Republic Of Dirt: A Return to Woefield Farm

SEPTEMBER

Prudence

September is the season for canning, drying and freezing. It’s the time to save seeds and to review your successes and failures in order to plan next year. Pride has no place in this assessment. The only thing that matters is what worked. In the case of Woefield Farm, September is also the last chance to make a decent showing at the final farmers’ market of the season.

Our table has always stood out at the Cedar Farmers’ Market. At first because it was so bare, but as time went on, we stood out because everything we sold had a bit of a diseased and/or stunted look to it. But I’m proud to say that by late August, our raised beds were finally producing fine, standard-size things. Unfortunately, they were the same fine things everyone else sold: zucchini, tomatoes, radishes, peas, chard. The only thing we had that no one else did was a small crop of very hot peppers. The pepper plants were given to me by my friend Kimi when she came to visit. We’d been neighbors and friends in New York, and she and I loved to visit restaurants that specialized in extremely hot foods.

She brought me a 7-Pot pepper plant, a Bhut Jolokia and a Trinidad Scorpion.

Now, Prudence, said Kimi, an artist. Be safe with these. They can do damage.

We laughed and laughed. That was the whole point of hot peppers! To test oneself and get the old endorphins flowing. Kimi and I used to take dates on spicy food excursions. Anyone who showed a lack of spirit or fortitude was quickly dispatched. Only Kimi found someone who could match us: Cali passed the test. In fact, Cali went on to become a firefighter in the Bronx and she and Kimi ended up moving in together.

I planted my ferocious pepper plants in the most premium of our raised beds. I used copper mesh to keep vermin off, and Sara, the eleven-year-old who has been living with us since this summer, made a sign: Caution: Dangerous Peppers Ahead.

The plants had arrived with small peppers already on them and they flourished in the heat of the late summer on Vancouver Island. Soon all three hung heavy with fruit.

A single 7-Pot pepper, as the name implies, is said to be good for seven pots of stew. Bhut Jolokia, also known as the ghost pepper, has long red fruits, each one about 125 times hotter than a jalapeño. The Trinidad Scorpion, or Butch T peppers, are squat, angry-looking things that measure 1,463,700 on the Scoville scale. For those not conversant in hot peppers, that’s very hot.

When the peppers were ripe, I went to the Fred’s Famous hot pepper website and printed off hot sauce recipes. The three resulting sauces were absolutely delicious.

Help me name them, I said to Earl, Seth and Sara as we stared at the pots of bright sauce. A haze of heat shimmered over them and the smell of garlic and onion filled the kitchen.

Earl was suspicious. No surprise. Earl is always suspicious. He essentially came with the place when I inherited it from my uncle last April. Earl’s in his early seventies and he lives in a cabin on the edge of the property and he recently bought a half ownership.

Not long after I moved to Woefield, I learned that Earl is a cult figure in the roots music world. His brother is Merle Clemente. They were the High Lonesome Boys, a foundational bluegrass band, until Earl decamped for reasons unknown.

Earl’s creativity with the banjo does not translate into adventurousness when it comes to food or drink. He’s learned to tolerate a diet heavy on organic greens and brown rice but still finds any coffee that doesn’t look like lightly used dishwater too powerful. Naturally, he drew a hard line at my hot sauces.

I ain’t touching that. Just standing near them pots is making my eyes water, he said.

Keep an open mind. Hot food has positive effects on the mood. Besides, capsaicin is odorless.

Earl made a face. His general appearance is that of someone who has spent a lifetime breaking rocks in a quarry for low pay. This in spite of the fact that he’s spent most of the last thirty years in a recliner, watching TV. He has longish white hair on the sides of his head and is bald on top. He wears his work pants pulled up high, courtesy of a pair of wide suspenders. Earl’s customary expression is that of a man who would automatically say no to any question you cared to ask, but his eyes, which are small but clear and brown, are, in unguarded moments, even a little twinkly, though I would never tell him that because he’d probably start wearing sunglasses.

I just got over my heartburn from our trip to Ron’s Pizza Parlor, he said.

Serves you right. You and Seth knew I’d made Swiss chard and white bean casserole.

Exactly, said Seth.

Seth is twenty-one and has been living with me since he was kicked out of his mother’s house across the street from the farm. He came to the door looking for room and board in exchange for work. He was in terrible shape. Apparently there was some trauma at his school that rendered him alcoholic, agoraphobic and highly dependent on the Internet for all his social needs. I took him in, put him to work and set him on a new path. He’s been sober for three months and I give farm life much of the credit. It’s my belief that healthy food and hard work can cure just about any problem.

In contrast to Earl, Seth looks exactly like what he is: a heavy metal fan who spends too much time on his computer when he’s not working outside. Over the summer, his pasty white skin had begun to show signs of healthy circulation, if not an actual tan. But his natural pallor returned with the change in the weather. He trimmed his long black hair so that it now just brushes his shoulders. Seth almost always wears either an Iron Maiden or a Judas Priest ball cap. The first time I saw him without either one, I was startled to realize that his hair is lovely and thick. The persistence of the cap made me think he was hiding early baldness. He’s lost his junk food gut and his hunched posture has straightened somewhat. Seth is even a bit good-looking, in his way.

Seth may appear somewhat less scurvy-afflicted than he did when he arrived, but he’s still devoted to processed foods. He and Earl sneak off to Smitty’s and Ron’s and any other purveyors of junk food every chance they get. Worse, they bring Sara with them.

Sara is the final member of our household. We met when her parents asked if she could board her fancy show poultry with us. Soon after the chickens moved here, her parents’ marriage disintegrated under the crushing weight of their mutual loathing and Sara joined her birds. She’s a serious and competent child who spends her time reading educational books and drawing up plans for practical things and tending her flock. She gets up early and goes to bed at the same time every evening. She is young but she’s a farmer through and through. Earl, Seth and I compete to entertain and engage her because we feel bad about the situation with her parents and we live in fear of the day that they come to their senses and ask for her back and because Sara’s smile is the kind that changes a day. She doesn’t suffer fools and deep down I think most grown-ups suspect we might be fools.

Sara stood with Earl and Seth, alert but quiet.

Seth, just try the sauces, I told him, dipping the spoon into the pot and holding it out to him.

I’ve got a bad stomach from my drinking days, he said.

You’ve got a bad stomach because you consume two liters of Coke every day.

"It’s not Coke. It’s cola. The difference is about three bucks a bottle and the taste."

I sighed and held the spoon out to Sara. She took the spoon from me and tasted the sauce. It was the mildest one.

Her nose wrinkled and she considered for at least ten seconds.

It’s good, she said. Spicy.

Ready to try the next one?

She nodded.

I handed her a glass of water and then dipped the second spoon in the second pot. Sara tasted and her eyes widened.

Hot, she said. She puffed out her breath a few times. My lips are burning. My nose is running. It’s good though.

I paused the spoon over the third pot, the one featuring the Trinidad Scorpion.

Oh, no you don’t, said Seth, gently getting between Sara and the sauces.

You’re going to ruin her tongue! said Earl, putting a hand out to stop me.

I sighed and dipped the spoon into the Scorpion sauce. I tasted it. Delicious. Hot and peppery. Sweat popped out on my brow and exhilaration bloomed in my chest.

See? I said. Don’t be scared.

Stand back! said Seth. He put his long hair into a ponytail, picked up a spoon and puffed out a few steadying breaths like a powerlifter getting ready to snatch up a particularly large weight.

Seth

In spite of the terrible pain I was in, I tried to help name the hot sauces. For the allegedly mild one, which tasted like nuclear fallout, I suggested Hot as Fuck. For the medium one, which tasted like seven lit cigarettes applied firmly to the tongue, I suggested You’d Have to Be an Idiot to Try This, and for the Scorpion sauce, which was so hot I think it gave me permanent nerve damage, I suggested Lawsuit Followed by Complete Financial Collapse.

She ignored all my suggestions and went with Woefield Hot Sauce 1, Woefield Hot Sauce 2 and Woefield Super Mega Hot 3. Prudence may be a hard worker and have an inhuman capacity to eat hot things, but she’s no great shakes in the naming-shit department.

I told her those sauces were too hot for Joe Public but she went ahead and bottled up the Condiments of Destruction anyway, and off we went to the last farmers’ market of the season. Probably should have had a police escort.

Earl called the scene that followed goddamned mayhem. Only Earl has a problem with word use and actually said goddamned mayhew. Which is excellent and part of why I still live on this farm. It’s just too bad that we made exactly the wrong impression on a few key people.

Earl

Some people take vegetables way too serious. Prudence is always giving me hell for not wanting to talk much about our wares, which is what she calls our vegetables when we take them to market. Well, what’s there to say? These are goddamned cucumbers and that’s a head of lettuce. What more do you need to know?

The other thing that gets me is how them vegetable lovers get so pushy. They got their cloth bags and old baskets and seem to have about six elbows apiece when they sniff out a bargain or some rare kind of tomato.

I knew putting sauces too hot for human conscription for sale was a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong. Prudence has made a hell of an improvement on this place from when she first started, especially if you consider that until she showed up all the farm produced was rocks and a few blades of grass that died of fright as soon as they poked their heads out of the ground. Our raised beds is neat as you please, and there’s sure as hell a lot of them. Prudence works like three sled dogs, but that don’t stop things from going wrong.

Me and Prudence and Seth and Sara was behind the table. Prudence and Sara had all the bags of greens on the sides of the tables and bunches of radishes and zucchinis and peas and what have you laid out like you’d see at a grocery store. Then Prudence brung out them damned killer sauces in their skinny glass bottles with the string at the top and the brown paper labels. She got Seth to put out little wooden spoons like you’d use to try ice creams, and some crackers she made herself that taste like they’re made with sawdust and dehydrated chicken feathers, but she thinks they’re just delicious. I figured people would give us a miss like they usually do. They would have, too, except for the rugby team that stopped by the market on their way back from a weekend tournament in Courtenay. Those guys were already in bad shape when they got into Prudence’s hot sauce.

You want to see mayhew in action, I recommend a drunk rugby team and a table full of hot sauce. I just wish Sara’s parents didn’t see the whole thing.

Sara

My mom and dad cancel our weekend visits quite a lot. It’s okay with me, but they feel bad when they do it and so they usually come to say hello at the Sunday farmers’ market. They don’t usually show up at the same time, though. They just come, one at a time, to our table, say hello to me and hello to Prudence. At least my mom does. My dad ignores everyone except me, usually, although sometimes he glares at Seth.

On the day we sold the hot sauce, my mom came over to tell me how sorry she was that she had to cancel our visit last week because she hadn’t been feeling well. My mom is kind of depressed and it’s hard for her to do things.

My dad overheard her when he walked up and he said, Not this again. You have responsibilities, Sally. Which was ironic because my dad canceled our visit this weekend so he could take an extra shift driving his taxi.

My mom said, Mind your own business, Dean. You’re half the reason I don’t feel well.

Prudence asked if they’d like to try some baby carrots.

They said they needed to talk in private, which meant that they were going to have an argument. I hoped they wouldn’t yell. It’s very embarrassing when they do that.

That’s when we heard the rugby players. Their bus had just pulled over to the side of the road, and when they came out, they were swearing and hollering but they sounded happy. It was good timing because they made so much noise that even if my parents ended up in a loud fight about why they didn’t spend time with me, no one would notice because they’d be looking at the rugby players.

When the team walked into the market, a few of them were drinking cans of beer. I don’t think you’re supposed to drink beer at a Sunday morning farmers’ market, even if you play rugby.

They started buying stuff from every table they saw, even the craft tables that not many people visit. Then one of them saw us, or at least he saw Prudence. She’s very pretty and smiles a lot and people always like her as soon as they see her, which they should because she’s really nice.

Shit, he said. I already bought my spinach off some ugly dude in a straw hat. Then he threw the bag of spinach off to the side and it landed on the ground.

That was a waste, said Prudence.

I’ll tell you what’s a waste. You hiding your light behind a bunch of carrots. The rugby guy was probably thirty or maybe even older and his head was shaved. He had a black eye and a torn shirt, but he seemed to be in an excellent mood.

A few other guys from the rugby club came up to stand beside him.

A flower! said one. Bart has found a rare and beautiful flower.

Prudence smiled at them like she smiles at everyone. She’s very good with people and doesn’t seem embarrassed even when she’s called a beautiful flower.

Earl grunted and stared at the rugby players. There were five or six of them, with more coming. Seth held up his cell phone and took pictures, saying something about maybe needing evidence later.

My name is Bart, said the one called Bart. And we’re the Cowichan Try-Athletes Rugby Club. We played a tournament in Courtenay yesterday. Got our asses handed to us, but we don’t mind because we’ll do better next year. Just heading back to Duncan now. Bart put his arm around another man, who was wearing a pink tutu. Right, Tony?

Someone had shaved off one of Tony’s eyebrows and drawn it back on with black felt pen so he looked very surprised on the one side. He said something but I couldn’t understand what.

You know what you all need? said Prudence. Hot sauce.

Hot sauce! said Bart. I love hot sauce. Figures you’d sell my favorite thing.

Soon all the rugby players were lined up to try the hot sauce and other people saw the lineup and so they joined it and we were the most popular stand in the whole farmers’ market, which had never happened before!

I noticed my parents had finished arguing and were watching the lineup. I felt proud that they were seeing how popular we were. Maybe they’d feel more comfortable about letting me stay at the farm. I know they feel guilty sometimes but it’s really for the best.

The first rugby player tried the mild sauce and his face turned bright red but he said it was the best hot sauce he ever tasted. He bought two bottles.

Let me try it! said Tony. Two of his friends were holding him, so Prudence had to put the cracker directly into his mouth.

Seth told the guy that if he wanted to drink that was his business, but if he wanted to stop that was Seth’s business. But no one paid attention to him, because I don’t think they knew what he was talking about.

I saw my dad frown when he saw Prudence feeding hot sauce crackers to the drunk rugby players and he frowned even more when they started saying they wanted to lick the hot sauce out of her hand.

Luckily, she didn’t let them do that.

I think Earl noticed my parents watching and he told me maybe I should sit in the truck until the rugby players were gone, but I didn’t want to. It was really fun.

Prudence and Earl and Seth gave out lots of samples of Woefield Hot Sauce 1 and Woefield Hot Sauce 2 and most of the rugby players bought a bottle, even though it cost eleven dollars, which is a lot of money for sauce.

It seemed to take a long time for the players to realize how hot the sauce was because they had been drinking a lot of beer and weren’t sober, but they eventually noticed when the burning got bad.

Water! shouted one.

Beer! shouted another.

Holy crap, my lips are on fire!

A few of them crowded into the coffee stall, where they chugged cup after cup of coffee.

My mom and dad were watching everything and my mom said something and my dad said something back and they didn’t look very happy but that was normal since they never look very happy. Earl kept looking from the yelling rugby players to me and then at my parents.

Then a short, dark man in a blue tracksuit with stripes on the arms and legs reached the front of the line.

I see you have three sauces. I’d like to try the hottest, he said.

Prudence looked at the rugby players staggering around in front of our table, pawing at their mouths and saying how much pain they were in.

I think that one might be a bit hot for most people.

I’m not most people, said the man, who was about the same height as Prudence. I’m from India, he said. Originally. We moved here when I was three. I don’t think you need to worry about me and a little heat. He winked at her.

Are you sure? she said.

If it’s hot, I can handle it, he said. Not like them. He looked at the rugby players like they were weak and he wasn’t.

The whole area around our table was a mess. Tony had torn his pink tutu off to use it to wipe hot sauce out of his mouth and then trampled it into the ground. He had sweated so much, most of his drawn-on eyebrow came off, and he was sitting with his back against the Environmental Action table, right near where my parents were standing. He kept moaning. Bags of produce and pot holders were scattered all over the ground.

I come from the land of warm weather and warmer food. And of beautiful women, said the little man, winking at Prudence again. He might have had a twitch or Tourette’s syndrome like the kid in my class who shouts unusual things during tests and other stressful times. I think that kid is very creative, because you never know what he’s going to say.

Well, Prudence said to the twitchy man. "I have to admit that this one is certainly my favorite."

She poured some on one of her crackers and handed it to the little man.

If I was her I don’t think I would have done that. Seth kept shaking his head and wincing, but none of us like to tell Prudence what to do, because she doesn’t like it.

Dude, are you crazy? said Bart to the small man. "My eyes are on fire. My balls are on fire. There’s hot sauce and then there’s … I don’t even know what to call this." He waved the bottle of sauce around like it might blow up.

The small man smiled at the rugby player. It’s no problem for me. I’m a spicy guy.

Then he put a whole cracker into his mouth.

Good, he said. Just like home. No problem. But then his face turned purple and sweat started pouring off him.

Oh my, he said. Yes. Good.

Dude, you okay? asked Bart the rugby player. He stared at Prudence. You might be cute but you’re kind of deadly.

The small man’s teeth showed and his eyes rolled around in his head. He started panting so he sounded like a dog left in a hot car.

Oh yes, he said. Oooh yes.

Then he grabbed at the front of his own shirt and fell down.

Prudence

Some people have a tendency to look on the dark side. Not me. I’m sorry the hot sauce caused a medical furor, but at least it wasn’t a serious one.

The paramedics both reassured me that Anoop Sandhu would be fine and that he’d just had another of his panic attacks. His mother calls 911 every time he gets one and so they know Anoop well. Still, I was sorry that Sara’s parents had to see the uproar. The market should be a place of nutrition and community, not a place filled with drunken athletes and emergency personnel.

Her mother came over as the paramedics were loading Mr. Sandhu onto a stretcher, just in case.

Is everything alright? she asked.

Sara nodded and I did my best to convince Mrs. Spratt that everything was under control. Oh, this is a lot more excitement than we’re used to at the market! Usually it’s so quiet, I said, faking a laugh. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit out-of-body-ish, particularly during stressful moments. It’s like parts of me are going to sleep with no warning at all.

Sara? said Mrs. Spratt. What’s going on here?

It was just the hot sauce, said Sara. It was too hot.

We’re heading straight home, said Earl. Too much nonsense around this place.

Sara’s mother, who has a lot in common with a limp rag, looked slightly mollified. Sara can come home with me if things are too … busy at the farm, she said, unforcefully.

No! said Seth, Earl and I at the same time. Sara looked at the ground.

Sara’s fine. As you know, we love having her. Until you and Mr. Spratt are settled.

He had to go to pick up a fare, said Mrs. Spratt. That was a relief. I hoped he’d missed at least part of the mess with the hot sauce and the rugby players and the panic-attack man. Mr. Spratt is an angry individual.

Okay. But Sara, please don’t touch any of that sauce.

No way, said Earl, quickly shoving the remaining bottles of Woefield Super Mega Hot 3 into a cardboard box. Going to get rid of them.

He would do no such thing, but I didn’t correct him in front of Mrs. Spratt. No need to show we were not united on the home front.

Mrs. Spratt summoned Sara for an awkward hug and then walked away.

Close call, said Seth, before he wandered over to try and flirt with the girl at the organic coffee stand.

Earl shook his head as he loaded the last of our produce into the back of the truck.

He was right to be concerned. If we wanted to keep Sara, we had to show that we could give her a safe and loving home. Her parents have spent a little bit of time at the farm, most notably when they came to the bluegrass concert we put on this summer, but since then their feelings toward us have cooled. I think it’s because they feel guilty for leaving Sara in our care.

I was relieved that Mrs. Spratt was not around to see Liam, the manager of the market, stop by to tell me Woefield would not be welcomed back next year. I was about to protest when we were joined by Werner Guurten, the most successful grower in the area.

Prudence! said Werner, nearly shoving the overly earnest Liam out of the way. At seventy, Werner is at least six feet two and 250 pounds. If you include his charisma, he’s twice that size.

I have a proposition for you, said Werner. Remember when I ran into you mooning over the Kubotas at Big T’s Tractor and Trailer Emporium?

I nodded. We couldn’t afford to buy a tractor, but it was fun to imagine one parked in the field.

Well, I have something like that for you and I think you’re going to be real excited.

Excuse me, Werner. I was just telling Prudence that we’re rethinking the vendor mix here at the market, said Liam, attempting to get back to the business at hand. For next spring.

Be quiet, Liam, said Werner.

But Werner, the incident today with Woefield’s hot sauce could have been—

Prudence here is one of our most promising young growers.

What if that man had been seriously injured from her sauce? asked Liam, plaintively. We’ve got to think about the liability.

Nonsense, said Werner. He turned to me. Prudence, you’ll be back next year. And I’ve got an offer that’s going to make it easier for you to work that farm of yours.

You have an old tractor for us? I said, excitement banishing the tiredness creeping up on me. I cast a glance at Sara and Earl, who’d stopped packing up in order to listen intently.

Better, said Werner. I’ve got a mule for you.

My breath caught in my throat. A mule! If there was one thing I wanted more than a Kubota tractor, it was a mule! A farm is not a farm without animals. We’d made a good start by boarding Sara’s show chickens and of course there was Bertie, my late uncle’s depressed sheep, but a mule would take us to the next level, livestock-wise. According to everything I’ve read, a mule is one of the strongest and most useful creatures a farm can have. We could use a mule to plow the fields, pull stumps, keep the grass mowed. We could even ride it around!

Now, we don’t have much use for a mule. Our operation is pretty much automated, but I know you like the old-timey ways, said Werner.

Nice try, Werner, said a deep voice. I felt big hands close around my waist and a soft kiss on the top of my head as Eustace, my boyfriend, joined us. I melted a little at his touch but, as was becoming our pattern, ignored his words.

I am very much interested in having a mule, I said.

Is it trained? Eustace asked Werner. He is a veterinarian and thinks he knows everything about training and proper accommodation and fencing for animals. I think he loses sight of the fact that everyone has to start somewhere. Learning as you go is a legitimate approach to matters agricultural.

Well, he’s trained to eat his weight every day, chuckled Werner, a touch evasively.

Is it safe for inexperienced handlers? What sort of temperament are we talking about? asked Eustace.

I looked at him, feeling resentment grow. My boyfriend is basically a Hallmark version of a vet. He’s as tall as Werner and, with his disarray of brown curls and sculpted facial features, he’s almost too handsome. On the other hand, he has a tendency to interfere and our politics do not align.

We’ll learn, I said.

Werner, you know there’s no barn on Woefield right now. What’s wrong with this mule? Why are you trying to get rid of it?

Werner took offense or at least pretended to. Nothing, Eustace. Come on now. You’re making it sound like I’m trying to put something over on Prudence instead of doing a favor for a fellow farmer.

Liam looked from Werner to Eustace and silently admitted defeat. His shoulders slumped and he walked away.

Werner beamed at Eustace and then back at me.

Prudence, this is the best-looking mule I ever saw. Could probably get a fortune for him if I put him on the open market. But I’m willing to let you take him for a season. See how he works out for you. Then, if you like him, we can get a payment schedule going.

"How much did you pay for him?" Eustace