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A Conjugal Visit August 23, 2010
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For your information, no need to tag this News with an “advisory warning” as “conjugal” simply means “yoked together.”

Greetings Friends of the Farm,

Sorry to disappoint you.

Additionally, the yoke, the “jugum” of old Latin (16th century) is not your concentration-camp salmonella-ridden egg yolk. It is the wooden harness that oxen wore, to facilitate the pulling of a wagon or plow. Today, you could say that the tiller, bush hog or plow is “yoked” to the tractor via the 3-point hookup system that emerges from the back of the tractor....

Like they say, “whatever.”

Over the weekend,  Larry was confined to the Gause farm, as the truck, like every single other machine or implement we possess, yoked or not, has broken down this year. Maybe we should trade them in for oxen. Nope, won’t do that unless somehow we fall under a Cuban-style embargo.

So he and his compańeros were stuck. And, after market and the immediate aftermath of market (lunch and the market records), I drove up for a “conjugal visit.” I needed to be with him. It’s odd enough that we have two farms, and to not see each other for a week is a bit too much. You understand.

I go to the Gause farm about four times a year. Not that I don’t want to go there, it is just really hard to leave the Austin farm. I especially try not to do a visit there in August, as it is the absolutely worst month of the year. Usually there is no breeze coming out of the woods and the heat thus hangs oppressively all about. Inside and outside, a dead stillness that cooks you to the core. Even worse are the sandy fields, where the glare of the white “sugar sand” sears your eyes.The last visit I made, last August, I thought I would die. Sleeping on the screened-in porch on a metal cot, with no fan, looking out at trees whose leaves hung silent and still, as tortured as I....Larry by the way had his tiny fan, a nod to his sudden frugality, only in regards to the solar capacities of the Hut.

Larry promised me this August is different. There is a fan for me. And most alluringly, especially for a “conjugal visit,” now there is a (cool) well-water soaking tub. Actually the tub is supposed to be a drinking water tub for oxen and other animals, but since it sits on the porch, this one is for us.

Larry greeted me as I drove up to the “nerve center” of the farm: the greenhouse, the barn, the smoke houses, the certified kitchen, the multiple coolers, his shop. As he walked towards the car, plumes of sandy dust left a cloudy trail two feet high. I didn’t open my door until it died down. But it would not have mattered -- all along the four miles of sand road, I could smell the sand inside the car. If I were blindfolded and someone drove me there, just the smell of the sand would tell me that I was at the Gause farm.

Animal.

Omnivorous animal. I brought a cooler that by a miracle another friend had given me  that day (thanks Eric), and in that I had stashed left overs from the farm stand, plus some bison, cold white wine, a petite gifted cold watermelon (thanks John).... We would have a nice dinner, but not a big one, as I thought a lot of digestion would make us even hotter. Temperature-wise that is.

I could hardly wait for the promised cold tub. Last August, although I took four cold showers before retiring to the cot, I still suffered a sweat fest all night long. A cold shower cannot change your internal temperature like a good soak can.

We left the car at the nerve center and loaded the golf cart (“club cab”) with the cooler. I held my pillow close with one hand, against the dust, and the roof of the cart with my other hand. Larry assured me the cart would not tip over. Arriving at the Hut, I was pleased that the tree leaves had a little jiggle to them. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

You know, the few times we’ve been to New Mexico, friends always ask, cheerfully, “Are you going hiking?”

Gads. Not on your life. We hope to be lying down most of the time. On the farm, we walk at least ten miles each day. The last thing we want to do is hike. And since we both work out in the heat all day, the last environment I want for a “conjugal visit” is more heat. I’m really not a wimp; I just like variety....

There is a ritual to sleeping in the heat. A fan really is necessary. If you have that and water, you’re set.  First getting down to our animal essential-ness, I got to go first in the tub. It was divine. The trough was long enough that my feet barely touched one end and my neck rested perfectly on the rim of the other end. It was cold at first. Larry cajoled me to just go for it, but I teased myself slowly, suffering deliciously from the contrast in temperatures. Sublime. The heat -- the tension -- cooled. Larry got in and there was room for us both, a conjugal soak.

Time for bed. Larry turned on both fans, aimed the bigger one directly at me, told me I’d be cold by dawn, and handed me a wet blue “towel.” It was a cooling towel that Cousin Diana, descendant of the Smith family who settled our farm and built our farm house in Austin, had given us. You can wet it, drape it around your neck, and somehow the towel becomes cold.

Diana's towel is perfect for the “wet-towel treatment” -- the second necessity for sleeping well in the heat. You just get the towel wet, lay it across your animalness, point the fan at you, and you’ll be very cool in minutes. Although we both were happy from the soak, Larry thought we should top it off to be sure we (I) stayed cool.

I was cold in the morning. The air had that late August promise that this heat too shall end, that cool weather would soon come and all would be okay.

Larry made coffee the next morning, as his rooster, Buster, crowed endlessly. Rusty Roo would have been jealous, but then, Rusty crows much earlier than does Buster. So he wins the ethics (or insanity) award.

We sat on the porch, drinking our coffee, and watched the sun paint golden-green the exuberant brush and trees that hid the pond from our view. Then we climbed into the cart and toured the fields.

The men, also stuck, were already at work in the new creamer pea field, sifting nut grass from the lower part of the field. The sand was not yet glaring at them, but they were already, at 7:30 AM soaked with sweat.

Feeling irrationally guilty that we too were not working, on a Sunday, we drove over to the next field and admired the new squash and cucumber crops. The white perforated plastic covering over the beds was working against the grasshoppers, but I knew the glare from that would require one to wear sunglasses later in the morning. That and the sand.
After a late breakfast, with the good melon, I headed back on the sand road, breathing it in nostalgically, and came home to this farm and smelled the dead something that is hidden under the back porch. It was a bit less aromatic than the day before, but if someone had driven me here blindfolded, I would have known that I was home.

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