Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin

Sisyphus, Beans, Zucchini, and a Pumpkin

“Who will help me plant the wheat?”

“Not I… Not I… Not I… Not I.”

-The Little Red Hen

Herb missed his time. He couldn’t forge his way through the Kentucky wilderness with Daniel Boone, roam the Plains with Buffalo Bill in search of life-sustaining game, or team up with Lewis and Clark to blaze a trail across an untamed land. With his fanciful imagery of the rugged individual vs. the land, he even sometimes (with an assist from Camus’ take on Sisyphus- the struggle is what gives our lives meaning) thought he would have preferred the life of Tom Joad over the plight of a caged-in-cubicle accountant.) An outlet to fill the void was hard to come by.

Years of dealing with arbitrary rules and regulations contrived by man left Herb with a passion for the real. He yearned for a basic, direct connection with the world, a raw challenge that would give him a feeling of purpose and accomplishment. Man against nature seemed like a good possibility.

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“Marge, how about we go camping this weekend?”

“What?”

“Camping, you know, get out and commune with nature, smell the evergreens, hear the sounds of a babbling brook, see some birds. The kids will love it.”

“Matt went camping with the Boy Scouts once, came home with poison ivy, and hated it. Rachel won’t go unless she can bring her TV, curling iron, and bed with the pillow-top mattress. Besides, we don’t have a tent or anything we’d need. And if you make me go, I’ll divorce you and rip your eyes out in court. Other than that, it sounds like a great idea.”

“Uh… never mind.”

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“I’ll be back before dinner.”

“Where are you going, Herb?

“Hiking.”

“What?”

“I’m going to go hiking in the Kettle Moraine State Park.”

“What? Herb, you can barely walk to the mail box and back. Are you out of your mind?”

“I’ll be back.”

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“Herb! What happened?”

“I’m fine. I just got a little mixed up with the colored-coded posts marking the trails, me being color blind and all.”

“You were on the ten o’clock news, Herb. They say it took one hundred searchers, four dogs, and a helicopter to find you.”

“Yeah… that was a little embarrassing. How did I look on TV?”

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“Jesus Christ, Herb! What the hell do you have there?!”

“It’s my shotgun. Twelve gauge, isn’t she a beaut?”

“What in God’s name are you going to do with a shotgun?”

“My cousin Ralph has a piece of land up north. We’re going to go deer hunting. No more getting ripped off at City Market. From now on, this family will sustain itself with Deadeye Herb and my 12-gauge bringing home wild game… deer, rabbits, ducks, geese…”

“You’re out of your mind. Have you ever even shot a gun?”

“No… not yet, but Ralph is taking me to a shooting range this afternoon. I’m pretty excited about it.”

“Oh, my God.”

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“You’re home early.”

“Gees, did you ever hear the sound of a shotgun blast? It scared the bejessus out of me. And I think I dislocated my shoulder.”

“So, is the Great White Hunter retiring already? What a shame. I was just looking up recipes for venison stew.”

“Not funny, Marge. I was thinking of going the route of the Asian diet anyway, you know, lots of fish. I’m heading over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to get some fishing gear. Ralph says I can borrow his boat.”

“Herb, you’re afraid of the water.”

“The greater the challenge, the greater the reward, Marge.”

“You'd better get a life jacket… a big one…. Popeye.”

“Not funny, Marge.”

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Herb’s fishing excursion didn’t go well. He didn’t realize that cousin Ralph had removed the boat’s drain plug at the end of last season, and Ralph’s heavily financed and uninsured prized 16’ Bass Boat sank just a stone’s throw from the launch.

“What?!! You sank my boat?!! You stupid %#@! moron.”

“I wasn’t properly instructed, Ralph.”

“Aah!!!!!!”

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Having struck out on all known outdoorsy, manly activities designed to reconnect one with Mother Earth, Herb sulked around the house for days.

“I’m a failure, Marge. I couldn’t do anything right. I just wanted a challenge, something like man against nature, you know, trying my hand at living off the land.”

Marge was sympathetic… to a degree.

“Herb… honey, you’re not a … complete failure.”

Sometimes fate has a way of intervening. After returning home after a hard, boring day at work, Herb mindlessly turned on the TV. He caught the end of a garden center commercial.

“A garden! That is the definition of living off the land!”

Herb’s spirits soared. A garden. Right there at home. No risk of injury or the emotional scars of humiliation for yet another failure. Man against the land.

The tradition was born.

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“I’ve called this family meeting to educate you all on the importance of farming. This direct relationship with Mother Earth will provide us with all the vegetables this family needs. It is an honorable profession, and our efforts will also build character and provide a sense of accomplishment at harvest time.”

“Dad, are you talking about the stupid garden Mom told us about?”

“Yes… well, I mean, it is about the garden… but it is not a stupid garden, Matt. You and Rachel will learn a great deal about life as you watch tiny seeds grow into a bountiful garden.”

“Dad, did you know they sell vegetables at City Market?”

“Yes, Rachel, I did know that, but planting and harvesting our own crops will be so much more rewarding. You and Matt will learn the lesson that hard work pays off… and we’ll save a bundle of money.”

“Dad, you know I’m not a big fan of vegetables, so you can count me out.”

(That was Matt’s standard refrain when confronted with any activity deemed undesirable. “Matt, hurry up or we’ll be late for church.” - “I feel sick today, so you can count me out.” “Matt, you need to pick up the dog poop in the backyard today.” - “Oh, shucks, I twisted my ankle this morning, so you can count me out.”)

“Sorry, Matt, this will be a family enterprise. The Farnsworth Family Garden will become as much of a wonderful childhood memory as Thanksgiving and Christmas. We start tomorrow.”

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“You bought a rototiller? Why not just rent one?”

“This is a multiyear project, Marge. This will save a bundle in the long run.”

“Or maybe use a shovel. You could use the exercise.”

“Don’t go there, Marge. I see you haven’t been making much use of the weight loss classes I got you for our anniversary last year.”

“What a great anniversary gift that was. Nothing makes a woman’s heart flutter like the gift of weight loss classes.”

“Cost me two hundred bucks.”

“Whatever. Where are you putting your stupid garden?”

“It is not a stupid garden, Marge… and it’s going to be between the swingset and the oak tree. That’s the only place I can have a really big garden.”

“Herb, that’s also the only area in the yard that doesn’t get any sun.”

“The bigger the challenge, Marge, the bigger the reward.”

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The night before the great garden prep and seeding, Herb sat down with Matt and Rachel at their kitchen counter and ran through his checklist of all things necessary for a successful garden- tools, hoses, seed packets, Miracle-Gro, and gardening gloves.

“Here, you guys can take your gloves now.”

“Dad, these are girl gloves.”

“No, they're not, Matt.”

“They have little bunnies on them.”

“They were on sale.”

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“First, a short prayer.”

“What?”

“We need to pray for a successful growing season, Matt.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding. That’s what the early pioneers did. I Googled it last night.”

Herb bowed his head.

“ Dear God, please bless this land that we have chosen for our garden. Open the heavens and send your nourishing rains to moisten the soil to nourish their roots, and may your glorious rays of sunshine give our crops the energy to grow from tiny seeds to a bountiful crop. We dedicate our efforts to you, our Lord and Savior. P.S. It would be great if I got a good pumpkin.”

“Would either of you like to add something? Rachel?”

“Not really.”

“Matt?”

“God and I aren’t all that tight, Dad. You might want to count me out.”

“Not funny, Matt. Grab a rake.”

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The temperature hit a record high that day. Matt raked, Herb tilled, and Rachel wrote the names of the plants on those little popsicle stick things.

“Matt, we still have some clumps of dirt. We need to keep breaking them up with our shovels.”

“I think it’s good enough, Dad.”

“Nope. It needs to be finer. I Googled it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake…”

Herb laid out the rows with his measuring tape, Rachel stuck those little popsicle stick things at the head of each row, and Matt cut open the first packet of seeds- beans.

“You’re planting them too deep, Matt! What are you doing? You just need one inch of dirt over them.”

“I thought you said one foot.”

“Oh my goodness. Do I have to do everything?”

“I’m good with that.”

“Rachel, don’t dump the whole seed packet in one spot.”

“I thought I’d grow one really big plant.”

“Matt, go get the hoses and set up the sprinkers.”

“Dad, it’s supposed to rain next week, so I don’t think we need to do that.”

Herb understood early in the process that his workforce was either less than dedicated to the task or incompetent. Nonetheless, after a day of hard toil under the hot sun, raking, tilling, and planting, Herb stepped back and admired their creation. He had done something basic, meaningful, manly, and rewarding.

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“Sprouts! We have sprouts!”

“That’s what’s supposed to happen, Herb.”

“And you said my garden wouldn’t work without sun. Ha!”

“Herb, the seeds don’t need the sun. The plants do.”

“Seeds, plants, whatever. You just don’t want to admit when you’re wrong.”

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A month later, weeding, watering, and hopeful prayer weren’t yielding the results Herb expected. He grudgingly acknowledged, only to himself, that Marge might have had a point when she said a vegetable garden needs sun.

“Dad, it’s been a month. Shouldn’t we be seeing some growth or something?”

Herb added more Miracle-Gro and ran home during his lunch hour to add more water. No improvement. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Despite his best efforts to conceal his intentions, Herb was caught red-handed.

“Herb!”

“What… dear?”

“What in God’s name are you doing with a chainsaw?!”

“Nothing.”

“If you harm one leaf on that oak tree to get more sunlight on your stupid garden, I’ll divorce you and rip your eyes out in court.”

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As the plants struggled to gain altitude, Herb recalled Ray Croc’s recipe for success- persistence. He battled the shade, locust-like insects that had a taste for beans, a 28-day dry spell, and voracious varmints that regularly patrolled the area at night in search of anything green to munch on. It was Ahab vs. the Great White Whale, Javert pursuing Jean Valjean, Leiningen vs. the Ants. Setback after setback, Herb would not surrender to the elements. In a move that could only be described as desperate, Herb placed little mirrors all around his yard in hopes of deflecting much-needed sunlight in the direction of his energy-starved plants. The effort only drew chuckles from Marge as she peered out her kitchen window.

The garden’s yield that first year was paltry by any horticultural measure- a handful of beans, a few cucumbers, four tomatoes, two peppers, a couple of onions, and one sorry-looking pumpkin. The softball-sized pumpkin was downright depressing as Herb had dreamed of growing, nurturing, harvesting, and carving his very own pumpkin ever since he was a little boy.

Still, as disappointing as it was, Herb had a crop to harvest.

“Matt, Rachel, you’d better get a good night’s sleep tonight. We harvest the crops tomorrow!”

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Suppertime. Despite the disappointing harvest, Herb was beaming as he brought the bowl of beans to the table.

“Matt, Rachel, I counted out the beans. We each get three. Well, there were ten, so I’m giving myself the extra bean, I mean, the whole thing was my idea… and, you know, I was the chief architect and all. Marge, you didn’t help with the garden, so you don’t get any. Ha!”

“Oh, that hurt, Herb. I’ll just have to settle for a 14-ounce can of beans or the bundle of asparagus I got at City Market.”

“Not fresh, Marge, not fresh.”

If you were a bean, Herb, do you know what kind of bean you’d be? A has-bean. Ha, ha, ha…”

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A year of experience behind him, Herb was brimming with confidence the following spring.

“Guess what time it is, kids. It’s planting time again!”

“Herb, please don’t make them work on your stupid garden again this year.”

“They're learning life skills, Marge, things they wouldn’t learn from books or in a classroom.”

“Life skills? What kind of life skills?

“Well, let’s say the kids survive a plane crash in the Andes and have to survive for months in the wilderness. I bet they’d be happy they know how to grow their own food.”

“Oh, my God.”

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And so it went, year after year, Herb dragging two unwilling participants to the nearly barren plot of land under the spreading oak tree. Every year, Herb met new challenges- an attempt by Matt to unionize the workers and demand compensation for their services, the dismantling of his watering system as Rachel and her friends rearranged the hoses to set up sprinklers they could run through on hot summer days, the nightly visits by unknown creatures that nibbled on promising vegetation, and the humiliation of ongoing ridicule from Marge for his repeated failures- but he never waivered in the mission.

He had some successes- bean crop increased from 10 beans to 17 beans the very next year and then to a very satisfying 31 (before plummeting to a disappointing 5 the year he broke his leg when he fell off the roof retrieving his Frisbee); 2 fully intact cucumbers one year; and one zucchini large enough for his mother-in-law to make her famous zucchini bread (which Herb hated). The Holy Grail of gardening, a respectable-sized pumpkin, continued to elude him.

“Herb, your pumpkin is smaller than a grapefruit. You’re going to need a surgeon’s scalpel and a magnifying glass to carve the darn thing. Ha, ha, ha.”

The worker bees grew more disinterested with every passing year.

“Dad, maybe we weren’t cut out for gardening. Let’s throw in the towel.”

“I know our crop yields have been disappointing, Matt, but you are learning basic skills that will come in handy in the future.”

“How’s that?”

“ Let’s say someday you want to live off the grid. You’ll thank me for the lessons learned here at the garden.”

“Dad, Susie says all the kids in the neighborhood make fun of your garden. She says her dad calls you Mr. Lean-Bean. Can’t we just quit?”

It wasn’t the words. He saw it in their eyes. It wasn’t defeat; they were never engaged in the battle in the first place. They were only conscripts forced to take on a challenge they had no interest in. He looked at the scraggly patch of land under the oak tree, and the feeling overwhelmed him. He wasn’t a heroic figure seeking some sort of noble conquest. He was the fool, Quixote battling windmills.

“I guess there’s no point to any of this. You’re right, Rachel, we can get all the vegetables we need at City Market.”

A broken man shuffled his way back to the house.

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After dinner, Herb walked out to the garden with a hoe and shovel. He thought the humane thing to do would be to quickly put any plants still showing signs of life out of their misery. He planted the shovel at the base of a promising pepper plant, put his foot on the shovel, and… he just couldn’t do it.

“We’ve spent too much time together. Let Nature take its course.”

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Herb stayed away from the garden. It was too painful to see his dream fading away. Sometime around mid-August, Herb sat a the dinner table looking wistfully at his store-bought green beans.

“Oh, Dad, I forgot to tell you. I think your pumpkin is getting bigger. I’m not sure.”

Herb dropped his fork.

“What did you say, Rachel?”

“I think the pumpkin is getting bigger.”

Herb leaped out of his chair and flew out the door. Under the light of the full moon, the pumpkin stood out like a light bulb. Rachel may not have been sure, but Herb was. Somehow, someway, while all the other vegetation withered and died, the lone pumpkin survived… and thrived. A miracle… or was it Herb’s prayer?

Herb’s first impulse was to bring a hose over and give it some water and maybe add a little Miracle-Gro. But then he realized that little pumpkin had made it this far on its own, and he decided it would be best to just let it be.

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It wasn’t the biggest, but it was the best. Herb beamed with pride as he was part of the winning team in the town's annual pumpkin carving contest. Rachel drew the face, and Matt did the carving, so they both appeared with Herb in the picture on the front page of the local paper.

It was the first time the town's taxidermist ever worked on a pumpkin.