One week ago today, well into a long lasting heat wave, I got up at dawn so I could get a few hours of weeding in before it got too hot. After two hours of mud weeding (that's what I call it when it is too wet to use a tool), every item of my clothing was as wet as if I had jumped into a pond. Dew and sweat and mud. Disgusting.
The next day I did the same thing, but with a group of willing workers. We weeded until the humidity was too thick to go on. Again, the pond soaked our clothes.
The third day was the same. We got a lot done. We were feeling optimistic about making headway on the weeds -- it was dry enough to use a tool.
On Thursday Jon and I skipped town for a day, but there weren't enough workers to continue the weeding. We were into the picking part of the week, and the weeds were given free rein for a few days.
Those weeds are much on my mind. But it has rained four more inches since we last had a chance to get out there so we are back to no tools, and in fact it is too wet to venture into the fields at all.
As it happens, today is Rosh Hashanah. I got up late, read my stories for book club, lounged in the hot tub, and ignored the weeds. All day today I will ignore the weeds. I will sit and sing with my choir friends while the weeds grow.
The problem is, there is a hurricane expected at the end of this week. The weeds are definitely getting the upper hand.
When I started to write this, I was going to talk about the feeling of slipping into an alternate reality with this holiday right in the middle of everything. And about how it feels suddenly like the off season. But it turns out, that was just aspirational -- thinking that I could successfully take myself out of one reality and put myself fully into Jewish time. In a couple of hours, I will be able to do that. But at this moment, my mind is fully on the fields that are filling up with galansoga and pigweed and grass.
I haven't even got to the part about strategizing for the hurricane. It's too early for that.
