) (That didn’t seem to count at the time.) When I grew up, I would live in Paris or San Francisco and write important novels and drink martinis. No chickens, no farm.
Joke’s on me. Sorry, Mom!
But the rain began, settled in, yesterday, and Larry and I had to give up. We’d driven across the lower pasture into the little meadow, and thought we’d better get ourselves back out by the road before the land got soggy enough to sink the SUV. We sat in the car, doors open to the smell of the rain, ate our sandwiches and planned the future. For those of you who expressed concern, thank you, and I’m happy to report that all Larry’s toes are still attached. And if you’re wondering about his buy-in to this adventure, tonight at dinner he asked if I’d mind too much if he went back down tomorrow. Without me! I have an appointment for a pedicure and can’t go (see section re sophisticated woman above). This is just wrong! Must schedule my pedicures more carefully going forward.
Here’s First Tree:
