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Of Window Fingers and Candy Toes October 19, 2010
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Of Window Fingers and Candy Toes
October 19, 2010

Greetings Friends of the Farm,

A long time ago, when I was a painter, I spent my days either sitting in front of an easel or standing in front of it. My style of painting focused on detail. The oil pigments were laid upon the canvas with tiny brushes gripped securely in my fingers. It was a focused inactivity which required the correction of maniacally active weekends in the garden --digging holes usually -- or working on our 1920’s house.....Following such physical exertion, my back was often in torment. This was a sporadic condition that earned a simple name: “The Back.”

Larry would tell the kids, your mom can’t do such and such because “she’s got The Back.” This didn’t mean that I was protecting everyone, as in “she’s got your back,” but it did mean that I was protecting me, so they shouldn’t expect much in maternal services. (He would have to pitch in.) I was a responsible sufferer, however, and I continued to run the house and to paint, even while tolerating The Back, as those were My Jobs.

Oddly, despite family warnings -- which in addition to the supposition of poverty, included dire forecasts of traction and hospitalization -- my back got better the minute we began to farm in earnest. The constant activity was the solution. Walking up to ten miles a day, bending over to harvest or weed, gently stretching, carrying heavy loads in a correct manner, aerobically cultivating with a hoe....it all was actually good for The Back. And, in twenty years of farming, I’ve had a small dose of The Back only a few times, and to get rid of it, I just farmed.

My mother -- Little Dove -- otherwise an ardent supporter of our farming enterprise, once she figured out that we could at least eat the vegetables we grew (our potential starvation was a worry for her) began warning me that I was going to “ruin my hands.”

At the time I thought that she meant that they would not be “pretty” anymore, that maybe I’d have to wear white gloves in polite society or at least keep the gnarliness out of sight, in my pockets.

I didn’t realize she was predicting the day the heavy upper sash of our bedroom window slid down like a freight train (broken counterweights) and pinned my right hand fingers between the two sashes. Larry saved me from losing my fingers which were trapped in a tiny space not suited for bones and flesh.


I also didn’t know Little Dove meant that my hands would grow weak from the constant pulling of weeds or the gripping of 50 lb bags of chicken feed. I didn’t realize my hands and fingers would be constantly poked by wires, bitten by fire ants, pecked by roosters, or one day be trapped in a tightly rolled up tomato trellis. I didn’t think a farmer’s wrist could be affected by too much hoeing, causing an affliction much like the office plague, carpal tunnel syndrome....

All of this has happened, and I do hide my hands in my pockets when out amongst more beautiful people, lest I draw scorn or pity.

But, since I have a tiny bit of common sense, I’ve long refused to participate in changing implements on the tractors, as even I am convinced that changing out tillers and hillers is “manly work,” and there are already enough manly farmers in the world with nubs for fingers. (And our favorite little hen, Toesy, who loves working the compost with Lillian T. Tractor, stays out of her huge way, as Toesy, in her chick youth, gained a nub from her toe being caught between two wires.)

Speaking of Toesy, at least I haven’t had another case of “candy toe,” because I wear my sturdy boots day in, day out, year long. Before we began farming, Larry, Cousin Claire and I ate at a restaurant on San Antonio Street and as we crossed the road, Larry unwrapped a complimentary hard candy. I was right behind him and Claire. The candy zipped out from the cellophane, flew over his shoulder, and landed on my sandaled -- thus bare -- big toe.

I didn’t know what had hit me, but it doubled me over in pain. Larry and Claire, having reached the curb, turned around, thinking I’d been run over. Gasping, I said that something had hit me square on the toenail and it hurt like I’d been shot. They laughed, partly in relief, partly in rebuke.

And they laugh over that still, their mirth accompanied by implied accusations of my faked pain. Recently, however, Larry read (on the internet of course) that the toenail is an extremely sensitive spot, for many people. That he now has this knowledge helps, but after twenty years, he and Claire still chuckle, as they say, “Remember the Candy Toe?  Ha ha ha.”

Yeah, I do.

So I reckon my weak spots now are my digits. Strange. Everything between those extremities seems healthy, so if some pings and pains hit now and then, it’s alright. A lot of folks are worse off. I’ll just keep my gloves and boots on, and farm.

Carol Ann

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