William - The Farmer
It had taken me just under two hours to drive west out of the city. I pulled onto the lane which leads to the Arts and Craft house where William and his wife Walker had lived since taking over the family farm five years ago. When Williams' father retired from the farm, he and Mrs. Davis moved into town so that the world they needed would be closer to hand, and the things they needed or wanted to do would not be two hours away. William and I got to know each other at university, residents in the same dormitory. We kept up casually with each other’s lives through social media. He had invited me out to the farm for the weekend. I gladly accepted as I thought it would be a great opportunity for all the noise in my head to get less attention.
I had spoken to William about 30 minutes before I arrived. He mentioned that Walker would still be at work and told me how to find him. It was late in the summer and the days were long, when shadows were like giants. I drove past the house and turned down a dusty track where he would be in one of the fields. He was a contracted grower and grew peas for a large food manufacturer. I finally spotted his dark green pickup truck and was relieved to have arrived.
His last job was to walk across the field diagonally, corner to corner. At every 4 paces, he would stop and collect a handful of pea pods and put them into a natural colored hessian sac. They would be shelled and evaluated for their sweetness. He said they could harvest this crop in a day or two. We made our way to the bottom corner of the field where we would begin walking and collecting. I was the keeper of the sack. He picked.
It was really good to see William. He was out in the fullness of nature doing what he enjoyed. He had always been the quieter one of us, so as we walked across the field, not much was said, and I was able to take in some of what it was that he loved. At that moment, I could all at once, smell the freshness and greenness of the field. The big leaves of the plants, the pods ready to burst with juicy green pearls, the delicate tendrils clinging onto what ever was around them. The earth that had been warmed by the heat of the afternoon sun rose up to my nose and made my feet feel solid, planted like peas. The tall cedars that edged one side of the field moved in gentle sways as the wind blew Jasmine and honeysuckle in, lightening the weight of the soil. We would pause. He would bend and gather the handful he needed before throwing the dozen or so pods into the sack. He occasionally would snap one of the pods open and throw a handful of peas into his mouth to make his own evaluation of their readiness. The wind was just strong enough that I could smell dust in the air, blown in from the now dry hay that had been cut in the adjacent field.
When we finished the walk across the mounds of plants growing in between the furrows of earth, William had a look of delight on his face as he said, ‘The day after tomorrow, nothing will be more delicious than these.’'
We got everything gathered up so we could head back to the house. Walker had gotten home from work and had begun preparing dinner for the three of us. Water was on the stove boiling, proved by the rising steam. Salted and buttered, she would flash cook the peas for only a few minutes before draining them and throwing in a small bit of freshly chopped mint. Out of the oven she pulled ears of corn still in the husks. But before putting them into cook, she peeled the husks back where she could clean the ears and remove the silks. She buttered each one and then laid a slice of soft cooked bacon, cured and unsmoked, down the length of each ear of corn before carefully working the husks back into their natural place.
The windows were open so the freshness of the waining day came into the large kitchen. The day before, they had hosted a potluck dinner with all the neighbors coming together before husbands, sons and daughters all helped with getting everything harvested as quickly as possible while all the plants were at their best. The smell of the large bonfire which had provided light and heat still hung in the air. Delicate curls of smoke rose occasionally from the cinders and ash.
All the aromas of what Walker had prepared, the gentle smoke from the dwindling fire, even the flowers — Bells of Ireland standing tall in a clear glass vase in the middle of the table, added to the whole of what I could smell. I was grateful for the gentleness of the moment. I had made this fairly impromptu drive out to see William and Walker. I was thankful for the quiet, the reconnection with friends and finding familiar facets of life in a new experience, distilling the essence of the land and labor into a memory as savory and sweet as the harvest we shared.
