Digging Out the Root of Bitterness

Late last night, I began a conversation with Phil about my confused priorities, and whether I should just give up on all the various projects around the farm in order to read to and spend more time with the boys.

This was foolish because I was ridiculously tired, and I have known since the first few months of marriage that I shouldn't start emotional or heavy conversations after 10pm. They aren't productive.

But I did. And ended up briefly furious, then completely wiped out.

As I was falling asleep, I said something like, "Tomorrow is another day." And Phil said, "Tomorrow starts now."

This was such a hopeful thought. I didn't even need to go to sleep in despair, waiting for the dawn. I could fall asleep in hope.

About two hours later I woke up, energized and ready for the new day. I fought the wakefulness for a time, then got up and cleaned off the incredible morass that had become my coffee table top. To go from 18" of clutter to clean was great progress.

Phil headed out for an early morning meeting, then stopped by the concrete company to find out what kind of lead time they need, what their policies are. When a person orders concrete, the truck delivers it, but they don't spread it. The purchaser does that. And a truck holds about 7 cubic yards of concrete. Each cubic yard needs to be unloaded in ten minutes, or there's an extra fee. Phil figures we would need to push and dump a wheelbarrow of concrete every two minutes to get the truck emptied in time.

And since we'd need about three full concrete mixers, that's over a hundred heavy loads, racing the clock.

Back home, Phil took advantage of the recent rain to pound large fencing posts around the perimeter. I think he worked on the road, too, based on the tractor noises I heard. He has worked the last two nights until dark and after dark, driving the tractor home at 9:30 or so.

I took a suggestion of Phil's and attempted to weed the last 2/3 of the apple nursery with a hoe. I have never used a hoe with good success. The wheel hoe is heavy and unwieldy: I don't steer it well. The collinear hoe seems like it should be a perfect cutting tool, a quarter inch below the soil surface. But our soil is heavy clay, intermixed with pebbles. It's impossible to use that small little tool effectively. And so I usually weed by hand, enjoying the satisfying pop of the roots out of the ground.

But I am a stirrup hoe convert, as of today. What a lovely tool, cutting off weeds either forward or backward.

I hand weeded around each tree, and some of the grasses required hand pulling. But a task I expected to take six hours or so took only about three.

Weeding row by row gave me a closeup view of the garden. It made sense to me why almost half of one of the bottom rows died of electrical tape strangulation: the soil is much more rich down there. Just twenty feet or so downslope makes an enormous difference. Exponentially more worms, much more rich soil. The trees took up nutrients quickly, then died. Good to know for the future, though: put the most promising trees down to give them an extra boost, or up to spread the risk evenly.

The one mini sorrow: when a neighbor honked, I jumped and whacked one of the successful grafts and broke it off. Will it heal back over again? I don't know. It was sickening in the moment. I wished it had been an already dead one, but c'est la vie.

It was appropriate to weed today. One of my thoughts in the night was a reminder of Hebrews 12:15, the verse that warns not to let a root of bitterness grow.

I've always been captivated by that picture: a tiny bit of bitterness that gradually grows and chokes out the good. (Sort of like Johnson grass, I suppose.)

I think the verse is speaking directly of people: maintain good relationships with one another.

But in my case, I realized I was letting each failure build on itself. The loss of the chicks this week became compounded by failures the last few years, even though this situation was a different reason, a different loss. It really does no good to become bitter about the situation, or farming in general, or this life I live.

It was good to weed today.