My Farm Crisis

 

My Farm Crisis

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You can take the girl out of the farm but you can’t take the farmer out of the girl. Okay, so I don’t really have a farm, but I have a lovely mango tree in my back yard, and therein, my farm crisis.

I’m standing at my window looking into my back yard at my mango tree, so loaded with fruit that we had to make stilts to keep the branches from breaking and to hold the fruit off the ground.

Today the reason I’m standing in my house looking out is that the rain, has not let up, cycling, ‘round and ‘round, through drizzle, mizzle and pizzle to light, moderate and unrelenting pounding, heavy on the pounding, all night and all day.

I love rain. You know I love rain. Every year I await our rainy season with fear and trepidation that after eight months dry, dry, dry, it will never rain again. Every year it rains again. Every year I love the rain all over again.

This year the rain came, daily, three weeks early. During sizzling heat of April and May I watched my tree form lovely mango fruits and grow them to size, almost ripe. With the rains, it seemed the green globes, which now should be yellow, quit changing. Quit growing. Quit coloring. Quit ripening.

Why? What’s wrong? Me, being who I am, I think I need to know why.

During lulls in rain, I moved around my tree, branch to branch, fondling the fruit. Any that felt almost ready to eat, emphasis on almost, I brought into the house to finish ripening. In that manner, one day I ate one mango, the next day two or three.

As a farmer facing an apparent bumper crop, forgive my mixing cliché and metaphor, I had been counting my chickens before they laid eggs. In my mind, I could see jars of yellow jam on my cupboard shelf, had gifted jars to all my neighbors, had filled bags of mango fruit in the freezer for future pies at community gatherings. Mango mania in my mind.

When I peeled my first basket of mangos, enough for a pie, I discovered that half were mushy and brown inside, despite feeling firm and looking perfect. Oops, no pie. Same disappointment the following day but with two days harvest, I had enough fruit for a pie to share with my neighbors. We love mango pie.

What I didn’t count on was that our early, daily, rain with cloudy skies, which brought on a lot of hallelujah and hoopla from me, also meant a 20-30 degree daily drop in temperature along with a serious drop in hours of sunshine and a halt in the ripening process of my mango fruit.

That’s my theory of why my mangos quit ripening. No worms. No bugs. Fruits are beautiful. Outside. Brown inside. My reasoning may be wrong, blaming the exuberant rain and lack of sun, but, my reasoning works for me.

I will not be totally bereft. I forced myself to lower my expectations. I’ll not make jam this year. Oh, I’ll have some mangos for the freezer. I’ll have a couple pies to take to community gatherings.  

You can truthfully tell me that I’m not having a real farm crisis. I’ll nod my head in agreement. But, dang it, it feels like a real crisis to me.

My herbs look good. The limes love the rain. The hibiscus, all colors, can hardly hold up their soggy heads but they keep trying. Those strange orange flowers, and the lantana and crepe myrtle, lilies and most other flowers are flourishing.

Silly me, to put all my hopes on my one mango tree. I know better. I should have bought a box when the truck from Tequila, where the yellow mangos I love ripen a month earlier than mine, sets up their stand along the highway.

What do all we farmers say when a crop fails? Oh, well. Shrug. Next year.

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

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