Death, Destruction and Diatomaceous Earth

After we first arrived on the farm I tried to capture the feel as much as possible. We briefly left 85% of our music library on the back burner and listened to mostly country and bluegrass for the first month. At one point, both Marisa and I could recite all the words to John Denver's "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". Today is 4 months to the day that we started working here and now I listen mostly to Wilco, Spoon and an hilarious podcast called 'Jordan, Jesse, Go!', unless of course, the workload calls for something a bit heavier.

One of the biggest surprises I faced when becoming an organic farmer were the amount of hands on killing one has to do in order to save the crops from weeds and insects without the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides. One of these insects is the harlequin beetle which in the south is referred to as a stinkbug. They are reminiscent of a lady bug, but about four times bigger, with larger spots and a flatter back. Harlequins have a taste for braising greens. My first week on the farm I was instructed to strap on a backpack tank full of propane and connected to a blowtorch and torch an entire 300 ft row of infested kale. This sounded like a fun enough job. However, I had never attempted to burn a living vegetable before. It took an excessively long time. The kale immediately changed colors when the heat hit it. It looked surreal, cooked, yet still in the ground. The beetles jumped off the kale and crackled in the air. After 5 minutes of direct heat, the kale finally began to burn and I could move on to the next one. Kale being one of Marisa's favorite vegetables, she was horrified. It was a little difficult for me to have to do this in front of her. After all the romantic idolizing I did over the beauty of organic farming, I never thought once about mowing, weed whacking, spreading deadly earth based insect irritants and most of all, torching kale and a beetle of which I had never even heard. Luckily, I'm flexible. After the first 30 minutes I decided I needed to change the mood, so I reached down deep in my pocket and began scrolling the I-pod for something more appropriate than bluegrass compilations. I started with Jay Z's Black Album, then moved on to some random songs by Tupac. Nothing seems to epitomize the merciless annihilation of a beetle population, coupled with destroying perfectly good vegetables, than some gangster rap.

A couple of weeks later I was "asked" to spend 18 hours a week on a weed whacker. The whining roar of a two stroke engine and the thrashing of biomass just begs for headphones with the volume cranked up. When it comes to slaying just over half of the plants on the farm, I enjoy a little 'Appetite for Destruction' by Guns n' Roses. When I have to chop down an amaranth plant taller than myself, it feels appropriate to hear Axl Rose scream, "Welcome to the jungle baby, now you're gonna die!" I also find the intensity of Slash's guitar solos cover up the obnoxious ruckus of the task at hand quite nicely.

If you are looking for a chance to feel like the bad farmer in the animated classic, The Rats of Nimh, I recommend cruising between the rows on our lawn mower. When crushing habitats that the local rodents and lagomorphs have created in the few weeks since someone last mowed, I suggest either Merle Haggard or AC/DC. You may even have the opportunity to watch field mice and little bunnies run for their lives after the triple blade action transforms their residences into mulch. When I'm sabotaging fire ant holes with molasses and orange oil, I listen to 'This American Life'. It takes a great podcast to alleviate the long and boring job. I am also not entirely convinced that anything kills fire ants, so I don't need music to set the mood. Plus, I hate them and could probably slaughter a million of them while rocking out to Cat Stevens. More on fire ants in later posts.

The one action I do on a regular basis that I have not been able to find a fitting soundtrack for is spreading diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous earth (referred to as DE in our field) has the consistency of talcum powder. DE is made out of tiny fossilized water plants. To insects, it is a lethal dust with microscopic razor sharp edges. These edges cut through the insects protective covering, drying it out and killing them when they are dusted. If they ingest the DE, it will shred their insides. Sick? Yes. Brutal? Definitely. Effective? The jury's still out. The softness of DE and its flower white color make me feel more like a baker than a farmer. It gets all over my hands, arms and face. When it's over 100 degrees and I am inevitably sweating out of every pore, it doesn't take long before I am covered from head to toe, like an Aboriginal holy man engaging in a ritual involving other realms of consciousness. This seems appropriate, being that at the moment I am a harbinger of death to thousands. I play the part with a constant sidestepping and squatting from plant to plant, while simultaneously shaking a magic powder in circles around eggplants and squash. Perhaps the missing piece in our music collection is something more indigenous.