June 6, 2016
8:00am-4:00pm

Today began a little before 8:00am with Rory and I making coffee – instant,of course – while Bloo and Rory’s dog, Tasha, enjoyed their breakfast. We conferred with Charlie, who tasked us with mulching two of the larger tomato beds. He advised us to be rather generous with the amount of hay we used around each plant. Rory and I went through several bales covering each plant’s base and in between the rows. In our constant battle against the weeds, I believe in a lot of hay. Time saved from weeding is time that can be spent otherwise.

After mulching we decided on pizza for lunch. Rory and I don’t have many hours to pass together, so it’s fun to treat one another to something special when we do get to be together. After lunch, we headed back to the cabin where I helped him pack his things. I sorrowfully said my goodbyes and cried as he left the driveway, knowing I’d be alone and without his company for a few weeks to come. While tears streaked my face, it was only appropriate that I went to work in the onion bed. There I finished up the last of the weeding that needed to be done; finally finishing long after my tears had dried.

While working the onion bed, Charlie showed up with the tractor to rake the patch where we would plant corn. Before Charlie got on his tractor, I found one of the worms I had seen in the onion bed and showed it to him to get a proper identification. He shook his head as he looked down into my palm, “Damn cutworms.” I suspected they were a pest – and I thought it was cool to have a name for them – but it was not cool to know they were there to destroy our crops. I didn’t know how Charlie planed to fight the infestation, but I hoped to see it done organically.

Charlie told me to go grab my shotgun, while he drove the tractor along the pasture, just in case any crows decided to show up. Frankly, I didn’t want to shoot any crows. I like crows, but I understood where he was coming from and decided this was just something to accept under “job agreement.” I went inside and got my 20 gauge and loaded it up with two slugs of six-shot in case any poor birds decided they wanted to eat our seed. To the crows’ luck, and a little bit of my own, none decided to make their way into the field as Charlie drove back and forth raking up the topsoil.

After the patch was cleaned up, Charlie instructed me that I would be planting two types of sweet corn in the morning. As he made his way to his truck, I went back to the onions. “Do you ever quit?” He asked. I told him it depended and laughed. He drove out of the rocky driveway as I finished weeding the last of the onions.

Then: dinner, homework and then some well needed dreaming….in that order.