rainy days

Working my way slowly through the bean patch the other day, I hollered over to Arnold, "There's a lot of beans here." He replied, in exquisite French accent, "Where? In your stomach?"

Perhaps I was eating more than a few of the beans I pulled off of the bean plants that morning. But I always put more into the basket than I put into my mouth. Well, almost always. And I tried only to eat the ones that broke in half when I pulled them off. But the way I see it, it's a waste to sell the purple beans I was harvesting to the customers, since most of them will probably cook the beans, causing them to lose their purple pigments and turn a rather ordinary and humdrum shade of green. I don't know why this happens when purple beans are cooked (sorry, Amy), but I do know that in order to fully appreciate their uniqueness, a person should eat the purple beans raw. A person like me, for example.

And keeping my mouth full is a way to avoid looking up and down the long, long row, calculating how little I've done and how much more I have to do before reaching the end. I do my best to practice Zen Farming, repeating to myself koans such as "Farming is about the journey, not the destination." But it's hard not to be a little impatient sometimes.

It was easier when the weather was nice, I tell myself. The first two weeks I was here, we enjoyed almost uninterrupted sunshine and clear skies (what can I say? I bring joy wherever I go). But perhaps my meteorolgical welcome has begun to wear thin, since for the past few days the weather has taken a decided turn for the worse. A band of white-gray clouds have settled down low over the farm, nestling in close among the mountains, cutting off the view and making the whole world seem much smaller. And the rain, too -- cold, miserable rain. When I look out from my window in the morning, everything -- the dark gray light, the water dripping from the eaves -- everything suggests wet, wet and cold.

Though we try to work outside in the breaks between the sporadic rain showers, it almost doesn't matter if it's actually raining or not when you're out there digging potatoes or crawling on your knees harvesting beans, since the water on the ground will soak through your boots and pants anyway. And no matter how much warm clothing you put on, you can't keep the cold out, because the cold is inside you -- crept in through your wet socks, perhaps -- and can't be dislodged. And it is not the cold of autumn, bracing and envigorating, but a rather more discouraging, disheartening kind of cold. So I take shelter in my room, but there's only so much time I can spend up there considering I have to work, eat meals, socialize, and so on.

Anyway, I don't want to make it sound all bad, since despite the weather, I think I'm enjoying myself more than I was a week ago. Thursdays and Fridays are usually spent picking and preparing vegetables for the Saturday farmers' market, and that meant a lot of little plastic bags to fill with beans and carrots. 12 ounces for a bag of beans, a pound and a quarter for carrots. Sue says that bagging the vegetables makes it easier for the customers to buy them, and besides, the beans look nicer when all three of the colors -- green, purple, and yellow -- are mixed together. I don't know why I enjoy bagging vegetables so much. Perhaps because it's an activity that can be done without getting wet. Or maybe because it's easy and kind of mindless and not physically demanding, so it allows me to think about other things. Like what I want to cook for dinner, or what I want to write to the five or six people to whom I owe letters, or even what I'm going to post on the blog. So be thankful for all of the beans and carrots that need bagging.

Farming is an all-weather occupation, and sometimes I'm almost jealous of all of you people working regular jobs or going to school who have the luxury of staying inside on a cold rainy day. Almost jealous.