The high tunnel has been buffeted to shit at this point. Flaps of plastic hang down like we got halfway through performing a face lift and then said, "Fuck it, let it ride." Parts of the frame are disconnected from the wind ripping through duct tape and bolted aluminum. The aluminum itself has been bent from straight pieces to twisty pieces as it struggles to achieve its dream of being a crazy straw. The arches are falling backwards at 45 degree angles, trying desperately to sit on the ground, but prevented from the fact that Lauren and I lash some rope to the inner arches and tie them to the fence posts in a vain attempt to keep the whole thing from falling over.
The front flap has been ripped from our careful furling, and flutters in the wind like a dumb princess waving a favor for a knight, and taunts us just as much, so we tie it back up tighter than before.
The back flap is totally still furled though. Roxanne: 1, Death Tunnel: 9038458. Suck on that, engineering!
Perfect.
Perseverance being the key of farm work, Lauren and I have spent the last week trying to patch up whatever we can, and today is no different. Well, it is a little different in that today we are attempting some seriously unsafe work practices by balancing a 25' ladder against the drunk body of the tunnel, where there is zero support, and then climbing up. As farm life dictates, sometimes you just have to do stupid shit to accomplish something that will probably not even matter the next day.
It feels that way now. I am in favor of tearing the whole thing down and starting over, but I am not the one who spent two weeks and $2,000 trying to put it up, so my opinion is likely invalid and I keep it to myself. I imagine this is what it feels like when you know you have a shitty kid, and you can't kill them and start over. So we continue on. The heat is oppressive and angry, beating us in the face with its 90 degree anger at the lovely hour of 8am, and within ten minutes of attempting to fix this thing, we're sweating, delirious and dizzy.
We press on for another three hours before we are considering killing ourselves and others, which is farm for, "Time for a snack." With zero energy to prepare anything, we feast on salami, hummus and artichoke dip, because those are the things we can find the quickest and shove in our faces the fastest.
After what tastes like the most nourishing thing I've eaten in my life, I return to my task of cultivating crops. I am ready to see what all my hard labor and careful planting has yielded. I figure there are probably 78 squashes outside now, ready for harvest, and they are probably the best squashes anyone ever grew because I hauled a lot of damn poop to make them that way, and I refuse to be disappointed.
I am disappointed anyway because where the hell is all my squash?
What the shit is this?
Instead of my prolific bounty of squash, I have this fucking thing. I don't even know what this is. A seedling? That's what I had yesterday! WHY IS THIS NOT A VEGETABLE YET?!
I carefully water the plants on the east side of the garden, trying not to take out my disapproval by raining down a flood like some sort of god-like figure (although I could totally do it). Then I turn to the west to water the other squash.
"If you had been nicer to me, I wouldn't have killed myself."
The harsh lessons of farming crash into me like other things that have previously crashed into me. Everything doesn't work all the time, and 7 out of 9 squashes are pretty much on their way out. I beseech Lauren to tell me what I did wrong, but she just asserts that some of the types of squash (of which I planted three) just are not hardy enough to survive arid desert conditions. I cry on the inside, like a real farmer, for my poor seedlings that never got a chance to live.
I discover the best part about planting is that you really don't give a shit about your plants for long. After seeing pretty much every animal be hacked up for meat in my lifetime, it is pretty easy to get over a dumb squash. I want to kick it for good measure, but they are Lauren's squash, so I figure I'll leave the honors to her. I make a note to plant some seedlings at home and then kick them, just so Nature knows I'm thinking of her.
By this point, we are both fairly fried in the way of using our brains, so Lauren gives me the pleasant task of moving the chicks around.
For my next trick, I will turn these chicks...
...into younger chicks!
The older chicks get turned out to the yard and the babies get rotated into the brooder inside The Room With The Cat. True to form, the cat passes judgment on my activities involving her room.
"Nobody loves you, you know."
Disturbed and feeling oddly unloved, I leave the cat and the chicks alone, because that seems safe, and move on to cutting wood for the jumps that Lauren and I are going to construct, so that I can risk my life for enjoyment. Ed does the precise cutting, naturally.
This is what we call Not a Roxanne Job.
Not pictured: Ed giving me the chainsaw and me cutting up a bunch of logs with the chainsaw for no reason other than the pure joy of chopping into nature.
The log-cutting is our final job of the day. It is 4pm and everyone on the farm has been destroyed by the absurdly hot day, which offers no refreshing breeze and only horrible, horrible sunshine. I am surprised that I miss the wind, but I do not voice my opinion because no wind is much better than wind, and I do not want the wind to hear me and be like, "DUDE I TOTALLY MISSED YOU TOO HERE I AM RIGHT IN YOUR FACE BLOWING DIRT ONTO EVERY PART OF YOU!"
Because that is totally what the wind is like.
I spend the rest of the day feeding the ponies carrots. I want them to be my friends and follow me around like I am the pony pied piper.
"Treats?"
"Oh, it's you."
LOVE ME, DAMN YOU!
Actually, after a whole bag of carrots, Coco does seem to love me more. But as the saying goes, it's hard to make friends with an old lady after you've ridden her really hard.
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