A big day at the farm

Even when her request for the visit went from the initial and painless “We could just drive past and look at it, just on the road, you see, we wouldn’t have to actually come down the driveway,” (no problem!) to “Amy, please do keep your prepared comments down to 20 minutes or less–” (problem!).

“Prepared comments?” I sputtered, putting down the ‘phone. Gosh, I am not a public speaker and the thought of standing in front of twenty-some interns with a prepared speech turned me quivery and pale. I felt rising nausea and the beginnings of a sick headache, just thinking about it. Yikes. I was in trouble.

“Amalia,” I stammered, once I could find my voice again. “She wants me to speak. Sarah does. Like, out loud. To a whole bunch of people. Strangers. And I thought she was my friend. You know how sucky I am at public speaking.”

“Mom. You teach speech. And drama,” she pointed out, irrelevantly, “and I can’t believe you just said ‘sucky’”

“I know!” I wailed. “I am so distraught that I don’t know what I’m saying!”

“Mom,” Amalia continued, with a careless flip of her braids, “you like to talk about your garden to anybody. Just talk about your garden.” That sustained me. She had a point, as she so often does. I could do it. I’d simply talk about my garden. That didn’t sound so scary. And the hoop house, which basically houses the best part of my garden, anyway. I felt better. Mollified. For awhile.

The morning came. I tried to be calm.

Actually, I had other things to think about that morning, as well, so I was distracted enough not to obsess over the sucky job I would certainly do with my speaking gig. For example, I made a nice discovery–through my friend Gene–that big city chefs like weird, beautiful new things and what a coincidence that I like to grow so many weird and beautiful new things. Gene assured me that he could sell my borage blossoms to chefs that he markets to, so I pleased myself by picking borage blossoms first thing that morning, and getting them into the ‘fridge.

Pretty sweet way to spend a bit of time, first thing in the morning, if you ask me.

How nice that borage comes up volunteer in my garden every spring and that I’m so foolishly fond of it that I don’t weed it all out. (And note, Rose, how deep is that mulch!? Deep!)

I’m so glad that God invented the color blue. The shade of blue that makes up borage blossoms is the most gorgeous color. Bar none. Thank you, God! I am grateful every day, every moment, that God didn’t just choose to make the world in blacks and whites and grays.

Don’t you agree?

Or else . . . none of this!

Exquisite little blue stars. Now and then one will have a bit of purple in it.

So, that morning, I was cool and calm and collecting my borage blossoms. No. Problem. Like I had nothing at all in the world to dread or feel uncomfortable about.

But then I remembered. And when the caravan of vehicles showed up on the road and made its way down my driveway, yikes. Butterflies. My head started throbbing suddenly behind one temple. However. I took myself in hand, took a deep breath–once all the interns were assembled and staring at me–and I started talking about my garden. The one in the high tunnel. To all the scary strangers.

On the other hand, these beautiful little Indigo tomatoes looked quite happy. Content. Satisfied in their severely-prunedness. Kinda carefree. They are living a minimalist lifestyle, which is quite trendy these days (I hear). Gene assured me that he would allow leaves to grow, eventually. And he does seem to know what he’s doing. (Whatever, Gene!)

I guess purple is a popular color for veggies to wear this year!