Farmer John Writes: So What if it’s Not Possible?

 In Farm News

Harvest Week 4, July 25th – 30th, 2022


Every Day

Every day an extraordinary amount of work gets done here, a blur of lean, sweaty and noble work. Last Wednesday we lifted the garlic, planning to have it field cure until late Friday morning, when, dry from sun and wind, we would gather it into cribs and cure it further with fans for several more weeks. On that Friday, we also planned to seed fall carrots, harvest the cucumbers, weed (mechanically cultivate) the squash, harvest basil. We had that full day of work planned for Friday, and, as usual, a full day of work planned for the Thursday before. On Thursday morning, rain was abruptly predicted for Thursday night. None of our plans for Friday would come to fruition after a rain. We can’t harvest basil wet, can’t harvest cucumbers or weed squash in the mud, can’t harvest the garlic wet. But, we had a full work day already planned for Thursday. How would we combine Friday’s work with Thursday’s work? We are already short staffed.

Victor Stands for Victory

I lamented this impossible situation to Victor. Victor characteristically said, “I gotcha covered.” 

Victor means it, when he says “I gotcha covered.”

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Victor is decisive

Victor had me covered—had you covered, my shareholder friends. 

I knew that what Victor was signing up for that Thursday was not possible; I also knew that Victor and his crew would get it done, no matter what, by the regular 4 o’clock quitting time. It would never cross Victor’s mind that it’s not fair; it’s exploitive; I won’t get paid extra for it; it’s not my fault that it’s going to rain—why am I being burdened with this? Perhaps the Department of Labor would object to it. Victor would just take it on as an exciting challenge.

Two days of work were done in one day last Thursday, because it needed to happen.