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Around the roots of each stalk of sweet corn I see a little circle of wet dirt, a gift of the morning dew, a drink of water conjured out of the air.
The corn plant itself seems designed to capture and funnel this free air water to itself; my cabbages even more so, their wide leaves a ring of cups waiting to catch whatever the air gives, whether blessed rain or morning dew.
Not all the plants in my garden are so obvious in their machinations to trap water shed by the humidity-laden air, but all get a share. If I stop very still and listen, I can hear the whisper of drip-drip-drip from a million leaves.
It is early and the sun has not yet lifted above the hilly eastern horizon of our West Virginia farm, but already it gives enough light to see everything clean and crisp. The cloudless pale blue dome of the sky reminds me another oppressively hot day is coming. A string of days approaching 100 degrees quickly stole the sweet wetness from the top of the soil left by last weekend's thunderstorms.
I often grump at the TV when the local weather forecaster lays out the odds for a summer thunderstorm and he or she speaks of the "threat" of rain.
"They should say 'promise' of rain or just 'chance' of rain," I say. "We need the rain."
Honey doesn't bother to reply. She's heard it a thousand times. Last year we suffered an awful drought in late summer. It seemed every blip of a rainstorm on weather radar went by us on one side or the other. This year, knock on wood, those blips have come right over us at just the right times.
I don't go to my garden in the early hours of dawn simply to revel in the delights of nature. I go to assess, to ponder, to get work done. It's a big garden and takes a lot of work. Fortunately, I discovered as a young adult that I like to work. More than that, I need to work. Take me on vacation and halfway through the first week I'm ready to come home. My wife has pretty much stopped taking me, which suits us both. How can I enjoy forced idleness at the beach when the cabbage worms and cucumber beetles, flea beetles and vine borers may be eating their way through my garden?
I put in my first planting of sweet corn in late March, during an unseasonable stretch of warmer weather, and it began tasseling three days ago. At this moment the raccoons and deer are plotting how they'll get into my sweet corn and I'm plotting how to stop them. We are on an early war footing.
I planted a lot of things early. We've been eating snow peas and sugar snap peas. The potatoes and beets are just about big enough to dig. The zucchini and cucumbers are on the cusp of overproducing, and I have enough beautiful curly kale to feed the Third Army. All are two or three weeks ahead of normal, or what used to be normal.
I have 103 tomato plants and every one is staked and tied. Yeah, yeah, the tomatoes are still small and green, but they always come late, like a celebrity to a party.
The work of mulching, cultivating and hoeing weeds is about to lessen and the work of harvesting and putting up begins. Our canning shelves and freezers are unaccustomed to being this low on staples like green beans, corn and tomato sauce. In June Honey cooked 20 quarts of green beans from our freezer for grandson Bob's graduation party.
I plant, tend and pick. Honey prepares, cans and freezes.
There is plenty of work to be done, and I will enjoy it. But for this moment, I will stop and listen to the drip-drip-drip of the dew, and breathe in the damp cool air of my morning garden.
(Fred Miller's two books of stories are only $10, available locally at Calcutta Giant Eagle, Pottery City Antique Mall, Museum of Ceramics, Frank's Pastries, Davis Bros. pharmacies, and the Old Ft. Steuben gift shop.)