Wendell Berry Explains Me

Elton never felt that any mistake was affordable; he and Mary were living within margins that were too narrow. He required perfection of himself. When he failed, he was like the sun in a cloud, alone and burning, furious in his doubt, furious at her because she trusted in him though he doubted. How could she dare to love him, who did not love himself? And then, sometims accountably, sometimes not, the cloud would move away, and he would light up everything around him. His own force and intelligence would be clear within him then; he would be skillful and joyful, passionate in his love of order, funny and tender.

Contemporary author Wendell Berry is well respected for his poetry, his plays, and his prose. Not many authors can claim acclaim for all three varieties of literature.

I was reading his beautiful short story "A Jonquil for Mary Penn," and the above quote leapt out at me. How can Wendell Berry know how I think? (Well, maybe excepting the "love of order" part.) How can he summarize and encapsulate so perfectly how furious I get when I make a mistake?

This past week, I realized late at night that I needed to order rootstocks. I was already behind and more behind, and various things conspired against getting them ordered. But at 11:30pm, the expected online ordering system didn't actually exist: for these products, a phone call is required.

Then I couldn't figure out where to order grafting tape; I lost the product name for grafting goo (Doc Farwell's Graft Seal is the name, I discovered today). Phil came in, after a half hour of disappointed hope after fruitless internet search, to find me seething and furious.

It was helpful to read Wendell Berry's words. The volcanic rage I sometimes feel towards my mistakes: I haven't understood it. How can I normally be so cheerful and more-or-less stable, but then have a moment of intense self-loathing?

It's because for me, living on the margin requires perfection. Phil doesn't require it or ask for it. God doesn't either. But I require it of myself. I'm hopeful that seeing this set out so succinctly will help me have grace for myself in the future. (More than one or two people have told me over the years that I need to have grace for myself, but I never really understood what that meant. Shouldn't I be hard on my mistakes? I suppose the answer is, if I wouldn't be mad at Phil had he made the mistake, then I probably shouldn't be mad at myself.)

And so, three days later, I have all three varieties of rootstocks ordered, along with a grafting knife, the freezer tape I need, and a little jar of Doc Farwell's Graft Seal. When the rootstocks arrive, I'll be ready.

Ordering Rootstocks

The puppies are ridiculously cute now. The boys took all nine out into the sheep's hay pile; they would let the puppies slide down, and watch them bounce through the hay and wrestle. The puppies are still too small to do that for long, but for the little while: what sweetness.


I needed to order rootstocks for the peach and apple scions. I decided it would be a good day, and happened to notice that the cutoff date for peaches was today! I ordered online, and that was done. Good thing I checked. One of those small mercies.

For apples, I called to order. It required a good bit of thought: not only did I need to know which variety of rootstock (after planting semi-dwarf varieties, we're leaning towards the close-to-standard size going forward, so they won't require staking), but I also needed to know which caliper size I wanted. I had measured my scions with Phil's calipers, so I had a fairly constant 3/8" diameter. I was surprised to find, then, that the nursery had sold out of two of the three hoped-for varieties altogether, and the third variety was only available in 5/16" (which is close to 3/8", obviously).

I asked when I should have placed my order: January? February?

It turned out that this nursery didn't sell on a first come, first served basis. They contact their previous customers In August or September and ask what they will need for the next year. Anything left over is available for sale to people like me.

This was a level of complexity I had never considered. Who would have thought?

Happily, the nursery gave me the number for a local nursery. The second nursery had one of the two varieties I hoped for, but all their rootstocks were a good bit larger than 3/8". I figured I'd make do, somehow.

Late in the afternoon, though, they called me back: they'd had an order cancel that day, and the woman remembered that I'd like the 3/8". Another one of those beautiful small mercies.

I have 300 apple rootstocks and 60 peach rootstocks on order. Apple rootstocks are a bit under a dollar (when ordering 100); peach rootstocks are $2.20 each.

Phil finished up chipping the section he and Creigh started. When he finished, he summoned the boys to come and help him spread a thick layer of mulch around the blueberries. I haven't seen much sign of life from those berry bushes: it could be we'll need new, viable plants in the next few months. That's okay.

One other task: I went to the greenhouse to transplant. I figure the soil in there is fairly well amended at this point. But I started on the very edge, where the soil was never tilled: under the top inch, the red clay remains hard and compact. I wrestled with planting for a bit, and finally decided I'm just not that into growing vegetables. What a lot of effort for the potential of a harvest.

With Companionship, Phil Works Extra Hard

Our friend Creigh came down to spend one of his spring break days with us. He and Phil sawed three logs (well, I guess they cut one in half, so Phil claimed four: it's that math where 2+.5+.5=4). Apparently, when Creigh first tried to lift a log, and then even just a 2" thick board, he gasped and said, "You must be the most fit person in the world!"

Sometime after lunch, the three of us went to chip some recently downed little trees. A few weeks ago, Phil had cleared saplings around the edge of the finger, and most of them were 2" or less in diameter.

We haven't ever chipped recently cut trees, nor a preponderance of small saplings. Whether that was the issue or something else, we clogged the exit chute five or six times, and lost a belt once. This meant that we didn't get as much done as we hoped, since about half the time was spent with the chute off, digging out handfuls of wet green chips.

My job was to gather the downed saplings and arrange them, all facing the same direction, for Creigh to easily feed. I love this task, as it's like the most awesome cleaning job ever: take a disaster site, clean it up, and generate useful chips. I will say, though, that this was much easier in the lower pasture, where the ground is flat. Even a 10' rise, when repeated enough times, gets tiring for the legs.

But all in all, it was a great day.

Boys Spread Compost

Last fall, we had a delivery of compost. It has sat next to our driveway for the last four or five months, a black pile that has served as a sandbox for the boys.

Phil was pleased to read recently that it's good to spread compost in the spring, if you happened to not get to it in the fall. And when he was able to drive the water wagon out of its stuck spot, he figured he could drive through the orchard.

He commandeered the boys, who all joined him in the spreading process. It wasn't easy to figure out the best way to spread a fine layer of compost, but in the end, Phil slowly drove the tractor backward, and the boys, with varying degrees of skill threw handfuls of compost all around.

Abraham and Joe tended to drop little piles.

Isaiah flung compost with vigor, though not much focus.

Jadon put his head down and efficiently got the compost spread as quickly as possible.

That done, Phil then subsoiled the apple orchard, creating trenches for light and water.

In other news, a few of the peaches are showing pink!

For myself, I checked the tray below the beehive and was horrified to find mouse droppings! Had a mouse actually entered the hive, despite the large quantity of bee activity? Or was the mouse simply down in the bee tray, eating up pollen and such? I checked the tray a few more times, and saw no new droppings. But there was pollen, and little wax flakes.

The area we hope to plant to blueberries one day is a gorgeous mix of grass and clover.

In the greenhouse, the greens are not doing well: of 13 varieties and 80 soil blocks, only one or two varieties and about five actual seeds have sprouted. What should be a tray of green, but is solely soil blocks.

But there were little sprouts from the pineapple guava seeds! The first sprouts for the perennials. Good to know that at least some of the tree seeds are viable, even though I've never had a pineapple guava.

I also began to make a garden space. I have a moon-shaped bed that now has feedbags as a groundcover, weed prevention, and a little square with pea seeds planted.

And dozens of daffodils, mostly yellow, but some orange centered, both light orange and darker orange. So fun!

The sole guinea is probably not going to afford adequate tick protection. I found a tick crawling on me today. That seems awfully early!

The puppies continue to gain personality.

Roly poly.

Sleepy. They still sleep an awful lot.

They've started to eat solid food, and Bitsy is, we think, in pain from all the sharp puppy teeth. (Isaiah tried to get a puppy to suck on his finger and quit that quickly: ouch!)

Even animal ambivalent Abraham went to hang out with them.

700th Blog Post

With temperatures into the low 20s overnight, Phil headed out early this morning (before I woke up) with the tractor. While the wet ground was frozen, he wanted to bring up the cows' mineral feeder and the water wagon. He made it halfway up the slope before sliding. He stopped about a foot from the live electric fence.

He came over and got me and the truck. By now it was almost 7:30 and the sun was up and shining, though the ground was firm. The truck was not able to pull the tractor and water wagon, so we left it, midslope, and managed to get both tractor and truck away, despite the surface thawing.

Phil then went to bring the cows hay. I came to see how he managed the cows, and noticed that Babe's little Denise was missing.

Denise was lying downslope, curled up, curly hair warm in the sun. She showed no inclination to stand up, so I picked her up and carried her a few feet before she struggled and staggered away. She squirted out the back. No! Walked five feet, squirted out the back again, clear yellow, with bloody streaks. But not the indicative stench of scours. She headed right to her mom and ate.

The various references we have didn't have any diagnosis that matched the age and symptoms. (Apparently, different forms of scours start during the first three weeks of life.) All the diagnoses sounded pretty serious, so I headed over and gave her a few ounces of a mix of Arnica, garlic juice, aloe vera, and apple cider vinegar. Her stool seemed to be basically normal in consistency then, but still quite bloody.

A few hours later, I returned with the potent mixture. I then gave her a few ounces of electrolytes, but she stood up, and scooted over to her mom. I watched her nurse for about ten minutes, then trot away with Babe downslope.

Is her little body just a bit stressed from a rough first ten days? (In retrospect, though there has been some sun, we've also had several days of strong wind, over two inches of rain, and a three inch snowfall.) Time will tell.

I had several friends come down today to play with the puppies. At four weeks, they have periods of energetic activity. Two more weeks, apparently, will show off their personalities much more. That'll be fun to see!

Indoor Days

Work has come to a halt. Driving the tractor over to refill the water wagon, or to bring hay to the cows was an impossibility by Saturday (Phil had brought a differently-sourced hay over, expecting not to have to replenish until Monday; sadly, the hay lasted half the time we expected, and the cows were hungry). What to do? Dry lot again?

Then Phil had an epiphany. If he rolled hay out along the fence, near the road, the cows could walk up and down the slope, without needing Phil to drive hay down to them. He can drive along the road to bring hay, and water can be replenished, once the water wagon empties, by running a hose from the orchard spigot. (Maybe it's hard to explain: in any case, it was a brilliant solution.)

I had my first potting on experience for the year: I had about 50 plants ready for larger soil blocks. Some tomatoes, probably some ground cherries. Overall, though, I've remembered how spotty my greenhouse experience was last year. It wasn't all perfectly successful. Only about 1/6 of the peppers sprouted last year. This year, I'm not sure any will sprout.

The flat or two of greens has been singularly unsuccessful, too. Perhaps three varieties of 13 have sprouted. I was looking forward to lettuce, too. (I might need to reduce the heat of the grow mats before I try again.)

We woke this morning to snow. Perhaps three inches fell before it stopped and all melted. I was pleased I made it out to take photos before the instant thaw!

The sheep were happy to get their third bale of hay this winter. During the snow, they took shelter, but once the snow stopped, Phil managed to bring them hay (and managed to get out without the tractor getting stuck!).

That was the total of our farming efforts over the last three days. Without dry land, there will probably be little progress tomorrow either. Perhaps I should take comfort in the slow pace of life, but when one wants to be productive, the slow pace aggravates much more than relaxes.

First Daffodils

Yesterday I noticed yellow tips on a few dozen daffodils. Jadon commented this morning that I should go and see the blooms.

A splash of yellow was a welcome sight. With water saturated soils, Thursday was a good day for errands, so we were away for six hours (amazing that a Costco trip can take most of the day). Phil attempted to saw this morning, but moving the logs and boards in deep mud was a bit too dangerous; after he finished a section and cut a bunch of stickers (bits of wood that boards rest on to dry out), he came back up.

And then the rain began again. Maybe only another half inch or so, but the wet ground cannot absorb it. Orange pools outside the door, overflowing swales.

Such is the emergence of spring on the farm. It looks like: lots of reading to the boys, a bit of stir-craziness as we sit without forward "progress" ... and a splash of yellow to cheer our spirits.