Republic of Dirt
Authors: Susan Juby
DIRT
A RETURN TO WOEFIELD FARM
For Eggy
S
eptember 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.