Holy Moley

Or, should I have written Holey Moley.  I don't even know what a moley is.  Each time I use the word moley, I get the curly underline telling me to change it to Morley or Molly.

Really weird stuff going on.  Yes, besides the frickin' weather.  I follow a few blogs.  The writers are clever, insightful and make me feel good whenever I get two seconds off from my life diggin' in the dirt to read their remarks.  Yesterday, I'm surfing during a break from working behind hell's door.  I want to make a comment-something general-as to how much I appreciate the information and thoughts of one writer.  The computer freezes me out.  It's just as well because I would have sounded like I was kissing up.  

Then today, I'm reading another blog and the same thing happens.  Again, I wanted to voice admiration for the poignant thoughts of the writer. At one point I hit-God only knows what key-and a screen I've never seen pops up.  It makes me paranoid thinking of big brother out there in cyberspace looking over my shoulder telling me to quit farting around on the net.  Like Googling websites dealing with the difference between naked and nude. Oh come on.

I spend way too much time researching a recent smart-alec remark Jorge makes about my sign at the entrance to our road.

He asks," Shouldn't your sign say "organically grown vegetables" instead of "organically raised?"  I tell him in a nice way he's being an ass.  There's a running joke about the former town clerk who goes ballistic every time she sees a sign along the road  reading "farm fresh eggs."  She prided herself on her ability to sever jugular veins and humble giants with her pen and with the written word. Her distaste for the expression regarded using the word farm as an adjective.  I don't know. Maybe it was a reaction to redundant language since eggs usually come from a farm, even if it's one of those monster corporate ventures. Whatever.

In the dictionary it says that raised and grown can be used as equivalents, but I spend minutes I don't have finding out what the funny looking symbol used in place of equivalent to means .



Thanks to the weather, I'm have not completed planting.  The NWS says "rain likely" yesterday.  They lied, the bastards.  When the air temperature is 96 degrees, the soil will be too hot for some seeds to germinate.  I've lost entire spinach crops and last year my organic soybeans ( Edamame) didn't germinate. Most of one plot is reserved for Shirofumi edible soybeans.  Steamed and salted, they are better than popcorn. The package of soybean inoculant-N,Dure cost me $4.50 .

In the bathroom I assemble all the insect repellents and sun block to compare which is the most effective.  Then I head outside for battle.  The small gnats that have invaded Kickapoo Center are briefly stunned by four sheets of Bounce under my hat. Some fly up my nose.  I breathe in a small black fly and choke when the varmint hits my windpipe. Not a pretty sight, me in my straw hat with the bounce ear flaps, spitting and hacking like Bill the cat on the gravel road. When the black flies get behind my glasses I have to stop and take off my glasses.  That accounts for wild watering patterns in the dirt.  The stress on our water system is considerable, therefore  I manually precision water many of the eighty foot long plots.  There'll be a dark soil trail from the hose and all of a sudden one will see circles, ovals and wild gyrations made with the trigger nozzle as I fight off the 'effing flies.

To sit in a lawn chair, I place terry cloth towels on the armrest so my elbows don't slip off.  I look at the garage floor and there's a pool of water from sweat dripping off my arms.  Dog and cat find a cool spot to collapse.

Back in the field, I see that I've lost one broccoli plant and others are going into shock.  People laugh about my extravagant planting. "What do you do with all those vegetables? " they question.  "Well, I respond. Last year I harvested 700 pounds of potatoes. The year before-50 pounds.Different years, different weather."  This year I bought just enough broccoli plants to give us a year's supply in our freezer.  I look at my dwindling harvest and shake my fist at the sun.

I've played around enough and need to go back and plant kale, lettuce, arugula, chard-all the leafy greens that we use in salads.  The forecast for tonight is100 % rain. Yeah, sure.  To insure it rains, I'll leave my car windows open, leave tools in the field, hang wash and sleep with an open window.