Wise Words in a Sea of Stupidity pt3

“I would rather be tied to the soil as a serf ... than be king of all these dead and destroyed.” ~ Odyssey by Homer

“Plowed ground smells of earthworms and empires.” ~ Justin Isherwood


We've moved. I hate moving. My dad was Navy for most of my childhood and adolescent years. (Isn't it funny that "adolescent" contains the word "scent?" It's because teenagers stink. j/k) We were extremely fortunate compared to the average military family in that we weren't moving across the state, country, or world every couple years. In fact, during my dad's 20 years of service, we only had two major moves: from Virginia Beach, VA to Mundelein, IL (he got stationed in Great Lakes) in 1992, and back here in Dec. '94. While we didn't do many long-distance moves, we did however move around quite a bit locally. I'm pretty sure I've moved somewhere around 15 times in my life. I don't enjoy it anymore. The novelty is gone.

This move is a bit different however. There's my wife, our daughter, and myself to move. We moved from a little apartment to a nice townhouse a good friend of ours owns. (He'll stay a good friend too, in case you're nervous for us. He wrote us a clear contract, so there's no room for the whole he-said-she-said game, and the tension and possible resentment that almost inevitably follows.) Before we moved in, he told my wife and me that we could paint whatever we wanted however we wanted, and that I could till the back half of the back yard to make a garden.

As far as painting goes, my wife has had a blast. She is very creative, and has quite literally transformed the appearance of the house. I'll be posting pictures at a later date.

I meanwhile, have been in my element: gardening. When we first got in here, the back yard looked ok, but it really did need a LOT of help. Here's the abbreviated list of what needed to be done before I could even start thinking about a garden:

• Fix flood zone. There was a nice little track that was considerably lower than the rest of the yard, thereby gathering rain water. Since the soil around here is mostly clay, when this area dried out, it cracked - giving it the appearance of a desert floor.
• Remove poorly-planned flower bed (with no flowers - just weeds) and mulch therein.
• Seed and fertilize lawn. This poor grass received so much abuse from the previous owners' dog, it's a wonder there's anything but crabgrass back there.
• Remove stupid-looking miniature white picket fence "landscaping." Um, yeah. The fencing itself is kind of cute, and I'm using it in my new design, but I guess they just didn't have any vision.
• Prune and shape bush in back corner. Beautiful plant, but it was horribly neglected. It kind of just looked like it was trying to escape its awful surroundings. It looks great now though, if I do say so myself.
• Cut down diseased tree. It's a real shame, because I saw pictures of what this tree once looked like: gorgeous deep-fuschia blossoms all over it, and rich green foliage that gave a really pleasant shade to the yard. Unfortunately, 3/4 of the tree was diseased, and 2/3 was already dead.

After doing all of that, I borrowed my dad's gas-powered tiller and had a ball! I marked off where the grass would end and the garden begin, fired up the tiller, and spent the next two days churning up the soil, ripping up the grass and weeds, and raking the soil free (as free as possible) of plant life. (Which brings me to the real point of this post.)

While I was out in the yard, whether I was merely pruning a shrub or using heavy machinery to have a place to grow snap peas, I felt truly alive. I did a great deal of thinking while I was working in the garden. I thought about why I love nature and growing things so much. I think part of the reason I enjoy gardening as much as I do is the feeling of being connected with everything in the universe all at once that I experience when I'm covered in soil. When I'm on my knees in the dirt, with freshly-turned earth under my fingernails and its scent in my nose, I can't help but be keenly aware that this is an activity that humans have been doing since the dawn of time. I suppose there's some primitive part of my brain that gets triggered by the stimulus of working the earth, some corner of my being that says: "This is what it's about."

I can't get excited about being in the "rat race." I'm still seeking gainful employ, but every place I've considered has turned my stomach in one way or another. I know I need to work, but whenever I'm in the garden, working the soil, connecting with the Earth itself with nothing separating me from infinity but our atmosphere, I feel alive - full of purpose and meaning. I've yet to find the career that can provide anything close to that sense of fulfillment.

How does one get into farming these days?