Erasmus! Donde Caroline?
They have sixty acres of land, most of it fields for growing straw for the livestock, some of it streams and tangles of brambles and trees, horrid thickets of wild roses that do me mischief whenever they're able. Five acres are for the farm proper, and one plus a bit more for the house. I've always lived in the city, so distance is, for me, divided into units of proper American style grids of city blocks. The acre was always a mysterious unit, a measurement for which I knew no formula of conversion. The new mathematics, then, are as follows: five acres is plenty of land on which to raise two young cows; aproximately one-hundred-and-thirty laying hens; three goats; two bee hives; a fair number of fruit bearing bushes and trees; and vegetables enough for ninety CSA members, five restaurants (which require that as much food be gathered in as ninety CSA members) and one medium and two small farmers markets per week.
I've weeded carrots, hauled compost, prepped the shop, delivered vegetables to market, harvested sage with a fine French knife, planted hundreds of lettuce seeds, and gathered hay with pitchforks. We felled trees, battled brambles, found and piled diseased and dead fallen boles and branches. I've gathered nasturtiums, three different types of kale, and collards. I make bouquets of each of them by the hundreds, thinking of a friend who wants to marry an oak tree. I'll make such garlands for her wedding. I herded an escaped heifer. I crawled under the chicken coop in the dark to collect and deposit two frightened and cold hens who hadn't made it in for the night. They purr when they're sleepy. They're light, and their movements at night are soft, like infants, or young cats. I've killed grubs with a shovel, and armies of harlequin beetles with my hands.
I work for six hours a day. I have time enough to cook whatever I like, or to let someone else do it. The rest of the time I read. Their library is good. Now I know how to raise meat and laying chickens on pasture, how to identify a cow or a goat worth buying, some things about small-scale aquaculture, some old wives' tales about companion planting and pest prevention, and more than I did about Norse and Native American myth. I've also been reading some truly gorgeous, exceptionally well-researched, magnificently sexy Celtic pagan scholarship of the sort that I've not played with in years, but that one came with me.
The boys and I curse and fight and cook together. When our hosts are away we drink beer and whiskey, play music in the house, and bake cookies. What mad debauchery.
Erasmus, the Guatemalan farmhand, is the best person here. It's not for want of competition. But he works for twelve or more hours a day. He picks and weeds five times as fast as the rest of us. His hands are permanently, irreparably filthy. He calls everyone Rooster. He speaks better animal than he does either Spanish or English, and it's rubbed off on all of us. Before every meal I wander the grounds shouting, "Erasums! Lunch!" and crowing like a cock. He calls back, laughing to himself and meaning it, "Jack! Jack Rooster!" and keeps working for a few minutes before stomping into the house to eat. When we first met he asked me every day how many boyfriends I had, how many girlfriends, and how many beers I'd drink that night. (Seventeen, more than that, and twenty-four, obviously.) I tease him for coming in on Sundays when he claims he'll take the day off. He shakes his head, explaining, "No money, no women, no beers." It's a mantra. An entire gospel. The entirety of the bloody human condition. He has ten children. Ten! "Erasmus!" I shout, the same offended squeal as when a friend refers to Asian people as Orientals to upset me, "That's too many babies!" He insists that I ought to try it, attempts to preach to the other volunteers against the evils and disappointments of condoms. I recoil in horror, but make the chicken's morning laying shout, "Buk buk buk BAKAAAWRH," a comical sound, but one of pained and determined birthing. Erasmus laughs and laughs and laughs, and I do, too. I plan to come back to visit, not because I'll occasionally need to escape the city, although I will. I'll come back to see Erasmus.
I've weeded carrots, hauled compost, prepped the shop, delivered vegetables to market, harvested sage with a fine French knife, planted hundreds of lettuce seeds, and gathered hay with pitchforks. We felled trees, battled brambles, found and piled diseased and dead fallen boles and branches. I've gathered nasturtiums, three different types of kale, and collards. I make bouquets of each of them by the hundreds, thinking of a friend who wants to marry an oak tree. I'll make such garlands for her wedding. I herded an escaped heifer. I crawled under the chicken coop in the dark to collect and deposit two frightened and cold hens who hadn't made it in for the night. They purr when they're sleepy. They're light, and their movements at night are soft, like infants, or young cats. I've killed grubs with a shovel, and armies of harlequin beetles with my hands.
I work for six hours a day. I have time enough to cook whatever I like, or to let someone else do it. The rest of the time I read. Their library is good. Now I know how to raise meat and laying chickens on pasture, how to identify a cow or a goat worth buying, some things about small-scale aquaculture, some old wives' tales about companion planting and pest prevention, and more than I did about Norse and Native American myth. I've also been reading some truly gorgeous, exceptionally well-researched, magnificently sexy Celtic pagan scholarship of the sort that I've not played with in years, but that one came with me.
The boys and I curse and fight and cook together. When our hosts are away we drink beer and whiskey, play music in the house, and bake cookies. What mad debauchery.
Erasmus, the Guatemalan farmhand, is the best person here. It's not for want of competition. But he works for twelve or more hours a day. He picks and weeds five times as fast as the rest of us. His hands are permanently, irreparably filthy. He calls everyone Rooster. He speaks better animal than he does either Spanish or English, and it's rubbed off on all of us. Before every meal I wander the grounds shouting, "Erasums! Lunch!" and crowing like a cock. He calls back, laughing to himself and meaning it, "Jack! Jack Rooster!" and keeps working for a few minutes before stomping into the house to eat. When we first met he asked me every day how many boyfriends I had, how many girlfriends, and how many beers I'd drink that night. (Seventeen, more than that, and twenty-four, obviously.) I tease him for coming in on Sundays when he claims he'll take the day off. He shakes his head, explaining, "No money, no women, no beers." It's a mantra. An entire gospel. The entirety of the bloody human condition. He has ten children. Ten! "Erasmus!" I shout, the same offended squeal as when a friend refers to Asian people as Orientals to upset me, "That's too many babies!" He insists that I ought to try it, attempts to preach to the other volunteers against the evils and disappointments of condoms. I recoil in horror, but make the chicken's morning laying shout, "Buk buk buk BAKAAAWRH," a comical sound, but one of pained and determined birthing. Erasmus laughs and laughs and laughs, and I do, too. I plan to come back to visit, not because I'll occasionally need to escape the city, although I will. I'll come back to see Erasmus.