We all know about the honeymoon that is June. Summer heat comes with long hours of daylight, and the farm sinks into a lull only a shepherd with a garden can appreciate. My heavy months are April and May, but come this sweet month my hardest work is for other farmers. While Cold Antler needs just milking, weeding, and the usual chores, other neighbors need hands at the hay wagons or rows of onions weeded out. I am happy to start the day in the barn, welcome the morning in the river with my fly rod, and then return home for a nap in the hammock and a light lunch before I am sent into the fields again.
This is June. Summer as it is meant to be.
I listen to people around here who have planted potatoes for more years than I have been alive. While conventional wisdom says to get your spuds in the ground early in the season, I wait. I wait all the way through spring until we are flirting with humidity and fireflies, and then my potatoes meet earth. That is my rule. The reason is that both wet springs and potato beetles cause havoc in earlier settings. So I wait.
No tots in the mud until I see a lightning bug.
This is a place where pure summer heat is a luxury and a rarity. With a growing season only slightly north of a hundred days, most of the year is spent climbing into or recovering from winter. But when the wheel of the year turns into June, there are no thoughts of firewood and snow. There is just the drunk and lovely waltz of fireflies and banjo frails, accompanied by an occasional bass line of thunder.
I lose hours in my hammock, gliding above the good earth, hugged by gentle ropes. Storms slide in and out over the mountain, and when they leave, everything is even more humid than it was. I find peace in moments like this, a few inches above the ground. I accept the humidity as a lover and lean back into his arms.
As darkness falls, the farm turns shades of dark green and brown. The only light is the flickering of thousands of fireflies and the soft glow from the light in the chicken coop nearby. From under my King Maple I pluck my five-string banjo through a few waltzes I taught myself from books. “Down in the Willow Gardens” is my favorite. Played slow and meditatively, it becomes part of the night. The music pours out of me like storm rain.
Fireflies, my backup angels, circle around the canopy of the giant maple that someone, many years ago, allowed to thrive alone in the front yard in the sun by a shallow well. It wants for nothing, that grand tree. It is the symbol of strength and acceptance on this farm that knows the cold better than this hot grace.
I dreamed of days like this when winter days stretched below zero and I could barely pull myself out of a hot shower. The memory of hardship makes the present more delicious. So I savor the night, and the swaying.
My hive, a healthy work commune just outside my kitchen window, is bustling, so I am putting on a third-story addition. A few nights ago I built the wax frames on my living room floor, and today I am setting the new shallow hive body on top of the two that are already full of comb.
Since I am already out there working the bees, I decide to harvest a wee bit of honey to kick off the summer. I bring out my 5-gallon brewing kettle, a knife, and a handful of sheep’s wool. After a proper smoking, I pry open the inner lid to the hive (fused with comb to the top hive body) and get to those beautiful frames. The bees do not bother you if you remain calm, and the smoke keeps them a bit disoriented.
I pull out just two frames from the center of the box, and with the wool I gently brush the bees back into the hive. I re-set both of my frames, then, like a fat and happy bear, I waddle back to my house with my bounty.
With a large serving spoon I scrape the entire frame into a metal colander inside a stainless steel bowl. The honey takes about an hour to drain, and then I do a second straining through cheesecloth.
I pour the honey into 8-ounce plastic bears where they will wait in my cupboard until teas, fresh baked breads, ice creams, and batters call them into service.
With Merlin finally trained to load into the trailer, it is my turn to learn something new. So I get into a Western saddle for the first time for a trail ride, and I balk at it the same way Merlin did at the metal trailer. This Western saddle feels like a couch sitting on the back of a rhino wearing a wig.
Feeling my lack of confidence, Merlin backs up and circles. I jump off. Patty demands that I get back on and not give up. I fight back tears as I climb back into the saddle, and Patty works with him on a lunge rope as I sit there, holding the reins like a child on a pony ride. I’ve gone from a confident woman in English tack to a scared faux cowgirl. Patty assures me I will come around to the Western tack for trail use, but I balk. I both hate her and love her for making me get through today without quitting.
My horse is better at change than I am.
Every 12 hours that udder of Bonita’s needs to be emptied or it will be painful, possibly get infected, and then dry out, and I’ll be out of milk (and luck) until next spring when she kids. No more beautiful glass bottles of fresh milk (marked GOAT MILK) in the fridge. No more chèvre ready to spread over homemade breads and bagels. No more visions of milk soaps curing in the closet. Her gifts are mine for the taking, but my end of the deal is a twice-daily date with her teats. No exceptions.
So I am married to a goat. Every 12 hours my right cheek is pressed against her side as I milk and talk to her. She munches on her grain ration and sweet feed, and I relieve the pressure she feels. And you know what? She relieves mine. It is hard to be stressed out when milking any animal. I can’t check my smartphone or worry about bills. I just milk.
It took a pile of friends, hoarded money, scrounged metal and lumber, and a stretch of hot days, but the horse pasture is ready, right in time for Merlin’s arrival.
Everyone agrees he is a gem, and we even entered a dressage show and won a third-place ribbon. It was the crowning moment of our three-month trial period and perhaps what convinced me in my heart to keep him forever. Now a prizewinner and a partner, Merlin is moving home to Cold Antler Farm. I make the down payment and am on my way to owning a unicorn.
Patty comes by with her trailer early this morning. Together we drive Merlin, tack, and gear back to Cold Antler, and I lead my new mount to his grassy pastures and his flatmate, Jasper.
Once in the paddock the horses run together, stopping to press their foreheads every now and then. They seem happy and I am beside myself. Not too long ago any horse was a pipedream, and now I watch the pair of them roll in the dust and play tag.
It is 8 PM on the longest day of the year, practically bedtime around this farm where days start before 5 AM and charge hard all day long. My body is tired but my mind is reeling; I am happy to stay up until sunset and light a bonfire. Friends will be here soon with covered dishes, folding chairs, guitars, and banjos. We will eat, drink, and be merry under that long sunset and say goodbye to the peak of the daylight.
From here on out, every day a little sunlight fades away. I am okay with that, thrilled really. All year I am praying for October, and this is just another grateful check on the year’s to-do list. I lift a beer to my lips and nod to the setting sun. He did good.
People who farm have a different way of understanding time, one based on sunlight and seasons, ebbing and flowing in activity like river water.
Today I am part of a small team loading first-cutting hay into the hayloft of Patty and Mark’s 1800s barn. We spend this whole afternoon stacking 300-plus 60-pound bales — which Patty prefers for her two heavy horses — onto a rickety elevator and up to the loft. Others are in the loft creating a Jenga mountain of 50-pound rectangles of dry compact grass. It is, at best, an anxious construction.
When finished, we walk up the hill to the stone porch beside Patty’s beautiful white farmhouse. There we sit and drink cold beer and eat a gratefully laid spread and talk about the hay, the work, our farms, and our plans.
I discovered the hard way that hay is sharp enough to cut, and if you are foolish enough to wear a T-shirt (and shorts), your skin will be riddled with casualties from the chaff. So I now know to toil in long pants, long sleeves, and leather gloves for the rest of this haying season.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
— from “Mowing” by Robert Frost
Patty has convinced me to join the Washington County Draft Animal Association (WCDAA). She assures me that plenty of ponies, oxen, mules, and even the occasional donkey are among their ranks. I bite. If 11-hand ponies the size of Jasper are welcome, then a thousand pounds of British black thunder can surely show up.
I find that people interested in horse power are a friendly and like-minded ilk. And if the phrase “horse people” conjures up images of snotty upper-class overachievers, this is not that stereotype. The WCDAA consists of regular folks who just happen to love horses and traditional modes of transportation. Not everyone in it has a 401(k) or even a full set of teeth. Living with and loving working animals is the only qualification for membership (besides the $30 annual dues).