After two months of nonreality, I'm back in my own reality show, Fake Farmer. Thankfully there are no actual cameras following me around. If so, they would catch me talking to my animals, singing hymns while I dig in the dirt, and stomping around in my black rubber boots and shorts so old and ugly, Bill would burn them in a second if he could. Top that off with a stretched out, stained tank top and a yellow headband, circa 1973, to hold my mop of hair out of my face. Woo-eee, what a babe. Of course, no one would watch anyway. The only dirt stirred up around here is in the garden. Well, there was the one scandalous time...no I couldn't...well, okay. You see, Maren the hen had a thing going with Richard the Rooster. They had a nice little love nest. However, when Maren was busy sitting on the eggs, Richard started ANOTHER love nest with Hueva. But Hueva actually had a love chick with the neighbor's rooster, Robert. The feathers really hit the fan in Cooperstown. And don't even get me started on Henny's evil twin, Penny.
The Curse
So as I was toiling outside in my foxy outfit, I started thinking about Genesis Chapter 3 in which God hands out the three curses after the big hoo-ha in the Garden of Eden (hoo-ha being original sin and the fall of man). First, the serpent loses his legs and has to eat the dust of the earth. Second, Eve is told, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." Gen 3:16. Third, Adam is told, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food...." Gen. 3:17b-19a.
So I understand first-hand the women's curse, having had the privilege of delivering two babies. My husband will even tell you that I was cursing Eve while delivering my pumpkin-headed, barrel-chested boy. You get the picture. I'm really not being facetious when I say it was a privilege. If given the chance, I would do it again in a second, but it did hurt. Sooo, why then, when I garden do I have to deal with thorns, thistles, sweat on my brow, etc.? That was the man's curse. I mean you don't see men suffering while we deliver babies. Okay, I'll give you the preceding 9 months of crankiness, irrational tears and the oft-uttered question that husbands fear the most, "Do I look fat?", may inflict a little grief, but come on, that's not fair.
I have found that there's a pest and disease for everything I grow, and somehow it finds its way to my little plot of land. Even when I lived in the suburbs and had a tiny raised bed garden, green worms managed to find my little broccoli plant and camp out there and gross me out. Out of all the millions of broccoli plants in the world, why mine?
A current case in point. I had planted strawberries when we first moved here, but when I went to pick them, there was a bite out of 75% of them by either a slug or a rolly polly bug (these are not as cute and innocent as they seem). I finally gave up on them. So two years ago I asked Bill to build me a raised bed strawberry garden to help combat the slugs. I bought 100 fresh and new strawberry plants, ordered from a reputable garden company. It has worked. For slugs, anyway. However, the first season they developed a fungus which causes the leaves to turn brown and dry up. Even worse, the fruit becomes mummified. I have tried to combat it with hydrogen peroxide, and even copper this winter, but it hasn't worked. Besides the fungus, there are also ants building little condos underneath the plants so when they come up for air they have a nice little buffet spread out before them. They will nibble the bottom of any strawberry touching the dirt. This year, to add insult to injury, I also have to contend with bird attacks and spit bugs. What is a spit bug, you ask? Disgusting. That's what it is. They leave blobs of spit all over the plant. When I picked the first crop my arm was slimed all over.
And now the birds are not content with attacking my blueberries and cherries. They come in like stealth bombers and destroy previously lovely red berries, leaving a blood red path of destruction.
Yes, I do still get to enjoy many delicious berries, but it is certainly by painful back toil and the sweat of my brow (and the slime of my arm).
Proverbs 14:23 says, "In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty." I guess I better stop complaining and get to work, especially in light of Proverbs 21:19, "Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife." Bill has been dreaming of Palm Springs an awful lot lately...
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