Labour Day

May 23, 2014 was Labour day. I woke up at 5:15 a.m. and I was outside by 5:30. I took the usual tools from the garage – fork, spade (at least I think it is a spade), machete and gloves. I wanted to continue the extension of the ‘farm’ but what I saw I had not planned for. The ‘field’ needed to be cleared. Weeds were now growing and crowding my new shoots. I decided to remove the weeds before I extend the area. That was hard. Kneeling over the shoots and being careful not to step on them took some doing. I also realized that the gungo seeds were also now showing results. They too were a victim of ‘group planting’ and was now growing in the cantaloupe and pumpkin clusters.

I spent two hours kneeling and removing the weeds. As I did this, I learnt my fist lesson of the day….The rain is as good for the weeds as it is good for the seeds. In all the excitement about my growing shoots, I had never thought about the weeds. I somehow did not think this through and felt that once the seeds were planted and they started growing, I would just need to sit back and wait on the results. The weeds were a rude awakening as the shoots needed the right environment to survive. The rain was doing great things for the seedlings; they had grown another couple of inches and looked very healthy….and so had the weeds. It was also here that I received my second lesson for the day…Tilling the soil makes it easier to remove the weeds. In the areas which were not forked, attempts to remove weeds proved more difficult. It was only when I used the fork to turn over the soil that I was able to remove some of them, especially the roots.

I also worked on the planned expansion. By 8 a.m. I concluded that people who stole from farmers deserved no mercy. In my little patch in the comfort of my back yard, I suffered through mosquito bites and uncomfortable positioning in order to create an environment for my ‘farm’ to succeed. By the time I tried to straighten myself, I felt like I needed someone to stand on my back as I lay flat, just to remove the kinks. It was here that I learnt the third lesson of the day…Farming is back-breaking work. It made me think about the people who make their living from farming; daily they till the soil in the hot sun, bending their backs to do the planting. How then can we abuse the people who make such a sacrifice?

I had a wedding to attend later that day and when I looked at my hand at 9 a.m. I realized I was in trouble. I had come in for breakfast and tried washing my hands. The soup seemed to have cleaned it but it still looked dirty. My nails looked like I hadn’t cared for them in months. It was at that point that I learnt my fourth lesson for the day…Dirt stains your hands and nails. I had to soak my hands and brush them vigorously with soap and water before I saw any success. In the end, they were still a little yellow but they were presentable.

We were experiencing one of the worst droughts in the country’s recent history. Prior to now, the last time I remember us having rain was in February and that was a light shower which lasted for about an hour. Up to two weeks ago, the ground was as dry as a bone and the fruit trees in my yard were on the brink of death (we lost the apple and the lemon trees). The local water  company announced that we had less than a month’s supply of water in the dams which served the city and we had daily water lock-off. I started getting brown water through the tap which was very scary, but I learnt some things from it.

I learnt how to conserve clean water and I learnt how to be thankful for brown tap water. It made me realize that when it came to water, if there is a shortage (like for those people in under-developed communities who’ve never had piped water and do not get much rain), we will be happy for murky water. So the next time the news capture people in countries such as Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and  places in Africa rejoicing when they finally get water through the pipe and it’s brown in color, I will definitely be able to identify with them, and rejoice with them…because I now know how to be thankful for murky water.

So back to farming…My hairdresser gave me some sorrel seeds from her sorrel intake last Christmas and I said I would plant them. She later gave me some okra and gungo (pigeon) peas seeds as well. Due to the drought they stayed in a bag in the garage until two weeks ago. It had rained for three consecutive days and I was never more happy to see the showers. The grass had begun to show signs of life again. Since receiving the seeds, I had also acquired some water melon, tomato, cantaloupe and pumpkin seeds from things I had eaten….and so …. I decided to start planting on the weekend of May 10th.

I heard that the best way to prepare the soil was by ploughing, which would help it to retain its moisture. Since I did not have a plough, I used a garden fork. I prepared a small patch, about 8 feet by 10 feet and then realized that if I was going to put 2 to 3 seeds in each hole I would need more space. I was tired, and it looked as if it was going to rain so I threw a lot of seeds in each hole. I tried to keep like seeds together and I also tried to plant them so I could identify them if they started growing. I really wasn’t sure they would, so for each set of seeds that I put in the ground, I said ‘in the name of Jesus, you shall grow’.

As I suspected, the rain started early, and since I didn’t know if we were going to have rain for much longer, I wanted to make sure I got everything in the ground so they could all benefit from this time of rain. I always felt that things did better with rain as against piped water. In the end, I threw out the last set of seeds as the downpour got heavier. Needless to say, I was soaking wet by the time I was finished but it felt great!

It was good exercise….. and even though I only forked a small patch, I was in pain for days.

In the coming week I will share some photos with you. I will also share with you the work I did this week as a part of my labor day project.