LITTLE HELPERS

THE ORDER WAS IN, a straight-line list of the direction to take for an upcoming retirement. Six years remained until a plan had to be funded and put in place. I was working out a plan that eventually is met by any of us that makes the age line we call "retirement." The addition of a "little bundle" at my home was an unplanned feature but no problem... just another "volunteer notion." A grandchild can be a big help.

Most inbred locals to the area were raised on cornfield and bean growth conversation. They trekked through "drain tile" fields as a route to school or playmate hours. They dodged heavy roller farm implements and appreciated the season of corn worm migration. The style preferred for themselves and for any "newbies" to the community. My wardrobe was successfully changing out to include farm world attire. I now owned a farmer's denim jacket, Levi Strauss square hip bootleg blue jeans, and at least two plaid flannel CPO shirt-jackets. My wader boots bought for flyfishing would do for yard work. I was slowly getting rid of the respectable Realtor outfits that made a statement in Oakland County. The announcement that goat farming is an approvably relaxing alternate lifestyle for a retiring office-working black woman I bought into the idea of relaxing as plants grew someplace outside in an area fenced off from cuddly-cashmere or mohair presenting beasts outside. I would cull milk and cheese, and in the event of over birth on my land, sell off the extras for added income. Their poo was a valuable asset to be strewn in the crop area. I was working out the preliminary budget and outline of activities for holding my chosen crop.

The onset of gardening again caught me in the upswing of buying small equipment to regain the idea of making things grow. I had tomato cages, chicken wire, plant stakes, plant food tabs, and granulated sprinkle on plant food. I prepurchased reference books that included "Welcome to the Farm: How-to Wisdom from The Elliott Homestead" by Shaye Elliott. I was ready to roll. When a new grandbaby fell into my home, I split time for the here and the now with working my job and planning for the planned future career of operating a small farm. I babysat while parents worked out the details of a relationship. A previous guise of operating a home daycare that serviced families on weekdays and weekends for the going rate, and the enhanced version of that plan... opening a certified Montessori Daycare complete with state licensing and registration floundered in mind and in potential as friends and family of the new grandchild's mother and classmates ran assault activities on my household. When the assaults did not slow down I dumped every idea of working with children and allowed the weight of the new grandchild and the grandchildren contributed to life by my older child to weigh me down mentally and physically. When a ridiculous spontaneous act of catching the impact to prevent a coworker from having her face smashed and disfigured for her mindless act of leaning across a six-foot high transport cart and under a fifty-pound tub of commercial tax returns dropping four feet onto a table; my own injury of a fractured backbone stopped all plans made for retirement. For the pain from the newly fractured backbone and the medicine being taken to manage through it, I did not plan anything beyond each hour as it approached. For the grandchildren, ailing brother... x-marine, and aged mother also in my house and relying upon me to be the "head of household" I was before that injury; the continued routine of me cooking, me driving them around, me holding the baby... watching the dogs... screaming over the dogs brought in by an older grandson as they jumped from the balcony after chewing through the cute picket guard rails outside the room that I let him use while attending a college course in my hometown as opposed to where his own mother lived... life was expected to remain the same. While my back ached and prevented me from sleeping or moving normally toward the bathroom during the night past dogs lounging across doorways ready to trip an unsuspecting night walker rushing to emit urine or whatever, my crisis was to actually gain use of any one of three bathrooms not inhabited by a guest washing his dog or himself, using it to primp, or running the water until it was "warm enough" to use. I won't mention the prior visit of a grandchild who took daily strolls to the street corner near my house to waive a banana at passers-by in what I suspected was his effort at being labeled "incompetent" so that he could get "free money." Or the one who arrived and put me in a chokehold/headlock for unknown reasons while visiting with his new wife and two little girls. The last of the elder grandchildren keeps his distance. I suspect he is in awe of his older brothers and their performances while visiting grandma and great grandma... and their uncle and new nephew. Once that "new nephew's" mother left my home and joined a new household to birth a grandchild into a new "unsuspecting family" I was slightly relieved. I remembered the farm. She left after the death of my brother... the x-marine. The older grandchildren left after their truck-driving single mother bought into a home of her own on Florida's coast... which sustained hurricane destruction a few years later. For some reason, cuddly cashmere goats seemed like a more than welcomed option.

I found a ten-acre farmstead listed under H.U.D. and contacted the listing realtor, making a scheduled appointment to preview the home, land, and outbuildings. I drew money out of my accounts for making the deposit and on the date agreed, headed out to the rural address it presented. Halfway there a phone call relayed that the viewing would need to be rescheduled. The secondary plans for making the trip were also canceled when the goat farm touting "over 40 head of cashmere goats" canceled our hope for touring and getting an idea for making a purchase from among her livestock. We never found the address listed as her farm. To not suffer total waste of the drive out, we stopped in at a county fair opening over the weekend that had been advertised by an Agribusiness television show. They were not open for business... but allowed us access to their developing venue.

Back at home, my tomato cages and plant food waited to be used. I strung lines for supporting pepper plants and stuck tomato cages over spots where various tomatoes promised to bring forth fruits from as far back as my own great-grandparents. I created raised plant beds and set pinched seed sets of sugar cane and sorghum. I created beds of kitchen herbs and medicinal herbs. I set back racking supplies for the expected products that were to have come from my vast farmland and the preplanned crops that would claim my involvement as one of the locals. I bought a shed and beat it with all the fervor of the machine gun issued me during basic training as I fired it down range at a blurry target which deserved my anger. There was another farm out there and with military determination, I was going to find it. The shed turned into one of the amassed women's movement statements that "WE CAN" do it. It sits in my yard beyond the concrete column deck I made... with the struggled through help from my youngest grandchild... and mom.