The first few weeks of my
time on Cottingham Farm involved a lot of drama over the Colorado Potato Beetle
(CPB), which clearly loves potatoes, but also has a fondness for tomatoes. Cottingham is primarily a tomato/potato farm,
so in hindsight, when Cleo pointed the bugs out to me, she was positively way
too calm in my opinion. At that time,
there were few. And then, almost all at
once, there were many. CPB’s don’t multiply. They explode. The organic farming official
regulations require that we hand pick the bugs off the plant before resorting
to any approved spraying.
I
was weirdly obsessed about eradicating the beetles. I took it very seriously and examined every
plant to find and destroy every bug or egg.
I found the whole endeavor physically exhausting and wondered to myself
why on earth I insisted on being so dedicated
to the cause. Even my co-worker Miguel,
after working on it for a few hours, turned to me and said, “this is boring” in
his rudimentary English, and found an excuse to wonder off to another more
important task. Not me. I was undeterred. I used to love picking blackberries when I
was younger. Actually, I still like it,
but when I was younger, I would disappear for hours and hours to the farthest
reaches of the family farm to find every possible blackberry. Somehow, this search and destroy mission lit
up those same neurons that loved the blackberry hunt. So, oddly, I was comfortable taking the lead
and I made it my cause.
Beyond
the bugs, life on the farm has presented other battles. The summer rains, when they finally came,
came in torrents leaving the aisles between the tomato plants filled with water
(and tadpoles) giving rise to man eating mosquitos that attacked with such
vengeance that one day, I opted to wear my raincoat in the 90 degree heat to
avoid their ½ inch stingers. A couple
weeks later, when the heat index hit 130 degrees, I stayed home. The realities of farming were hitting me.
At
just about that same time, the tomatoes began to turn from green to yellow, red
and purple, depending on the heirloom variety, and I finally had my first
taste. I have always loved tomatoes and
usually will serve them with balsamic vinegar, basil and fresh mozzarella
cheese. But these tomatoes were not in
the same league as the tomatoes that I’ve had before. These tomatoes transcended all of that and
wanted to be consumed with utmost simplicity: sea salt and basil.
On
other fronts, I found my reentry to Maryland to be bumpy at best. In my mind, the summer was to be
transitional: I would continue to work
on the farm, but I would also reconnect with family and friends in
Baltimore. I underestimated the difficulty
in integrating the peaceful existence free of responsibility that traveling
enabled as I waded into the reality of dividing my time between Baltimore and
the eastern shore. All the while, my
left arm, which had been troubling me, was finally diagnosed: frozen shoulder. Farming suddenly became even more challenging
as I lost the use of that arm and my tentative plans for continuing farming for
the next year were suddenly thrown up for discussion. As I watched Jenna, the 32 year old farm
manager, work 3 times faster than me and handle large machinery with ease, I
began to awaken to my own physical reality:
I am a young 47, but I’m still 47.
And while I enjoy the eastern shore and the endless joys that it brings: Turtles crossing the road in the early AM; Frogs hopping across the road after
a rainstorm; Deer everywhere, including a handsome buck with at least 6 points who comes around in the evenings; Bunnies everywhere
(there were 6 and now perhaps many fewer); A young fox and raccoon eating fruit
from my trees at sunset; The regular sighting of a great blue heron fishing from my landlord's pier; The
occasional sighting of a bald eagle; Picking blackberries off the bushes
from behind my house for my yogurt shake; and the occasional summer storm yielding double rainbows galore, I feel the stirrings of a new adventure calling.
What?
That is the question.
