working in the rain

When you live in the country, your attitude toward rain is different. In the city, you take out the umbrella and forge ahead. Here, at the farmette -- I can't imagine taking out an umbrella.

I listen for a while. If I hear wind and a pounding of drops against the roof or window, I know it's a big one. I adjust: compost later. And Isis -- he'll be staying inside.

Breakfast. (Pancakes for Ed!)





I hear a pause in the rain. Nice. I push my books to the side. Out, let's go out and move a few losds of chips to the raspberry bed.

Well fine, but within minutes the rain comes back. But does it matter? It's warm enough. No one will see the wet strands of hair falling down my face (Ed will, but he's not one to complain). The smell of a wet autumn day is, to me, more powerful than that of a dry one, in the same way that a wet forest is more evocative than a sand dune.

Ed and I work in the rain. Pitchfork after pitchfork of chips. Shoveling dirt. Replanting, repairing. All in the rain.






We stop when I think I need to return to my books.

But the scent of wet earth stays with me. How could it not? I think of all the fragile plants that will benefit from it -- the transplanted raspberries, the bulbs that are just now establishing roots. Yes, all our plantings this year will be better off. And the fragrance! Ohhhhh, the fragrance of wet earth!






In the evening we go to the local farmers market -- last one this year. Ed wants cheese curds, I want to pay homage. Not that there are many farmers here today. Maybe four. For the others, the season ended with the first heavy frost.






We buy some radishes. Then apples. They're not great apples. The farmers are selling the fruit of old trees and though I'd like to believe that old apples can be as great as new apples, these are just okay.

Still, we buy them and we eat a handful as we drive to Menards (the home improvement store). There we buy twinkly lights for the farmhouse. But that's tomorrow's story.