The Good Earth

Recently a special demand has been created because of my writing a book about my peaches, and I may realize rewards I have till now only dreamed of. A dangerous optimism creeps into my conversations. I talk about harvests still two weeks away, return calls about inquiries, and start thinking like a salesman.

Occupied with my dreams of harvest, I do not pay attention to weather reports. . . .

I have never seen clouds shoot across the sky so fast. They whirl overhead, catapulted by winds that fling them from one horizon to the other. I watch them race from the west toward the east, imagining the black clouds splashing against the Sierra Nevadas. . . . The sky becomes a swirling cauldron, churning with energy and motion. Massive forces flex their strength above my farm. I look around for a cold front of dark clouds marching across the valley but see none. I realize I’m directly underneath the rolling band of thunderheads. My stomach tightens. . . .

The winds whip across the yard and fields. The individual grape leaves pop inside out like thousands of miniature individual umbrellas whipping wildly in the gale. Entire trees bounce up and down as gusts strike the branches heavy with ripening fruit. The wind tosses the peaches, battering them against the branches and limbs, leaving bruises and scars.

The rains begin. Damned rains. The water will quickly seep into any scratch or nick, pathogens will multiply and thrive in the lush cocktail of juices, moisture, and summer heat. Brown rot spores will drip from fruit to fruit, anchoring themselves in niches and feeding on the sugars of ripening peaches. I only hope the storm remains fast-moving and the sun comes out quickly to dry fresh wounds. . . .

Then the hail falls. It begins with an occasional pellet that bounces on the porch. Then larger and larger hailstones tumble to the ground and soon pile into small mounds. I beg for it to keep raining--hail will be much worse, slashing peaches and slicing grape bunches. . . .

This hail lasts for only ten minutes. I fear my harvest is over. . . .

I roughly calculate the losses. . . . forty or fifty thousand dollars in the peaches, ten or twenty thousand in the grapes was lost. No matter how hard I labor, I can never make up that income. It is gone. I ask how much longer I can keep going. Then I cry out loud, “Why should I keep going?”