Planting

The sun shone this morning, first in several days here.  We try not to complain about rain -- in fact, could have used more -- but seeing the sunshine causes a visceral reaction after long, gloomy days.  I considered taking the day off work ... but instead, I planted a few rows of potatoes.

Gardening here differs so much from gardening in South Dakota, where I grew up.  Rather than planting an acre or more of potatoes -- enough to feed a family through the winter -- I dig up a small plot, enough to have new potatoes steamed or fried to go with burgers on the grill later this summer.  Enough to dig up a few, rub off the dirt, and eat raw baby potatoes. 

In gardening, as in life, this ranch teaches me always to let go of my expectations, to let the ranch show me another possibility. I grew up among gardeners -- aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, and my own mom -- for whom growing vegetables was a perennial duty, a source of pride and worth.  I also love to garden, but I have not managed raising vegetables in the hard clay soil of northeastern Wyoming.  When we first moved to Allison, we tilled and planted the large, somewhat depleted garden plot that we'd inherited from the previous tenants.  And then, for two entire summers, we battled too-many weeds and not-enough water.  Finally, three springs ago, I seeded most of that plot back to a grass and wildflower mix, with only small beds left open for seeding.  Among those spaces and several raised beds that Shawn built, I rotate the crops that my family enjoys, growing only what we will eat with our summer meals.  Even that amount requires a good deal of work.

I wish I grew enough tomatoes to can quarts and quarts of salsa; wish cucumbers did well enough to make jars of pickles; wish my ear corn grew as tall as it did when I once lived at Ucross, only about eighty miles from here. I come back from visits to South Dakota, or from my recent trip to Portland, with serious cases of garden envy.  I've even considered that, once Shawn and I retire, I will choose our future home based not on the community, nor the proximity to my work or children, but on the quality of the soil.

Today is the seventeenth anniversary of my dad's death, on an early May day in 1993.  Dad farmed the soil enough to learn that it, almost more than sun and rain, dictates the success and failure of crops.  In Dad's terms, if a place had "good ground" - meaning rich, black soil -- then it was a good place.  Good soil means everything to a farmer.

Good soil means everything to me, too.  Today I thank God that I come from good soil; from parents who taught me to value the land, and the life that comes from it. I thank God that I was raised to appreciate the simple joy of a sunny, spring day and the smell of wet earth.  I know myself well enough to realize that they haven't seen the harvest of everything they planted; but I also think that what you plant, if you put it in good soil and give it enough attention, will eventually grow.  Today I found onions, coming back from several that went unharvested last year. Sometimes it takes more than one growing season to raise a crop. I hope that what my parents planted in me  -- and what I'm trying to plant in my own children -- will grow to fruition someday.

In the meantime, I'll plant my small plots of vegetables, let the nutrients from the grass and the earthworms work their magic, and learn to appreciate the gifts the ranch gives me right now. As I walked through the garden plot, I noticed sprouts where gallardia and blue flax will color my summer.  Perhaps one day that garden plot will have been amended enough to grow those crops of tomatoes and cucumbers; for now, I'll grow a few potatoes and wait for the black-eyed Susans to come.