“I’m sitting here talking to my neighbor who
just sold her house.”
(“Hi, Thurman!” my neighbor
hollers from her side of the couch.)
It was a
bittersweet conversation Thurman interrupted. On the one hand, I am very sad to
lose my neighbor. She’s been the best possible neighbor a country girl could
hope for. On the other, she’s starting a new chapter in her life, with great
things ahead so I’m excited for her while at the same time feeling pity for
myself. (Though she assures me I will like the new neighbors …that they have
chickens! Something I’ve resisted getting into, mostly because I like to eat
chicken and was afraid if I allowed myself any, they'd soon have names and then I would never be able to eat
chicken again, which would mean the end to about half my cookbook recipes….But
I do welcome the eggs and will gladly spot them a Pyrenees pup should their
birds need protecting.)
Meanwhile,
Thurman’s call was to inform me that “according to the almanac” it was time to
get my sweet potatoes bedded. For those of you who don’t know what this means,
it’s what you do to last year’s sweet potatoes in order to grow new ones this
year.
Thurman had
already walked me through this processes a few days ago, though I asked that he
please stop by to make sure I was doing it right. First off, you take a big ol
tub and fill it with dirt (well, not totally full, but enough to get your
taters covered). Next you pull from your stash (kept in baskets in the basement
all winter where it’s cool), the potatoes with the best eyes…(i.e. the root
things that sprig off of your taters. This will become the thing you plant.)
You stick your taters in the tub o’ dirt (about 3 – 4” deep) and you pull the
entire operation outside so as to get ‘em started. You make sure to poke holes in the bottom of your plastic bin so they can drain and breathe. It’ll be May before I plant these things, so
they have time to sprout. (We call these “slips”.) The good news is, my soil
grows great sweet potatoes mostly because they need good drainage, and for
reasons I don’t quite understand, my soil is sandier than Thurman’s so things
like sweet potatoes and watermelons grow particularly well.
Having
reviewed all the steps, my phone alarm went off, reminding me I had a meeting
to get to in the city. Having packed the jeep, I raced into Nashville, where
later I would meet up with some old friends whose jobs involved politics, a topic I now
watch with casual interest. As I listened to this think tank of professionals
discussing the next fleet of mayoral candidates to keep Nashville on its upward trend
(for Nashville is THE hot place to be right now) all I could think about was
how different the life I’m living these days. Where once I loved nothing more
than getting the scoop around a Jimmy Kelly’s table, how impressed would these
guys be to know today’s big scoop involved a plastic bin and a call from
Thurman? Where yesterday’s dirt was tied to shady politicians, today’s dirt is
literally under my fingernails. There’s still plenty of mud-slinging in my world, but these
days, it just comes with the rains. And where once I lived for these “Whadayahear?”
moments where campaigns are crafted or candidates crucified, I laugh as it hits
me, my last undercover operation involved a plastic bin with holes poked in it,
and the only thing getting bedded are a few innocent, orange taters.
There's something to be said for good, clean living.
(Turns out Green Acres really IS
the place to be~)
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