A walk on the farm

Surfing other journals (Zia) brought me back to more of my day.

Also during the afternoon, I went out to the Farm. (not to be confused with the Land).

My siblings and I (and my oldest niece) are partners in an LLC which is essentially the property my father owned when he passed away. We couldn’t figure out how to divide it up between us, and selling it seemed absurd, so we came up with this solution.

Its been very hard for me. Of all my siblings (okay, brother and sister) I have the most of dad’s character in me.

He bought 11 acres in the corner of this county, moved the trailer home he’d been living in out there onto a foundation I helped him pour, and proceeded to do great things with a small piece of land.

He was a horticulturist – by profession and by love. He had a passion about growing things, and the outdoors, and he pressed that passion into me over my life.

His most remarkable accomplishment was the orchard: 150 trees on less than 6 acres. Too big for a hobby orchard, too small to be considered commercial, it was just right for him. All kinds of fruit, if it can grow in our climate and soil. He also kept bees, grew an incredible garden, started two plots of grapes, and dabbled in all kinds of “different” agriculture.

He seeded the hillside along the property with a collection of wildflower seeds known to like our climate. Just for the fun of it. In season, it was beautiful.

When he passed away, I was getting him warm to the idea of running a bed-n-breakfast on the property. It would require investing in building a nicer home on the site, but a basement pit had been excavated for it already, and having frequent visitors would have suited my father’s extrovert personality during his retirement years.

I wanted to maintain everything he had started, in some fashion at least. I understood that I didn’t live out there like he did, and knew we needed to invest in some equipment so that I didn’t need to water all 150 trees by hand, as my father had – carrying on a yoke over his shoulders two 5-gallon buckets which he had filled from the pond, out to each tree.

I had run a business. Granted, it may not have been successful, but I still had the experience, knew what kind of things needed to be done. My siblings just wanted to play at it. They had no clue what he used to do, because they lived (still do) out of state and only visited once in a while. I spent a lot of time out there by comparison, and I shared his passion in my way, and was a quick uptake to his values.

We rented out his trailer. The first couple were “average”. He had a drinking problem. She – well, either she loved him, or she realized that an electrical lineman with great insurance and a drinking problem was something to wait out for. In any case, they wanted a place of their own, so they bought one in town and moved out.

The second tenant was a single man. Hard worker. The best example of an excellent tenant. He “got into our minds” when he moved in, caught our (my) vision for the place. Then, he worked towards that. For his part, he worked 2nd shift at a printing company. He loved to work with his hands. So he committed himself to groundskeeping. He beautified the trailer space, and took great care of the farm overall.

Our current tenants are the worst example of tenants. We explained to them the odd requirements of our lease – preserve agriculture. No fires. No junk vehicles. Use bay 1 & 2 of the barn only. They signed it, then forgot all about it.

I quit going out there. Quit trying to preserve my father’s ideals, quit trying to further my own. My siblings couldn’t catch my vision. Distrusted it because I am family – a consultant they would have respected, but not their little brother. The tenants kept working against our goals, even as they tried to help them.

The ground around the trailer is all but barren. $3000 of renovation (which I protested, stating the money should go into improving the 40 year old trailer itself, not the carpet) are undiscernable. There are over a dozen vehicle frames and hulks about the property. Auto parts, broken beer bottles, and plastic shards from their young son’s toys are everywhere.

They rutted up our waterway, and killed the grass in it in another location. They have taken autoparts off our truck and my motorcycle to use on their projects. I cant tell you how many batteries have walked off.

Today, I went out to check on the neglected grapes. One of my dad’s best friends, his wife works with me at my office. She asked if she could get cuttings off any surviving vines, and if I could find out their specific varieties. I told her I doubted there were any left, but I could tell her what my dad thought would grow, what he planted, in any case.

As I crossed the dam in front of the pond and stepped up out of the waterway to look into the lowland of the garden and vinyard, my eyes followed the ruts in the grass to an overturned vehicle, lying sideways and looking back at me, down somewhere between the garden and the grapes.

Our tenants suck. Unfortunately, they have destroyed the place so well, that we could NEVER get other tenants again. They know this. So the abuses continue. Even though I resent my slum-lord siblings, we all agree to keep leasing it to the tenants until the trailer is condemned. Its the only way to recoup our losses.

So this was the despair nibbling at my heart this afternoon as I ventured down the hillside. Despair at the lack of respect. Despair at my own inability to foresee or prevent any of this.

I walked the stringers, three of them, staring down through the weeds and grass and weed-trees, looking for any signs of growth. And there it was. A vine was crawling off in two directions, wrapping around the weeds it found, somehow getting the moisture it needed. I disentangled the vine, then raised it and wrapped it around the stringer.

Then I found another. And another. Maybe six out of 36 possible plantings had survived. A few of them were taking a serious beating from some kind of bug, but they were alive. And I smiled.

I pushed my way back through the grass, up the hill, determined to find a way to start anew on my vision.