CROP FAILURE

Those of you who are gardeners will recognize these frightful words that you see stamped in ALL CAPS over a description of an item in a seed or plant catalog. For the non-gardeners: the catalog is put together early in the season when the growers have just started their crops which are expected to be ready for sale around the time when the catalog is already printed. By then it's too late to remove the item description of anything that didn't take, so "CROP FAILURE" is stamped across it. Among us gardeners, it elicits a little gasp, maybe a tisk, and sinking feeling in the stomach. CROP FAILURE! The WHOLE crop!? My God.

Well, it's worse when it's your own CROP FAILURE in your own garden, I can tell you. I've been pampering a Negronne fig tree for two years now. There are so many romantic notions about growing one's own food, and in some ways it is indeed romantic and absolutely fulfilling, joyful and wonderful. But sometimes it's just plain hard, a terribly frustrating struggle against forces you sometimes can't see, understand or control, especially with fruit. A veggie garden is one thing; fruit trees are an endeavor only for the very knowledgeable and tough-spirited. I don't quite have a handle on either of those yet, despite the fact that I now boast 11 different kinds of fruit trees in my little homestead, plus raspberries, two kinds of blackberries and three kinds of table grapes, all of which are a breeze by comparison.

Figs are not hardy here so I planted my Negronne in a huge pot and put it on wheels so it can be rolled into the house for the winter where it renders an entire room unusable. Once spring temps have warmed enough, it gets rolled out -- thunking and clunking, catching and lurching over the threshold -- Don't break a limb! Don't knock a fig off! That branch is caught behind the door frame! -- to the south facing patio for the day, and must be rolled back in -- Don't break a limb! Don't knock a fig off! That branch is caught behind the door frame! -- for the night. Then when we reach summer temps, it can be left out overnight, residing on the patio until fall, when I have to verrrry carefully watch the weather because if I fail to roll the tree back inside a single night that gets too chilly, the tree gets zapped. Dead. DEAD. A bit ridiculous, you say? Ever had a fresh fig plucked right from the tree? Seen figs in the grocery store lately in GJ? Yeah, it's worth it.

All this past winter we've been watching the tree's first crop -- FIRST CROP! -- develop oh so slowly, swelling and plumping and fattening into bright green bulbs that promised to be huge, luscious, sweet, seductive, juicy....

From dirt & dogs

There were 13 of them. I recounted them a few times during the winter just to be sure. Thirteen figs! Do you realize what that means? Ten for me and three for Greg!

So, a whole winter of babying this tree, anticipating with watering mouths a crop of thirteen extremely precious figs. Greg has never even HAD a fresh fig! In the last week they had started showing some color, reddening toward the deep chocolatey-purpley brown that they would soon become when they ripened in mid June, a mere couple of weeks away.

And then the wind blew.

It turns out -- Who knew? Not me. -- that figs are fussy. Persnickety. Fragile. Finnicky. Temperamental. One garden forum even says they have sexual problems. Yes, I'm certain I was on a garden forum. Something about not being able to be pollinated because a fig is in fact an inside out flower; the flower parts are the inside of the fruit. For a plant, that constitutes a sexual problem. Anyway, aside from many other little quirks and idiosyncrasies, figs don't like wind. So when the wind blows -- ok, if it's really windy, which it was -- THE TREE WILL ABORT ITS WHOLE CROP. As my tree is now doing, starting with shriveling.

From dirt & dogs

There will be not thirteen figs this June, not even just the ten for me. Just like that, there will be no figs -- NO FIGS -- this year. This CROP FAILURE means it will be another YEAR before we can try again to have fresh, succulent figs picked right from the tree. It makes my stomach hurt, even more so than eating too many figs.
~trina

Part Three: Meadows

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

The sky was grey over my morning meadow. If I hadn't seen the weather prediction, I'd have said it looked like rain. I packed up and was rolling along the empty gravel road when it did start to rain. I suited up under a tree and then got back to rolling. Soon it was a drizzle and then it faded away. The sky opened up to bright blue and herds of puffy clouds. Exactly the kind of day when one might like to lay in a bright green meadow.

Since I had fewer miles to go than I had time to ride them, I did just that. In fact, I was a bit of a serial meadow layer. I would lay in a meadow for a little while. Then move down the road to another meadow. Then another.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

I followed a porcupine that waddled across one meadow into a willow thicket where it disappeared. Deer came grazing past and didn't know what I was. I stalked to the edge of a small pond, sneaking up on a croaking frog, a little nubbin of an amphibian with a very fat lip. And in the pond water were a myriad of tiny swimming and crawling creatures. Bird cries, breezes, passing clouds, flowers. A heck of a way to spend a day.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

The hot part of the afternoon burned away while I was laying amid wild iris blossoms. It was time to move on. I popped out onto a paved highway, spun down a long grade, passed through a one-store town, and turned off onto a rough dirt road. Back in the desert. Juniper, pinyon, greasewood, sage. Fields of orange globe mallow blossoms.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

I'd skirted around the southern end of the mountains and was cutting across dry canyons on my way to... Work?

Ten years ago I'd ridden my bike into Moab from another route and that trip had marked something like the start of a "career" (that, actually, had nothing to do with Moab). Now, I'm just finished with that career and moving on to other things. With the first bit of business being in Moab.

So yes. All this exploring and pedaling and camping and laying about in meadows was actually a commute.

In the early evening I came to the rim edge of a mesa. Far ahead and below I could see the town. I'd planned on one more night on the trail, but now, I was so close. As I stared down at town, a cloud of gnats gathered around me and most of them settled upon my ears. I shooed them away and looked back at town. The gnats settled on my ears again.

Ah, the choices I have to make in life. One more night of camping and to have my ears chewed off by gnats? Or...

I dropped onto the road that poured off the edge of the mesa and pedaled as hard as I could for town, leaving the gnats behind, across the dry flats and into the irrigated oasis of the desert town.

From 2010 Summer

I arrived at work early.

--Greg

Part Two: The Gate

I turned right on my bike and Trina turned left in the truck. In moments she was out of sight and I was on my own. I saw no one for the rest of the day.

From 2010 Summer

I rode up a rough ridge in the hot sun. Then the sky hazed out and the light diffused as I dropped into a small canyon. I rode upward as the rushing water burbled downward. The track surface was loose and chunky, and there were times when I had to push the steep parts. I rode ever upward as the day burned into evening. I was moving slowly enough to notice bright velvet ants roaming beneath.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

As I arrived at the critical point, a little-used track turned off, just in the direction I had hoped. It pulled me up out of the canyon and onto a high slope as the last burst of sunlight burned brightly. I raced the light, seeking the expected edge, the possible path...

I came to a breathless stop where the world fell away, dropping into a deep bowl of shadows. The last glow of day lit the shining snow of the mountains beyond, and burned red into the canyon rim. The thin line of the river below mirrored the silvery sky. This was it. The place I had hoped I would arrive.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

And there, where the darkness was gathering below the rim... A line of a track, twisting downward, into the bowl and toward the river. The gate, it seemed, was open. I was free to carry on.

I camped on the rim, a dozen feet from the edge. But it's almost as if "camp" has become too complex a word to describe the simpleness of it. A bare spot of rock or dirt for the tiny stove. A bush, if available, to lean the bike against or to hang sweat-wet clothes. And a flat-ish place to lay down. Nothing more required. The view, even, was wasted until morning.

***

From 2010 Summer

The birds of the rim started their chorus long before sunrise. But I saw no reason to get up before the sunlight hit me in the eye. The light showered out onto the pinnacles and spires of the canyon. Soon I had eaten and had packed up, ready to ride.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

I dove down the rubbled road, my bike twitching against rocks as I snaked down the tight switchbacks. My rattling eyes were locked onto the track, so I stopped frequently to take in the view. Layer after layer of cliff and slope, red to grey tones of rock and dirt, green shrubs and the punctuation of showy flowers, The snowy peaks where I was heading dropped away behind the immediacy of the canyon cliffs. Roll, stop, view. Roll, stop, view.

From 2010 Summer

Soon I was on the lush riverbank on a gravel road, heading upriver to the bridge and the small funky desert town, or, half-town. There's a beat up and abandoned tavern that, heck, might still be open now and then. Tacked together houses and trailers surrounded by squalor and seedy trees. But also modest homes that show years of life and care, rigorous vegetable gardens, small in-home businesses that never made it or are still making it, and it's hard to tell which.

The people in this damp spot in the dry canyons seem to have carved out lives that exist within the strictures of the remoteness and the resources. A vision of the West that was never really envisioned, but which evolved over time. But that's only half the story.

I stopped, as I often have, at the small diner. Another breakfast and a chocolate shake. A friendly chat with the two rugged men who were running the place for the morning. Then I rode across the bridge and past a strange plastic version of the West, stamped out and set down in the canyon scenery. A vision that promises and satisfies with a faux-dobe front containing all the trappings and comforts that an American shopping mall and hotel is expected to provide.

I leave you to cypher which side of town is considered a success. I'm sure I don't understand all the intricacies involved. But I had to avert my eyes as I passed.

From 2010 Summer

I turned up a canyon and began to climb. The sometimes-dry creek in the bottom was running cool and wet. I soaked my shirt and helmet and pedaled my way up the winding gravel road. Hours slipped by as desert pinyon and juniper gave way to ponderosa pine and oak brush. The flowers changed styles and color. Ponderosa gave way to lodgepole and aspen trees and wide mountain meadows. The blue sky changed to afternoon haze.

From 2010 Summer

The edge of spring was just touching the shoulder of the mountains. Meadows were green, but many flowers had yet to bloom. Aspen trees were just leafing out in a vibrancy of bright green. Oak brush was budding.

From 2010 Summer

I stopped for the night in a meadow filled will fallen aspen logs. Rinsed myself off in a trickle of water. Tiny flowers carpeted the ground. A vole rustled the dry leaves under a bush. Deer grazed past. A gopher threw fresh, dark brown dirt out of its hole. Songbirds cried their night cries. Woodpeckers beat out rhythm on echoing trees. An owl flew across the meadow into the twilight. Clumsy beetles crashed into the tops of grasses and flower stems after emerging from burrows in the ground into the last light of day.

The haze of the afternoon built into a grey night sky. No stars, but warm enough. I cooked my meal and listened to the quiet that was never quite quiet.

--Greg

Commute to Moab Part One: Creek Camp Send-Off

Trina sent me off on my own, bike lightly loaded, but my mind weighed down with some doubts.

Let me interrupt myself with some photos from the opening camping trip with Trina. We have such a great time just hanging out or exploring together, not moving fast, but taking time to spot details and notice interesting things along the way. Which hasn't been very hard to do lately, with all the flowers out to grab our attention. It continues to be a flowerfest everywhere we go.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

And critters.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

Oh, and our familiar adventure critters.

From 2010 Summer

From 2010 Summer

Okay, now my bike-trip doubts.

First, the route. I had it on good authority that the route I was heading off on went through to where I hoped it would. Um. If "good authority" can be taken to mean that I heard from an acquaintance that a friend of his had done it, not on a bike. So pretty-sure-probably it went. But if it didn't, it meant a day's worth of backtracking to get out and try other unknown options.

Second, I always have some doubt about how tough I am. Like if I'm tough enough for this kind of trip. And I'm never quite sure when I'm biting off more than I can chew, or if I'll be able to chew the kind of things I've chewed in the past. I'll file this feeling under Cautious Optimism, and call it a virtue. But still, I do pause to wonder.

Third, some gear issues. I hadn't used this bike for this kind of trip before. The bike I'd planned to use turned up with a broken part I couldn't get ahold of at the last minute. So I picked this bike from my quiver.

And, though I've done lots of traveling on a bike with loads and loads of gear, I haven't done that much this lightly loaded. And I don't really have a system. My current "system" started by throwing anything I thought I might need into Trina's truck for our creek camping trip. Then, before my afternoon solo-bike send-off, I hashed through everything and tried to pick out anything I'd need, set aside anything I wouldn't, and tried to find a way to strap it to the bike and to me.

I have one of the world's smallest and least-warm sleeping bags and a small pad. I was worried about freezing on the shoulder of the mountains, so packed a goose-down coat with the sleeping bag. Some wool jerseys and knee warmers. Rain pants and jacket. But left my small not-much-of-a-tent behind.

I invented some quick-cook dinner recipes on-the-spot, and gathered the lightest calories from a giant bag of food I'd brought along. Did a few last minute bike repairs. Then, armed with an old rotting, no-longer-dry bag, another bag from a camp chair Trina happened to have in the truck, and a bundle of straps, I managed to get what I thought I needed onto the bike and into my pack.

In the shade on the side of the creek, way back in the canyons, this, er, only took me a couple hours, just in time to start riding. I plan, but I don't plan ahead. (For contrast, I present my friend Mike, who seems to know what he's doing before he does it.)

So, just past the heat of the day, Trina and the dogs sent me on my way. Off into the unknown.

--Greg