1 September 2010

The asparagus almost drove me mad today. The vegetable has already been harvested, but a farmer will leave behind several crowns and what’s left is allowed to grow into tall stalks with fern-like tufts at the top. The overgrown vegetable, to me, resembles papyrus. I was to weed the asparagus patch today—after I watered various plants, stripped three apple trees of their fruit, and weeded several vegetable beds—paying careful attention to the invasive dandelions especially. I was even given a tool to pull up the dandelions: a long, straight metal rod with a flat, fork-like end that you drive down into the soil alongside the dandelion’s roots and use to work the weed out of the ground. I lasted for one row. It wasn’t the scorching noon sun overhead or the still air or the stubborn weed (I was actually quite good with the dandelion-remover tool). It was the incessant, feathery brush of the asparagus’ fronds against my skin—it made me feel as if things were crawling over my flesh, no matter how much I swatted away the drooping plants. By the end of one long row, I was dizzy and had this driving urge to leap to my feet, claw at my skin, and scream at the top of my lungs over and over again. Thankfully, I was able to resist such impulses, but I refused to finish weeding the asparagus bed. Instead, I moved to the strawberry patch.

When Tim found me an hour later meticulously weeding the strawberries and asked about the asparagus, I explained to him my predicament. He just looked at me as if I were an idiot—or in need of a straight jacket. But there wasn’t anything crawling on you, he pointed out obtusely, so you’re just going to have to get used to it. I refused stubbornly, albeit silently. He had the same reaction when I told him I was uncomfortable climbing the rickety A-frame ladders to pick fruit from the tops of the trees. I’m not known for my gracefulness or coordination. His response: Well, stay up there until you get comfortable. I wanted to fall off the stupid contraption just to prove my point and say I told you so.

The last few days have been uncharacteristically warm for this time of year in Maine—upper eighties and into the nineties. And since my apartment is on the second floor and has no air conditioner, it’s been miserably hot here. This is my own private, sweltering doldrum. I can understand why the ancient mariner shot the albatross.

Where are those blustering nor’easters? Those fearsome blizzards? I mean, the weather was one of my top reasons for moving to New England…