Heat... Lightning

                What a day!

                It was in the AM… 90 something degrees… and humidity… I harvested purple beans, that is purple beans that had been pre-harvested by rabbits and Mexican bean beetles. There was not much left to pick through… but it was hot… damned hot! By the time that mere hour transpired, I perspired… I have no idea how much… It was hard to think… My shirt was drenched with sweat… A mere hour in the sun…

                Once I reached the shade of the back porch, I dwelled on the situation a bit. This was the third very hot day in a row, but today was extremely humid, or at least that was how it felt. Oh, it wears you down over the course of a summer! And I had so much more harvesting to do…Drenched completely merely from sweat… ah the joy of farming…

                I took a break to cool down on the front porch, the shaded front porch, as sweat dripped from my bent forward head to form puddles on the cement porch steps. How many more days of this are we in for? Then… a cloud blocked the sun! Perhaps there was a chance to get some work done without that blazing orb in the sky blazing one to… The cloud passed.

                The hours of the day began to diminish rapidly, there was still a harvest to gather… despite the heat. Potatoes needed to be dug! With pitchfork in hand potatoes were excavated from the deep dry organic earth… and sweat saturated my clothing… again… After the potatoes… then tomatoes…

                The sun was blocked by clouds, deep dark, ominous  clouds… a strong wind whipped through… all of which was completely soothing… Small droplets of rain actually began to fall from the sky… Ahh, the heat had been broken… at least temporarily…

                And I continued to attempt to dig potatoes from the ground… but my pitchfork had become misshapen. I do not know how to describe this, but one of the four prongs was bent backwards instead of forward. What this entails is that the pitchfork is useless so long as that one prong is bent in the wrong direction…

                So, I temporarily ceased my efforts on potato excavation and headed up to the garage area to straighten out the mis-aligned tine on the pitchfork. By the time I reached the garage and fixed the mis-aligned pitchfork, the rain had increased in intensity. It was raining steadily. A quick decision was made to harvest the tomatoes in the dry greenhouse while the rain fell.

                Four 5 gallon harvest buckets were grabbed along with the hand pruners, aka, the tomato de-horn wormer. Luckily there have been no horn worms thus far… The rain grew heavier as the Cosmonaut Volkovs were harvested, beautiful red tomatoes that actually have flavor… actually have a LOT of flavor. Thunder and lightning grew in intensity… and drew nearer. A flash of lightning was seen… the time between thunder was counted… 1001… 1002… CRACKLEBOOM!!! That one was close… northwest… maybe a little more west than north…

                At that point I had long ceased sweating and was starting to feel comfortable. The rain slowed. I was on to the Black Krim tomatoes… now that is a DELICIOUS and heirloom tomato… lots and lots hanging from the tied up tomato plants. Row three of five… more thunder and lightning up north……

                KABOOM!!!!! Lightning had struck at exactly the same time as the sound! It hit the old metal windmill tower next to the house! And I was crouched between two rows of heirloom tomatoes trembling with… excitement?... anxiety?...

                DAMN, BUT THAT WAS CLOSE!!! My skin tingled. Having never been in a military battle, I suspect I experienced only the most superficially similar situation. I was shell shocked. Despite standing inside a metal hooped greenhouse, (which means I was relatively protected), I could not stand up completely. I kept squatting near to the ground. I finished harvesting the Black Krim… Damn the house seemed to be much further away than the actual two hundred feet it was. The sky was still violent… Perhaps it was a good time to weed the butternut squash next to the Cosmonaut Volkov… Ugh, squash bug eggs all over the leaves…Sizzlecrackle… I looked to my right outside the greenhouse… KABOOM!!! Lightning struck the electric pole by the driveway. My path to the house lie directly between the two lightning strikes… Yeah, the back porch could wait… I hunched back down to the weeds in the butternut row… Somehow, my vigor for weeding had waned…

                And I waited… I counted the time between every lightning strike and the sound following it. With each bolt, I flinched and ducked. I was definitely shell shocked. I have spent the majority of my time alive on the farm, and the closest I ever witnessed lightning strike was the electric pole up on Hughes Shop Road, the one that still stands just north of the front field on the property. But to have two strike within a hundred feet of each other… and minutes apart… SHEESH!!! I focused back on the fading lightning strikes. After a while, there were at least ten seconds between strike and sound. I headed to the house.

                The rain and lightning passed and the harvest was completed. A few more lightning strikes from very far away still made me flinch. Ugh. From extremely hot and humid to wet from rain to ducking and hiding from an electrical storm to calm and relatively cool for the season… all within a few hours… and still more work to do. This farming thing… It’s not just a job… it’s INSANE!!!