Moving Poop

The vegetable garden.

The vegetable garden.

Saturday. I’m up at the crack of dawn. There’s a big pile of cow and pig poop waiting for me to move, shovel by bitter shovel, from ground to wheelbarrow and then back to the earth. The Larsons, the folks who mow and bale hay from the field surrounding our home on the Cloquet River, dropped off a mountain of aged shit for me to consider. Free of charge. Sustenance for the soil as payment for feed for their cattle. I stand in the cool early morning air sipping coffee, thinking of how many wheelbarrows of decaying dung it will take to cover my modest vegetable plot. Steam rises from the cup. I spray myself with DEET and fill up the Troy Bilt’s tiny tank with gasoline. I shove the throttle to “fast”, push the choke to “full”, and yank the starter rope. The old tiller coughs, then dies. Another pull and the eight horse idles like brand new.

I till the sandy, largely inert topsoil of the land that I call home, working furrows into the hard, sandy loam. A flock of twenty mergansers, the males green headed, the females-dusky red, scuttles along the black surface of the river, heading downstream. The cause of the ducks’ retreat? Our nearly three-year-old black Labrador, Kena (pronounced “Keena”; Celtic for “the greatest champion”), is prancing along the top of the riverbank, searching for a tennis ball. She finds a dirty, torn up old specimen and, when I take a break from tilling, the sweat already streaking my face, she follows me, ball in mouth, insistent that I throw the disgusting sphere. I do, and, instantly realize my mistake. Labradors are notoriously persistent. I have started a game that will endure longer than my patience.

I approach my blue Pacifica, intent on unloading dog food, bird food, and assorted sundries from the van. But I’d left the ignition key in the “on” position overnight and the battery is deader than a fence post. I wander into the garage, find the battery charger and attempt to charge the Pacifica. There’s so much oxidation built up on the terminals, the battery won’t accept a charge. I unhook the battery, removed the bolts and nuts that retain the cables and bring them into the house for cleaning. There’s no baking soda to be found, the cure for oxidation, one of the few mechanical tips passed down to me by my very non-mechanical father. Rene’ will pick up soda at Super One and later in the afternoon, I’ll clean the parts, clean the terminals, and successfully start the Pacifica. But now, as cool morning air gives way to swelter, I’m content to hook up the charger. I unload the van through the passenger doors, which, thankfully given the locks are electric, were unlocked. Kena nudges my thigh, ball clenched in mouth, as I climb a ladder and fill a bird feeder with seed. I toss the ball and try to finish my chore before the Lab returns. The feeders have already attracted a purple finch, a pair of goldfinches, assorted wrens, sparrows, blue jays, bluebirds and other birds. I’m hoping for more; perhaps the return of that solitary indigo bunting we saw a few years’ back, the most beautiful bird I’ve ever seen in real life. He was here just the one time and hasn’t returned. But one can always hope.

The plot completely tilled, I begin moving the poop. It’s then I realize that I’ve made my job incrementally harder. Damn, I think, struggling to push a loaded wheelbarrow through loose soil, I should have waited until after I’d moved the shit to till.

The heat intensifies. There are no clouds. Birdsong fills the air. Horse flies and deer flies have not yet hatched and it’s too warm for mosquitoes to pester me as I stagger through the swelter. Load by load, my ruined knees bearing the weight, I push through the loamy earth, stop and toss shovel after shovel of rotting excrement onto exhausted soil. I’ve been at this for 33 summers; first at the garden we inherited from the former owners of this land, the Drews, and for the past 17 years, here, working new ground I tilled up with the Troy Bilt on the site of our new home. A pair of sandhills cranks away, too high and too distant to for me to see. A bald eagle drifts above the river, scanning for fish. A pair of mallards bursts from forest, leaving a small seasonal pond behind, a tiny bowl of water that once hosted our young sons and their friends on ice skates. Boys. There are none left around here to help move poop. The three oldest are living lives with partners other than their parents. Jack is away at Camp Ripley, participating in Army drill weekend. Truth be told, none of the boys ever really helped all that much in the vegetable garden. Fertilizing, planting, weeding, and harvesting, with rare exception, have always been the province of Rene’ and me. I break for lunch, my arms tired, my knee braces; the one on the left protecting a bone on bone joint that needs replacing; the one on the right bracing a torn meniscus that needs surgery; and fill a water bottle with ice and tap water. Kena sits on the front porch, ball in mouth. Waiting.

Rene’ is otherwise occupied, cleaning out the rock garden that defines our front yard. She’s hard at it, laying down a new pond liner in one of the fountain pools and patching the other pond basin with concrete. Back at the poop pile, the Labrador insists on another toss. I chuck the ball from the top of the brambled riverbank, the pitch so steep, a man can’t climb it without grasping the shoots of aspen, pine, birch, and balsam that hold the slope together. Kena pounces through thicket and plows into the cold, black water. Once. Twice. Three times I toss the ball and still, she appears at my feet, eyes expectant, ball waiting on the ground between her paws, eager for another go.

By dinnertime, the pile of shit is nearly gone. The garden has been revitalized. Rene’ calls The Eagle’s Nest and orders burgers. I shower and, with the Pacifica’s battery reconnected, drive to Fish Lake to pick up our food. While the cook finishes up, I sit at the bar sipping ice cold tap beer and wonder how many years my body will let me garden.

Peace.

Mark

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About Mark

I'm a reformed lawyer and author.
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