The farmer who rents the fifty acres across the road decided to harvest his crop yesterday morning. Harvest time is nothing new here at Sweetgrass, but something happened yesterday that really got my dander.
The wind -- a strong, warm Noreaster -- blew an immense plume of dust and crop debris over Sweetgrass. This was followed by shower of weed seeds. Bits and particles landed behind my eye glasses, somehow making it into my eyes. My home's clean windows and my truck and horse trailers were rendered filthy within seconds, my organic blueberries and Asian apple pears suddenly coated in a thick layer of non-organic crop dust. Seeing red, I phoned my neighbors.
My message was, at best, terse. Something about how I worked hard to maintain my property and how the shower of unwanted weed seeds and dirt had clogged my newly cleaned stock water tanks and dusted my normally tidy home, barn and outbuildings. The neighbors' daughter phoned back in minutes to inform me that the farmer was conducting a "commercial" operation, one with crucial deadlines way more important than my concerns.
Shocking as her statement was, I didn't give up. I gently explained how the farmer's "harvest" meant a greater cost to me in terms of clean-up and future weed control. I suggested that my neighbor ask the farmer to consider the prevailing wind conditions before deciding to blow crop dust all over Sweetgrass. Thankfully, the neighbors' daughter agreed.
The farmer called me this morning to say that he had asked his crew to try to harvest at a time when the wind direction wasn't toward Sweetgrass. I thanked him for his consideration and made a mental note to phone the neighbor's daughter and thank her, too.
Before I could do so, the neighbor phoned to say that the farmer had threated to cancel his lease, that I was the cause, and that she did not want me giving her lessee trouble.
I thanked my neighbor for visiting with the farmer about my concerns and told her that our conversation had gone very well, that I had done nothing to jeopardize her lease agreement with the farmer.
Once again, I explained what had happened -- the massive cloud of crop dust and debris that had settled over Sweetgrass, the mucked up stock tanks, the layer of inorganic dust on my organic fruit crop, my now filthy windows, barn, and outbuildings. My plea for understanding seemed to fall on deaf ears and I was again informed that the neighbor's farm was a commercial operation, that harvest would resume.
Sure enough, I heard the diesel thresher fire up this afternoon. This time, the direction of the wind had shifted -- it was coming from the southeast. A massive cloud of dust and crop debris swirled high above the farmer's equiment, drifting steadily toward my neighbors' home and outbuildings.
In no time at all, my phone was ringing. The neighbor asked if I knew that the farmer was harvesting and I told her I thought he was, but that the wind direction was away from Sweetgrass.
"I told him to quit!" she shouted into her phone. "This time, that nasty stuff hit me. I told the farmer "No more!" Next year, he has to plant a different crop. If you have trouble, you go ahead and tell him to quit!"
"It's pretty awful, isn't it?" I replied.
"It sure is," she answered.
It seems that enlightenment chooses its own path, sometimes arriving on a soft summer breeze.
I'm thankful that my neighbor is a big person, that she took the time to phone back and say that she now truly understands my concerns.
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