The Pea Patch

A month ago, Pop-Pop said, "Where we go'n put the peas?"

I looked across the newly-planted garden. Uh-oh. I'd planted all the rows, already, leaving no room for any black-eyed peas.

"Don't matter," he finally said. "We'll break up a pea patch."

I sensed trouble on the horizon.

You see, although Pop-Pop has two - count 'em, TWO - tractors, he has no breaking plow. For the past few years, he has conned a friend or neighbor into breaking up our garden. Typically, this means that we don't get our garden plot broken up until these friends or neighbors decide it's time to break up their gardens. At this time of the year, the breaking plows have long since been put away. And my little 4-tine tiller simply won't do to break new ground for a whole pea patch.

But this past Friday evening, when I went to the garden to plan the weekend's work, there sat the little Ford tractor, with a borrowed 2-row breaking plow attached, ready for business. Pop-Pop said to send Joel (my husband) or Clay (our son) to break up the pea patch the next day. Neither of them looked happy about the job (I don't know that either of them has ever driven a tractor with a plow attached), but Joel reluctantly said he'd do it. Saturday evening, he finally said, "I'm going to break up the pea patch." I finished what I was doing, put on my gardening apron, and started across the road on my bike (the driveway is l-o-n-g) to see how "The Breaking o' the Patch" was coming along.

I could hear tractor parts whining and grinding long before I spotted it in the shade at the back side of the garden. Wait a minute...back side of the garden? The peas were to go in front.

I pedaled faster.

But there was Pop-Pop in the driver's seat, twisted around to watch the plow behind him. Joel was standing nearby, hands on his hips. What in the world...? Were they practicing? I stopped at the corner of the garden, got off my bike, and stood there, listening. It seemed something was amiss; the plow wouldn't lower properly. Oh, dear.... But, yes, they knew the pea patch was to go in front of the garden.

Wisely, I refrained from suggesting that they "practice" in the vicinity of the actual pea patch. Instead, I quietly took up a hoe and did some weeding.

Within a few minutes, there's movement in the shadows. Here comes the tractor, with Joel in the driver's seat, looking amazingly confident. He lines 'er up with the intended ground. The plows goes down, the tractor lurches forward, the first rows break apart. Pop-Pop rolls along beside the tractor on his electric scooter, monitoring the work. Oh, we're cookin' now!

But at the end of the first row, the progress stops. The plow won't come up, not all the way. It raises enough to bring the tips of the blades to the top of the soil. Joel swivels around to look for Pop-Pop, who motions with his hand and yells, "Go 'head." Joel puts the tractor in gear and drives around the garden to line up for the second pass, with the plow blades scoring two shallow grooves in the grass.

I said nothing.

At the end of pass #2, when the plow wouldn't come up at all, there was some off-tractor conferencing. After a minute or two, Joel unhitched the tractor and drove it to the shed, abandoning the plow where it sat, half-buried at the end of the row. I walked over to where Pop-Pop sat on his scooter. It seemed the tractor would need some tinkering before any more plowing should occur. Meanwhile, the concensus was that Uncle B. (next door) should come on HIS tractor to get the plow out of the ground and finish the breaking. I looked across the pasture. Uncle B. was at that moment on his tractor, mowing the field behind his house.

I could see that no more pea-patch-breaking would occur that day, nor probably the next day, as the next day was Sunday, and you generally don't catch Uncle B. on a tractor on Sunday.

I made a suggestion: there was a tiller orphaned in the shed of a family member. I had been offered use of the tiller. It hadn't been used in a few years, and probably would need some T.L.C., but surely all the mechanical geniuses in the family could get it running. Joel and I climbed into Pop-Pop's old truck, and fetched the tiller, which turned out to be a honking big, rear-tine, power-driven piece of machinery.

The men-folk gathered around it in the shop yesterday morning. Since Clay is the youngest, and, presumably, the most able-bodied, the honor of yanking the starter cord fell to him. After a few non-productive pulls, they tore into it, and began to do things to it, like propping flaps open with screwdrivers, and pouring gas into places that didn't say "GAS". Clay grabbed the pull cord again. I stood back. It fired up and ran for about 5 seconds, then died. More parts came off. They moved the tiller to the yard, under a shade tree. A neighbor came up, and said they ought to pour gas in a hole. They'd already tried that.

If you're looking for me today, I'll be out hunting tiller parts.