The Catch-up, Part One: Tillage

Over the last few months, I've begun several posts without publishing. Over the next couple weeks, I'll be publishing them here, unedited, unfinished. This post was begun on March 13, 2018.

Well it's Luke the Labrador's birthday today. Eleven years old! And I've been with him just about every single day. The most notable exception, the longest, was the week I left him with the Kroellsners so Tara and me could go on our honeymoon. It's also the one Tara reminds me of the most when she wants us to go somewhere. You don't have to dig deep to catch her hint.

The digging, I'll leave for the fields. Winter doldrums meant I was a bit lazy, and the tire ruts from those kids were never plowed under. It's not the worst thing for the ground, of course. Tillage opens you up to erosion, and the ruts caught the drifting snow this winter, so that when it melted it puddled and quenched the thirsty soil. 

But the appearance... Tara says she hates driving past it (though only when she's mad about something else), and Stu Parementer likes to rib me about it (though only after church, when everyone can hear him). I'm sure they know how hard-frozen the ground is this time of year, and how hard that can be on equipment. But I guess people tend to focus on how these things affect THEM.

Of course, Stu's wife Kelly says it looks rustic, like an English Garden. Which is a charitable assessment. But I'm mostly impressed that she knows about English Gardens. Folks around here don't bother themselves with that kind of thing. Kelly, she's always impressing me. Surprising me. I wonder if she'll help me work the markets again this harvest.

Or not. Maybe it's good the ground is still frozen. There's some digging that it's best not to do.