Picking up the vegetables

Wednesdays are CSA days. She drives to the farm with her bags, picks up the week's produce from a structure that has yet to be roofed, while the gingerbread boys feed the goats grass they pluck from the edge of the fencing.

This week: swiss chard, scallions, garlic scapes, beets, mesclun, red lettuce, green lettuce. Driving down the pitted dirt road back home, she realizes how similar farming is to writing. The work is never done. There's always something to do.

The soil preparation. The plowing. The seeding. The composting. The praying for rain and sunshine. The weeding, the pruning.

It's all the same.

The outlining. The research. The character building. The world building. The praying for inspiration. The revision.

Does the farmer get discouraged like she does? Does it rain when he wants sun? Does the sun shine down in harsh rays when he hopes for rain? Do his seeds rot in the ground? Are his plants overrun with slugs the way her brain feels overrun with slugs?

Hm.

She turns off the dirt road back onto the paved road, and continues the drive home, the gingerbread boys plotting what we'll eat first.*

She could only wish the fruits of her cerebral farming were as crisp as what she picks up each week.

*Garlic scape pesto, red leaf lettuce salad with scallions.

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