We Are Just Fine

I’m not sure about this farmer stuff. It’s been, what, almost a week now and I have already spent four or five hours of backbreaking labor trying to whip the weeds into compliance with local zoning ordinances. I didn’t realize it would take so much effort. A couple hours of the work went into clearing the land for the garden, orchard, and playground. The rest was dedicated to picking some of the millions of blackberries that grow along the property line. The end result of all this drudgery was: 1) a blackberry cobbler, 2) a pile of straw about six feet tall because I neglected to buy the bailing attachment for the tractor, and 3) total exhaustion.

In the past, I always participated in “farming” from a safe distance, usually sealed within a motor vehicle speeding along the interstate. I would see the happy farmers driving their red or green tractors through the fields followed by trucks rapidly filling with corn or whatever. All the bounty was destined, no doubt, for their rickety honor-system farm stands where they would sell their easily grown produce to people, like myself, who were too lazy to actually be farmers. I never stopped to think that they might actually have to leave the rumbling comfort of their tractors and pick things up, or rake the straw, or drag stuff to where it belonged. Having now experienced all of that, I can safely say that there is quite a lot more to farming than meets the eye.

That knowledge, however, did nothing to ease my tired mind and sore back. My sympathetic friend took pity on me and suggested that a short vacation might be in order; someplace nearby but sufficiently removed from the agricultural duress I have been suffering under. I just needed a chance to recharge my batteries and clear my head to focus on the tasks at hand. So off we went to the south end of the Hood Canal and the lovely yet subduedly pretentious Alderbrook Resort and Spa. 

Judging by the black and white photos on the walls there has been some kind of recreational mecca at Alderbrook since just after the land was wrested from the local tribes in the late 1800s. Recently, however, a resort developer built a giant lodge-like hotel – I must admit the building was stunning – and guest cabins on the property. The resort contained everything that a depressed agriculturalist could want and so, after spending a happy hour on the waters of the Hood Canal mingling with the sea life, we retired to dinner.

As the sun set over the nearby Olympic Mountains our waitress – or whatever the current politically correct term might be – approached the table. Her nametag indicated a vowel rich combination that would melt down most spell checkers and she gave us the hi-my-name-is-whatever-and-I’ll-be-your-server-tonight spiel. When she said her name the sound was only tentatively related to the letters on the tag. But that seems to be more and more prevalent these days. Then she opened her mouth again.

“And how are we doing tonight?”

This “we” nonsense is also something becoming more and more prevalent with the wait staff at restaurants. It grates on my grammarian snobbery like a million fingernails dragging across a million blackboards and truncates the natural romance of a dinner out faster than if they were playing Sonny and Cher as background music in the restaurant. I’m not sure if the wait-person thinks that by insinuating themselves into your group you will give them a bigger tip or what. I just know that the only thing that keeps me from saying “We are fine but you’re just the waiter so we don’t give a flying rat’s ass how you are” is the certain knowledge that they will spit in the gravy just before bringing my dinner out. I think they must be trained to say the “we” thing because, all around us, the other waiters and waitresses were making similar inquiries of newly seated diners.

I did some checking around and the websites I found were about equally split between those who think this pandering egalitarian assumption is okay, particularly in websites targeted to servers whose Green Cards might be suspect, and those who propose that anybody asking the “we” question should be taken out and shot. Sadly, it’s also cropping up in other environments as well. I walked into a music shop a couple of weeks ago looking for a set of congas to go along with my newly acquired Salsa persona. The shopkeeper came up and asked me the “we” question. Not worrying about having my gravy spit in freed me to offer an appropriate rejoinder after which I walked out of the shop.

I think I might have some issues I need to deal with. I’ll have to look into that as that might be something fun to blog about.

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, other than the initial greeting, things went well, the food was excellent and Athelia, Alethia, Atillia or however the hell she pronounced her name provided wonderful service and avoided saying “we” for the rest of the meal.

The next day, with me now fully recovered from my brush with land management, we returned to sunny Bainbridge Island. As we drove up the lane we both sensed something amiss.

“Where’s the garden?”

“Dunno, it was here when we left.”

A few months back as a sort of toe-dip into the waters of growing things we put in a little garden. There wasn’t much there and it wasn’t doing all that well due to the sunny, hot, and dry weather the area is noted for, but we were proud of what managed to survive: a row of peas and beans, some squash, beets and carrots, and a patch of salad greens. In our absence it looked like somebody had fired up the tractor, set the mower on the lowest setting, and drove it back and forth until nothing was left but green stubble. But those weren’t tire tracks.

They were the dainty hoof-prints of the evil blacktail deer.

Forget about Bambi. The reality of the situation is that, primarily due to humanity’s propensity for cutting down every tree in site and filling the empty space with carefully manicured lawns, deer are more abundant now than they were before the country was stolen from its rightful owners. The vast emerald landscape of golf courses and subdivisions that stretch from sea to shining sea is the perfect environment for the tick encrusted ruminants. They favor the open spaces as it allows them full use of their getaway speed to escape the few remaining predators that are not packing thirty-aught-sixes. With their historically unprecedented freedom of movement they are able to travel about at will spreading disease and devouring carefully tended gardens, like ours.

I mean, really, they even ate the flowers.

In my rage I looked for a way to exact my revenge. Guns were out. It wasn’t hunting season and, given my ability with things mechanical, I was more likely to shoot myself in the foot than actually bring firepower to bear on the encroaching herd. I looked into “deer fences”, which seemed to have the requirement that it be both eight-feet tall and buried in the ground as the wily browsers are able to both leap over and tunnel under conventional fences. Finally, the words “baited fence” showed up in one of my online search results.

Initially this seemed counter-intuitive. If I am trying to repel the deer, why would I want to first attract them? As I looked more closely it all made perfect sense. The “bait” is actually a deer-irresistible liquid that smells like apples. You put the liquid on cotton balls which are stuffed into little metal caps and hang the caps on an electric fence. The theory is that the deer sniff the apples, walk up to the fence, and take a lick. The non-lethal jolt of electricity they get is enough to convince them that maybe they don’t like apples as much as they thought and that they should take their vegetative depredations down the road to the neighbor’s garden.

But I wanted more. I wanted the four-legged vandals to feel my pain. I wanted them to wish they had never stumbled into our garden. So I started shopping for the fence components but just before I clicked on the “Confirm Order” button I did what every red-blooded American would do when faced with a similar situation: I put a check in the little box that said “Supersize My Order”.

When the boxes begin arriving next week I’ll have all the components for building a fence that even James Bond wouldn’t go near without rubber gloves and insulated wire cutters. It will be baited with the luscious apple goo. It will have sneaky high-voltage wires close to the ground to prevent tunneling. There will be charged conductors high and low. And the whole thing will be energized with some nine-thousand volts of electricity and enough power to energize thirty miles of fence. That should be enough to set some sparks flying from the tips of Bambi’s antlers.

Once the garden is secure I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep better at night. It may seem like overkill to me now but eventually we’ll need to protect the garden and orchard from the deer, the honey-filled bee hives from the bears, and the chickens from the marauding coyotes. Jeez, that sounds like a lot of work. I think I might need another vacation.