TO MOVE A MOUNTAIN

11/13/98
My shovel bites into the chocolate-drop mountain of compost, transforming
it to a fudge frosting to be spread upon fluffy raised beds.
This is the final gardening chore of the year, a black blanket
before the white one soon to come. The vegetables and herbs
are spending the winter indoors, some frozen, some canned,
and some dehydrated. A root cellar, planned many years ago
is still only a hole in the ground but maybe next year
it will house the bushels of crops now filling the tool
shed. Pulled weeds are the beginnings of a new heap.The soil
has been forked to give air to the earthworms and other critters
of the dirt before being smothered in compost.

Surprised to find hundreds of red wigglers still moving, I
fill a coffee can for an unplanned fishing trip tomorrow. The
worms do not go unnoticed by our free-roaming flock of chickens.
They attack with gusto every time I push off with a fresh
load, reluctantly jogging to the side when I return. Already
coating two large beds is a layer of sand given to me by a
neighbor who just wanted it removed from his driveway after
installing a swimming pool. He ordered a tad too much. We
have already used some of the extra for horseshoe pits and sand
bags. You would be surprised how much traction a scoop of sand
gives a spinning tire. We keep a bag in every vehicle
during our long winters. The sand-covered beds are for next
season's carrot and potato patches. It helps them grow straighter
and larger.

Twenty overfilled wheelbarrows of compost didn't seem to make
a dent in the mountain but covered three beds with a six-inch
quilt. Compressed to half that height by spring time it
will provide plenty of nutrients to replace those deleted by
this year's harvest. A quarter of the garden is now ready for
winter.

11/14/98

Another day of shoveling and wheelbarrowing. The pile has
gone down noticeably today. Richard Dreyfuss would be proud
of my sculpture, which resembles his pile of mashed potatoes
in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The garden is now
half-way ready for its winter hibernation. The weather man
is calling for rains tomorrow, if it holds off I will move
another slice of the volcano
.

SONRISE