Folding

Anyone who plays poker has gotten a bad hand from time to time. The deal doesn’t always go your way, so you through in your cards. Hope for better luck and a shot at the pot next time.

The idea of folding—cutting your losses—applies well beyond card games. This summer, it came home to roost on the blueberry farm. The kind of drought that only hits once or twice a century settled into central Illinois for 2012. Well, really it started last year. Anyhow, after consulting with various luminaries in the horticultural sciences, I’ve learned plants are pretty big fans of water and are known to get down right mopey when they don’t get it. Add in the slightly less obvious consequences of an early spring and somewhat late frost as well as severe pruning; you get a recipe for sad sack blueberry bushes. 

The weather turned warm early in the northern Corn Belt this year. I remember doing survey work in late January through mid-February, driving around with the windows down and the scent of spring wafting on the breeze. Might have even noted that observation one too many times to keep my survey partner interested. Point is, the thaw and heat wake up plants that lie dormant over winter—like blueberry bushes, for example. Alone, it might just have meant an early season for the berries, maybe a better chance to beat Michigan to the markets—most berries come out of Michigan, wicked cheap. Put a semi-late frost into the mix, and you still get an early season but one with far less fruit. When the bushes wake up, they start to flower. Pollen attracts bees, which fly around, helping the bushes make sweet, sweet love to each other. The stomach of each blossom that gets knocked up during such spring time promiscuity gradually turns from an innie to an outtie, rolling back the base of its petals till they make the distinctive little crown worn by blueberries. Freezing temperatures kill the flowers before they can see their little ones grow. So it was this year. Many a blossoming young maiden fell to the patch floor, never knowing the touch of a bumblebee or the joy of motherhood. 

Now, it may seem morbid to talk about the plants in terms of mothers and children. But pour the sweat of your brow and strength of your back into caring for living, growing things and see if they don’t start to feel like family. Maybe I’m just strange. Maybe you wouldn’t get the same sentiment. Or maybe I’m not too out there, and you just might be moved to see the life cycle playing out, aided by your hands. Also possible your hands might do less clearly helpful things. Blueberry bushes like to be pruned, especially old ones. It can rejuvenate a patch to whack it back after years of neglect. However, that means fewer branches, branches that would have made blossoms. Take away the possibility of flowers, then have a frost kill a bunch of what did grow, and top it all off with an unrelenting drought… well, the result is a pretty trying time for a berry family, or (tying it back to the start) a real shit hand in the game of blueberry farming. 

It’s not just the berry farmers taking a hit this year, either. Droughts are hard on all growers. That’s part of life in agriculture. Some years are plentiful, some are not. An established farm can often handle those kinds of ups and downs. It gets more precarious when you extend yourself, take out a loan, arrange a lease, start a new venture. It’s sweet when you jump into an immediately lucrative situation, less so when it starts off rocky. The latter is what went down for my employer this season. It’s got him skittish, worried about his finances and family well-being. Though he’s already anted up—on the lease, the labor, all that jazz—to keep paying interns would be like raising the stakes. Sometimes that’s alright, when your hand is good enough. Sometimes it’s less attractive, like when your possible straight dissolved into naught. The blueberries are done for the year, our small gardens not nearly productive or lucrative enough to justify transportation and employee costs. Thus, my boss is folding, which means I’m out a job. 

In a couple days, I’ll be headed to Boise for the remainder of the summer, until Labor Day (does that count as ironic?), when I start the journey to Pennsylvania for my next job. Leaving things unfinished isn’t my favorite pastime, nor is mooching off my folks. Yet, I’m grateful to be able to spend some time in my hometown, see friends and family, get ready for the upcoming year. I’ll miss tending to and seeing the growth of our gardens. So many plants are just coming into fruit and ripening: pumpkins, squashes, zucchinis, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, amaranth, watermelon. It’s disappointing to think of them going uncared for, drying up and dying, or going to waste. Things don’t always work out like you plan, the old cliché goes. Hopefully the next deal finds me with better cards and a shot at the pot.