Summer breeze

Another long day of hard work.
While setting water this evening I was forced to move with the breeze. It set my mind to flowing even as it struggled with my irrigation. The light of the nearly setting sun was faintly chiffon and the breeze was warm from the southwest. 22 years ago on this day four teenagers named Alice, Guy, Steve and Trina were driving towards the drive-in theatre in a van going to see Ghostbusters. The sky was clear and the air was warm and freedom tasted so sweet.

I spent a good part of today soil surfing on one of our old cultivators. Dad and I had to laugh that it still worked so well after all these years. We had almost forgotten this piece of equipment but it cut down weeds like an old champion. I wish I'd had my PDA with me to record the sound it made because it was a pretty cool combination of steel, rock and earth sounds. Balancing precariously on that bouncing, rattling steel monster is pretty tiring though.

I'll be going out shortly for one last task in the dark, gotta shut off the water we set earlier. This time of year the world begins to take on an unusual quality for me as my cycles and rhythm and algorithms are broken up by necessity. Some afternoons are so hot I have to stay inside and sleep in the middle of the day and then water needs to be controlled late into the night and very early some mornings. Then some days are so critical in work that I can't stop no matter how hot it gets. My routines disintegrate and stresses build which leave me exhausted and exhilarated.

Soon the solstice will come. The great turning point wherein power and potential exceeds the limits of possibility and the cycle of being turns on a celestial dime. Only a few weeks after that point and all propositions become mute. If the job isn't done it won't get done because the crop won't make in time to do any good after that. Getting "laid by" is mostly just a nice idea for me since even when I'm done planting a raft of other jobs like weed control and intensive irrigation will gobble up my every waking hour.

Wishing you a joyful moment of freedom.