Dog Days on Cumberland: Keep on Trucking

Tuesday, mid-August—It is just one of those days. I think all farmers and small business-folks and anyone with ambitious schedules suffer through exasperating mornings where everything that can go wrong does. And then it does again.

Greyfield has just finished two weeks of “haul out.” Every year in the middle of the Dog Days swelter, the inn shuts down to undergo a complete cleaning and refurbishment. Carpets are rolled, furniture moved, and rooms broken down to clean every nook and corner, dust every book spine and seashell fragment. A small band of painters stays on the island throughout scraping and putting a new bright coat on the building’s exterior. By the end of it, Greyfield has received a first class makeover. She seems to know it, too, preening a little bit more than normal in the late summer sun.

Collapsed tomatoes with driftwood stakes in the background.

The garden needs its own haul out, which I’ve been trying to accomplish bit by bit each day. Honestly, it’s a mess. The heat has stricken most of the beds, leaving sad clumps of dead plants and dry root balls. Many of the boards framing those beds are rotten. The palm arbor over the worm bin has fallen in. And the driftwood that had served as tomato stakes have finally given up their tenuous position in the sandy rows. Those not lying on their faces are fractured and crumbling. The tomatoes, consequently, have taken quite a sprawling stumble.

On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got a chaos of weeds. The canna lilies and luffa vines are conspiring to take over the entire garden. The dollar weeds, with runners spreading out just below the soil’s surface, are their pawns. Elsewhere, melons and squash shoot fifteen yards in every direction. They insinuate themselves amongst the strawberries, okra, cherry tomatoes, heirloom cotton, and cosmos. They wrap together in a huge net trapping the best, most fertile part of the garden. The weeds around them are almost accessible, and any attempt at hand-pulling usually means the sacrifice of some big, funky African squash.

Cosmos and African squash running amuck.

T.S. Eliot, no doubt shut in by yet another rainy day in London, began The Waste Land thusly: “April is the cruelest month…..” Obviously, he’d never visited Cumberland Island in July or August, where the calendar gets downright villainous.

Of course, when everything beyond human control would seem to be so inclement—and there’s so much to do, nothing on this bright morning will come easily. The problem is the tiller, mainly. Having been stored up for a few months, it’s hardly prepared to be unleashed furiously upon the weeds like a Shakespearian dog of hell. First, the fuel tank is empty. No problem, right? Actually, yes. Besides the Park Service, Greyfield Inn has the only fuel dispensary on the island. A combination lock secures the pump, its code a closely guarded secret—which as a new employee, I am not yet privy to. Second, after filling up a small gas can and returning to the dark shed where the tiller is stored, I find that the tire is flat—so flat, in fact, it’s no longer attached to the rim.

By now, it’s ten o’clock, and the sun’s turning on the broiler. I’ve got to manhandle this hulking tiller to pull it out of the shed and remove the wheel. I’ve got to root in the shop for Come Alongs, chains, or straps of some kind. Then, I’ll pray that I can get the tire tight enough on the rim to create a seal. If all goes right, I’ll have air in the tire and the wheel back on within the hour. If not, who knows? Worst case scenario, I send it on the next boat to Fernandina to be repaired, and I get it back tomorrow.

(Most creative scenario, I pour gasoline on the wheel, set it on fire, and watch the flames seal the tire to the rim by eating up the oxygen inside. My brother did this once. I saw the tire shoot ten feet up in the air. The rubber went up in a blaze half that high. But he got his seal, albeit charred. And on second thought, I will not be attempting this solution.)

This too shall pass, as Solomon says. The situation is not impossible. It’s just going to take a lot of sweat and a lot more water. All the obstacles and inconveniences are going to feel magnified by the stifling heat and the relentless bugs. But I’m not deterred. I’m just going to remember these frustration as I look over the garden in October and November, the shimmering kale leaves, and think what hard work brought such beautiful results.

This too shall pass. Or as another wise man once said, keep on trucking.