The Comfort Thomas Hippie Freedom Organic Only (lawn) Garden

It was, as F.Red constantly said, an idea whose time had almost come and gone. They had been on what they called the farm for three weeks. Donny was the strongest proponent.

“Look we left the inorganic, unsustainable, plastic-packaged food in the supermarket world. It’s time to grow our own,” he said.

“Yowzah. Living off the land. Like it,” added Jacques-O.

“I agree. And it has to be there.” Michelle added sitting next to him on the green-cushioned window seat. She pointed at the front lawn. “I feel like I’m back in my parent’s suburban home when I see all that grass. I vote we roll it up and plant the garden today.”

They were scattered around the living room, on the floor on cushions, in old, overstuffed chairs, and even on the wicker rocker. The fire was crackling. The two baby raccoons, having been rescued from an untimely motherless death two nights before, were asleep, curled up in a wicker basket stuffed with soft rags and mismatched woolen socks warmed even more by the heat of the fireplace. Jacques-O was frowning, a most unusual expression for his usually cheerful face.

“Roll up the lawn.” He was saying to himself, trying to imagine his mother Adele’s reaction. She had been amenable to them taking over the farm for the summer, but never said anything about actually doing any farming.

“Let’s throw the I Ching.” Suggested Jacques-O.

“Not needed,” said Big Jim in a very no-nonsense tone. “We came up here to try and live off the land and there’s not much land to grow what we need. I vote with Michelle. Roll it up. It’s the best spot. Gets sun almost all day.”

“And now that the generator works,” added Donny, “we can have water pumping from the well.”

“I agree,” said Michelle. “That’s three votes.” She looked across the living room where F. Red was slowly rocking in the wicker rocker. “What’s your vote? You have all the urban gardening experience.”

When F. Red had been running Christian Herter Center for Jacques-O’s mom Adele he organized the first urban gardening farms and festival in the country. Rolling up the lawn at Comfort Thomas wasn’t exactly the same as planting a green and growing paradise in an empty city lot but it was close enough.

They were all looking at him now. He was thinking about Jacque’s hesitation and sensed his dilemma. He didn’t want to get upside anyone, especially Jacques-O and his mom. He also loved to garden and often counted his time on this planet by the number of gardens he had planted, nurtured, and harvested starting with helping his dad on the terrace below their house in Connecticut. This would be number thirteen. Not bad for someone who had only lived twenty-two years.

F. Red remembered an incident that had occurred when he was helping his dad that set him on the path to good gardening as a young man. One day his neighbor was given a tour of his Dad’s “farm” and remarked that it was spectacular, especially the biggest, reddest, and most delicious beefsteak tomatoes that were waiting to be eaten on hamburgers in that afternoon’s barbecue. He asked, “What else,” he asked, “are you growing?”

His dad smiled that knowing a secret smile, paused for a few seconds, and said “Dirt.”

“Dirt?” the neighbor exclaimed.

His dad went on to explain that if you grew healthy and nutritious dirt, all you needed to do was put in the seeds, add water, and watch them grow. Growing great dirt had become the guiding principle of F. Red’s gardens from that time onward. The rule was simple: Grow great dirt and the rest will follow. He had already planned ways to enrich the Comfort Thomas soil, and this was his chance for garden number thirteen.

“I think it will work,” he said smiling. Turning to look at Jacques-O he added, “And when we leave, we can plant new grass or roll the turf back if it’s still viable.”

Jacques slowly grinned at the way F. Red solved his roll-up the lawn problem.

“Great idea,” Jacques-O added. “If Adele hates it we’ll give her a brand-new greener lawn.” He smiled back at F. Red silently thinking him for solving the problem.

“ Let’s do it.” He unwound his lanky cowboy frame off the cushion and headed for the front door. “All the tools are in the shed out back and in the barn.”

Not the old barn, thought F. Red, I hate the barn. It’s full of mice.

“Donny and Michelle can get the stuff from the barn,” said F. Red.

“Who made you chief?” Donny replied slightly more amused than annoyed.

“I just thought that since you and Michelle had been exploring the old place you might know where the tools are.” F. Red weakly answered.

Donny paused and looked at a smiling Michelle. He smiled back remembering the last time they spent the night in the barn exploring.

“Okay, we’ll get the shit from the barn and be right back,” he answered as he headed for the door. Michelle followed him out the door and F. Red could see them holding hands as they headed for the barn.

Everyone else went around the back of the house to pry open the door to the tool shed next to the outhouse in the woods. It had been shuttered since last summer.

F. Red stood well back as Big Jim pried the door open with the back of a large hammer.

When the tools had been assembled in a pile in the front yard, they added up to a push grass mower, three shovels, two pitchforks from the barn, four small garden trowels, two steel bow rakes, and two axes in dire need of a grinding wheel. It was enough to get the job done.

“Okay,” said Big Jim excitedly, “Let’s do this and he headed for the grass mower to outline the area for planting.

“Wait,” said Jacque-O softly. “We need to offer a prayer first.” With Jacques-O all things and each day started with a prayer. It was the Navajo way he learned living with Ella on the rez in Arizona.

Jacques-O had written a prayer in Navajo for the first Earth Day celebration last year at the Herter Center. It was duct-taped to the propane icebox in the kitchen. “Nahasdzáán Nihimá Bits’íís Baa’áháyá Nihí déét’í’i tʼáá kʼad". It meant “Protecting Mother Earth Starts With Us. Now.”

Jacques-O knew Mother Earth was at what his botanist dad called "the tipping point" and much more than prayer was needed to save her. Still, prayers were a good place to start. This prayer was for the garden.

The five of them formed up into a circle holding hands, heads bowed, and let Jacques-O lead.

“Oh, Great Creator Mother Earth we offer this garden to you and thank you for the blessings of the earth, the air, the fire, and the water you have blessed us with. Let us live in harmony and beauty and may our harvest please you and be bountiful.”

F.Red very softly mouthed “Amen” even though there was no amen required. They pulled apart from the circle and formed a line that stretched thirty feet from Jacques-O on one end to Big Jim on the other.

“Wait,” yelled Michelle and ran into the house where she grabbed her Pentax. Donny followed her, checked that there was film in the Arriflex, and made sure the Nagra sound recorder was charged. They were a film collective. Capturing, recording, editing, and distributing everything on film was what they were on the farm to do.

“Okay.” said Donny holding the Nagra mic in Jacques-O’s face, “Say the prayer again. We can use it for background sound over the credits.”

“Oh, Great Mother Earth Creator of all things we offer our garden to you with thanks for the blessings you give the earth, air, fire, and water that you bless us with. We live and always walk in harmony and beauty. May our harvest please you and be bountiful.”

“Close enough,” said Donny.

Big Jim who never waited for permission had already neatly mowed the 40X40 square shape of the garden. He started scoring the lawn at the farthest edge of the square with one of the shovels. Jacques-O started at the other side of the same line and met Jim in the middle, where they clanged shovels to celebrate. They did the same for all four sides.

“Okay farmers let’s roll ‘er up” Big Jim commanded.

“How far are we rolling?” asked F Red.

Jacques-O looked up and answered, “Down to the boulder about forty feet away.”

He looked at Big Jim for confirmation and got a “yes” nod.

They each took a few feet of the lawn and started working on the turf, lifting it gently at first from the earth, everyone looking left and right to try and stay coordinated. The first few inches came up, then a foot, then enough to start a roll, and then it was just pushing, sweating, rolling. It came up like a carpet, exposing an entire ecosystem of crawling bugs and big fat red earthworms. Soon it was too heavy to keep rolling.

Big Jim went back and cut that first piece across from end to end. They then pushed, pulled, and dragged it to the side and started rolling again. Before long there were five large and heavy rolls of turf wrestled off to one side.

“Lots left to do. A good start,” said Jacques-O, brushing his hands off on his jeans, rolling his first cigarette of the day.

“Well,” added Michelle, “No time like the present. Let’s get started. Let me snap some more pics.”

Jacques-O and Big Jim, being the strongest, started turning the earth while Michelle took her “Going Back to the Land” pictures. Soon she and Donny took the rakes and followed the earthmovers, smoothing and leveling the soil. Big Jim tired first came over to F. and handed him the shovel.

“Your turn. It’s good soil, easy to turn.” he added, smiling as he walked into the house, “ And try not to kill any worms.” he added looking over his shoulder.

When the job was done, a deep brown square waited where the green lawn had graced the house. They were all tired and thirsty and wanted a long cool drink of the water freshly pumped that morning.

As the sun went below the tree line, they all gathered in the living room. The discussion ranged from Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine to The Good Life by the Nearings. The Whole Earth Catalog was scoured for books, tools, and ideas about the earth leading to what would become an endless discussion by F. Red about the importance of understanding the ecology of this blue planet.

“I just want to plant corn the Navajo way,” said Jacques-O, “So I can tell Ella we did it.”

“There’s plenty of room for everything else we need. We can get the clams and mussels from the cove,” added Donny whose gardening experience consisted of watching Michelle plant tomatoes in various pots and containers.

“We need a name,” said F. Red.

“It’s a fucking garden.” was Big Jim’s quiet response, “You call it a garden.”

“But it’s more than that and when people come up I want them to see that you can turn a lawn into a garden.” insisted F. Red.

“Sort of the reverse of they paved paradise and put up a parking lot” added Michelle

“Exactly,” said F. Red. “They unpaved the parking lot.”

“Except it was a lawn,” mumbled Big Jim.

After thinking for a moment, they all started throwing out names for the plot of rolled-up turf that would eventually be the garden that F. Red hoped would plant the seeds of self-reliance, organic food, homesteading, and living off the land.

The winner was a combination of many names.

F.Red created a multi-colored sign that tried to look like a page from an Old Testament incunabula, a hand-painted illuminated manuscript page he had seen in Dublin at Trinity College. It was posted the next day at the end of the road leading to the farm.

And so, “The Comfort Thomas Hippie Freedom Organic Only (lawn) Garden” was born.

After dinner, they stayed up later than usual since no one had a watch and didn’t care about time anyway. They were excited by the new project. They talked about everything from what to call the film - “Name it after the garden,” suggested Michelle - to the critical need for compost and the horse manure pile down the road at the stables. Horse shit was one area that F.Red really understood. He had made uncountable trips to his friend Brian’s stable filling his truck with dried and decayed horse manure for his compost bins behind his house in Cambridge.

One by one they drifted off to sleep in the rooms they had somehow chosen as theirs even though no one said sleep here or there. Jacques-O was the last to bank the fire and blow out all the kerosene lamps, turning up the wicks that were almost burned to the nub. He was the only one that still slept by the carefully banked fire, rolled up in various and sundry heavy woolen blankets, dreaming of the garden. 

Copyright © 2021 David Grebow from the forthcoming book "Comfort Thomas".