Almost a Farmer’s Wife
Happy Memorial Day
So, I had this realization while here.
There is a huge part of me that is a crunchy granola girl at heart. I mean, I always suspected that I might have this tendency what with my anti-bra experiments in college (that was an unattractive look for me with my DDs-and a lot of uninvited movement going on under my shirts), penchant for baking my own bread more often than not and the unquenched desire for my own vegetable and herb garden to grow organic produce to my liking. At one time, I even considered revisiting sewing, until my mother reminded me of the disastrous results of my first and only two attempts. But now, things seem different.
I realize just how crunchy granola I can be.
I am curious about picking corn off the shamba (farm) we are living on right now. The hubby is discussing the appropriate techniques to increase milk production in older cows with folks working on the dairy project. We’ve gotten somewhat used to the occasional “farm animal smell” over breakfast when the wind is blowing in a certain direction (I am told that you never get completely used to it). I am figuring out how to tell when an avocado is ripe by looking at how it hangs from the tree. I am concerned when the pigs don’t wake me by 6am and I can sleep through the occasional moo unless it is a distress signal from the barn. The hubby knows when it sounds like a mama pig has rolled on a piglet in the night and can tell when the goats are concerned about the rain.
All that said, I know that I am not fully ready to be a farmer’s wife.
I see the heavy labor that goes into ensuring a good harvest and the concern on people’s faces when folks at the sokoni (market) speculate about the length of the rainy season. Shoveling cow and pig shit simply cannot be fun. And as squeamish as I still am about sungusungu nyeupe (flying white ants-or young termites) and other mdudu (bugs), I am clearly down with enclosed spaces that I can reasonably guarantee as closed. I sometimes miss my heels and the hubby misses the sheer volume and variety of my collection of delicate, frilly, lacy, sheer girly things that are stored in a trunk in Seattle-they simply don’t make sense in a place where mud rules and you do your wash with a scrub board most of the time.
But there is a charm to it. I know that to be true.
We are finding that the original sexy gear is skin. Bad smells are frequently a small portion of the day. The hubby will rescue both me and random mdudu from each other. And life without all the hustle, bustle leaves us more time to play the piano, sing songs together, bake bread and snuggle.