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On the weekends I see the garden’s progress for myself. Scott parks the jeep along the road and we all walk down the path together, Morgen leading the way. The trees open up and the garden appears before us. Morgen leads me through the rows, showing me the vegetables growing and ripening. We find pea pods to pick and carrots to pull. I can hardly wait until everything’s ready to harvest. I will make salsa again, and maybe sun-dry some tomatoes. We’ll freeze carrots and green beans, and we’ll have potatoes and pumpkins long into the fall.
It won't be long now. I go out every weekend, pull weeds, and beam at what our hard work is producing.
Then, one Saturday in early August we head out as usual. We park on the side of the dirt road, as always, and walk our worn path through the forest to the clearing. It’s all as usual, except for this time, our garden is not as it should be. All over, plants are bent, drooping. There had been a sea of green only yesterday, but now there are big holes with dirt exposed.
“Oh no,” Scott says. “Deer got in.”
They didn’t really “get in” because we had nothing to keep them out. But they came. Ate. Destroyed. We walk around the garden parameter, assessing the damage. It’s over a quarter ruined.
We take in the damage in shocked silence. It’s not just vegetables that are destroyed in front of us. It’s our plans and our hopes, and our hard work. Tears stream down my face, and when Morgen asks me what’s wrong, I can’t even bring myself to answer her.
“I’m just upset,” I say.
“At who?”
“No one, honey. Just upset.” I’d really love to have someone to be angry with right now. I'd love to have somebody to blame. It could be Pam, who charged us rent for this land when she really didn't need the extra money. She probably didn't even notice it. But it would have made a world of difference to us. Or I could blame Joe, who charged us an outrageous rate to come out and plough, even though he told us that he wanted to help us out.
“We should’ve had fencing,” Scott says.
I don’t say anything.
“We’re going to have to buy some if we want to save the rest of the garden,” he continues. “It’s impossible to keep deer out without it.”
But we both know that we don’t have the money. We don’t have credit, either. I have that thousand dollar bond, but that’s it. We walk around, pulling destroyed plants and re-staking some of the toppled ones. I should offer to cash the bond. It’s on the tip of my tongue to offer it, but for some reason, I don’t.
“We’ll just have to take our chances,” I end up saying.
Our chances, it turns out, aren’t great. The deer come back several times and take most of our produce. We end up with a basket of tomatoes and peas, a bunch of zucchini, about twenty-five pounds of potatoes, and a nice pumpkin patch. But the day I go to pick the pumpkins, I find that deer walked through and nibbled on them, too. Not just a few, but all of them. They're all ruined.
I sit down, right there in the middle of the pumpkin patch, and I search for a reason not to cry. We can try again next year. Maybe it will be easier because we’ll have a ploughed area and the ploughing bill will be paid off. Then we can afford the fencing. I take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from getting angry. I never meant for this to be such a burden.
I go up to the house to tell Pam about what happened. She looks at me in surprise and then bursts out laughing. “Those darn deer!” she says.
Her laughter reaches into me and pulls up all the frustration I have bottled up. Every struggle, every injustice, every disappointment, is now here in front of me.
“I’ve just about had it!” I tell her.
“With what?”
“Everything. I just wanted to have a garden, to grow our food and share it with others. I’m just trying to do something good. Why does that have to be so hard?”
Pam stares at me. I can tell she doesn’t get it.
Mrs. McKinley does, though. I bring her three large zucchinis and a loaf of zucchini bread, and tell her what happened.
“That’s awful." She cuts up some zucchini bread and offers me a piece. “What people need to do these days just to get by," she says. "People think it was so much harder back in the day, but it wasn’t. We didn’t have all the modern conveniences, but we had so much more. Back then, we didn’t have to scramble to figure out how to get a place to garden and all that. We just did it. Everyone did. And people helped each other. Not now. You’re the only one who ever comes out here to see me, you know that? You’re the only one who ever brings bread. Imagine! Of all the people I’ve known. Everyone’s too busy and absorbed in their own lives. Why weren’t there others out there gardening with you? There shoulda been.”
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