I really like staking tomatoes. After a day of pulling weeds, in the heat, it is a very relaxing job. Especially when a late afternoon storm is coming. You can see dark, heavy clouds in the west, and it is so quiet that you can hear bees in the tomato flowers. There is no other noise around.

This quiet and these tomatoes remind me of one poem by Czesław Miłosz, “A Song On the End of the World” where, in the final lines, an old man binds his tomatoes, saying that there won’t be an other end of the world, beside the one which is happening right now. No lightning, no archangels’ trumps will be heard. Just a normal, quiet, lazy afternoon, bees and the smell of tomatoes.

But today it will rain at least, hopefully. In such dry conditions I usually throw popcorn at the TV, when the weather guy sadly announces a chance of clouds and rain. And then he tries to raise everybody’s spirits up, predicting another sunny weekend afterwards. But he does not think about farmers by saying that. “There will be no rain this summer, let’s dance and clap, because drought will decrease the yield, and that will cause an increase of food prices; it is soo good.”

There won’t be an other end of the world.

I was at the county fair for the first time. Funnel cakes and lemonade I have seen before, in an amusement park I used to work at, in Denver. But the rest was pretty much extraordinary for me. Like all these tractors, Farmalls, John Deeres, Internationals, Allis Chalmerses, most of which made before I was even planned to be born, some were made before my parents were born.

My wife and I signed up to win a tractor. We bought a 1 dollar chance, so maybe, if we are lucky, we will drive a brand old Oliver in the fall.

We looked into an old schoold building, there were small wooden desks for each kid, with a hole for black ink I guess, and there was a recitation bench, which I passed with a thrill, even now, being a graduate.

And there was a small house from the 19th century. It smelled like old wood inside, old kitchen tools. It had one big kitchen slash living room slash bedroom downstairs, and two small bedrooms upstairs, with wooden commode by the stairs. Something new for me. It was a reminder that there was something before airconditioned, 3 garage houses around here.

It was a rodeo night and a guitar hero game night. But we never got to those attractions. It’s all because of a sheep. While we were oh-ing and auh-ing at those nice black and gray creatures in the county fair barn, one stressed out sheep just turned back and fetilze our clothes and skin. Maybe it was because of the shearing contest. Who knows. But we decided to see the rodeo next year.

Our tomatoes are getting ready!

Last week, 7/10, we went to an estate sale at a farm by Fairmont. We found there many usefull and used tools, like walking cultivator from 1930’s, a bit newer hose on wheels, buttons, and among others stakes, just perfect for our tomato bushes. They were getting a bit out of control on the ground.

Staking will help them grow and prevent fruits from laying on the ground.

“I’ve got blisters on my fingers” Ringo Starr said once after recording “Helter Skelter”, my favourite song of the Beatles. What a coincidence when I am saying that after picking and squishing beetles, cucumber beetles.

In growing vegetables organically it is not that easy with pests. In the conventional way there are many conventional weapons against insects that let farmers sleep tight. For us there is not a lot of that good stuff which “Kills’em all”, to use my other favorite band’s album title.

Beneficial insects could help, for example lady bugs. Although I have seen 3 lady bugs this spring so far, maybe even the same one 3 times.

So I am becoming a master of squishing the bugs, and I am getting more blisters from it, and in general, from farming. But when you think of people who get or used to get blisters on their fingers, beside Ringo, there are or were Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, Brett Favre, Fryderyk Chopin, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway (if using typewriter). I am among the coolest then.