Inconvenient Work and the Fruits of our Labor

November's graying chill seems a long time past from July's midsummer warmth and sun.  Surrounded by green tomatoes, squash blossoms, fanning leaves and towering stalks, that end-of-the-season weariness and agricultural dishevelment would scarcely be a memory were it not for the garlic.  Garlic is a crop of the will, not the heart.  At the very time of year when, after a summer and fall of answering the garden's every beck and call, one could be forgiven for wishing it to bed, garlic demands yet another sojourn with the tiller in order to beat winter's hardened earth.  You have to beat the snow or you will never find it room.

We did, of course.  Ten rows of multiple varieties.  Covered with compost and straw, they over-wintered until poking through their springtime sprouts.  By late June we were clipping the scapes, driving all their energy to the maturing bulbs, and this week the yellowing leaves signaled their time. Friday, then, after a gentle morning rain had eased the soil, we pulled.

And pulled.

Drying now in the barn, the tables full of bulbs and their secreted cloves conjure up anticipatory tastes of marinara and salsa and guacamole and who knows what other culinary delights.

In the meantime, securely protected from any ill-intended vampires who might otherwise have cast a hungry eye toward rural Warren County, I think again of the value of doing what you need to do, when you need to it, no matter how wearisome the labor might sound.  Because later on, the reward smells like heaven.  The taste of it, I have to imagine, will as well.