I always look back.
As I stand here damned I lean on my hoe. Hawks and buzzards circle overhead. Worms crawl through the soil under my feet. The wind edges through the leafless branches of the creek's trees, walks through my weedy onion patch and brushes lightly past me. Still, I stand still.
The tool I lean on is a "eye" hoe, with a handle nearly as thick as a softball bat, with a broad U shape to the cast iron head. It is called an "eye" hoe because the handle slips through the "eye" of the metal piece. The wood handle flairs at the end, jamming the head into place.
I grew up on a farm in Kansas, got a BS degree in Agriculture, worked several years for the Department of Agriculture, truck farmed for 5 years, then discovered - - what a good hoe was. I was 37.
A 16 year old boy told me, Rafael, from Guatemala, my sort-of-son. I didn't believe him of course. What could he know. But to be polite, and in spite of my doubts, I tried a friends eye hoe. I bought my own the next week at the hardware store downtown.
It took me 37 years to discover what a good hoe was, and since no one ever told me I assume that none of my family or teachers or university professors knew what a good hoe was either, or never thought it important enough to pass on.
Rafael knew because he grew up in the mountains of Guatemala and used one, farming the steep slopes of the mountains, growing potatoes, wheat, corn and beans with his family. They ate what they could grow. Rafael grew up like most of the world's farmers, poor and largely un-schooled, valuing and using the body's labor to live, appreciating the balance and heft of a good tool if lucky enough to have access to one.
Leaning on my eye hoe I think of the other farmers around the world leaning on theirs. When I work with it the motions of my body are a dance I share with a majority of the worlds men and women farmers. I am an oddity in the U.S., but in the world I am among the common folk.
I appreciate a sharp tool, such as this hoe. A sharp edge brings delicacy and finesse to an otherwise heavy and coarse tool. This eye hoe is sold in pieces, the metal head and wooden handle separate. The head of my eye hoe is from Australia. But this eye-hoe-head, brought into my hands from half way round the world, leaves me with a question. Do the makers of this tool not know how it is used?
They put the bevel on the wrong side of the blade. The beveled edge should be on the outside edge. The manufactured bevel is on the inside edge! It took me a long time to file off that angle and get it to work properly.
Rafael once told me of growing and harvesting wheat in his village. The reasons for doing every part of the work particularly, he said, is to " please the grain - so it won't run away."
At planting time the farmer broadcasts the grain over the plot of ground. Then he takes his hoe and "roughs up" the soil. If a rain shower should come and the farmer leave the field before he has finished this service for the grain it will become displeased and "run away". You may find that the grain, after the rain, has "run away" to the bottom of the hill.
After the work of planting and growing the wheat, the work of harvest is shared by the family, and select friends or neighbors. Traditionally no one bathes until the harvest is complete.
The grain is cut by hand and tied in bundles. The bundles are piled into ricks. The ricks are hand carried or loaded onto the back of donkeys or horses.
Generally, two or more farmers use the same patch of packed earth on which to hand thresh the grain. Donkeys and horses are brought in to help thresh by walking over the grain straw.
Some animals are lazy and simply go to the center and turn round-and-round, so a post is generally placed in the center, or someone stands there until the grain starts piling up forcing the animals to walk around on the grain stalks where they do some good.
An expert winnower tosses the beaten stems and grain into the air and the wind separates the grain from the chaff. The cleaned grain slowly rises up in a pile in the center while the animals continue walking around in the grain stems and chaff.
When the grain is clean the winnowing is complete. A rope is brought in and carefully layed around the toe of the pile of fresh grain. Again "so the grain will not run away".
A ceremonial cross is stuck carefully into the top of the pile of grain and candles are placed in the grain around it. The men then call to service a young local woman (preferably pregnant). The woman lights the candles and walks around the pile of grain three times, saying a blessing to the harvest.
All this "pleases the grain".
With a measure, the men finally divide out each person's share. Only when all the grain is divided and the farmer's share carried to his family's kitchen can the farmer and his helpers go bathe, eat, drink, party, and rest.
An article a few years ago by a young woman who returned from a tour with the Peace Corps described how the women of the village she had been assigned to would daily grind their grain for the day's cooking.
The women ground a few handfuls at a time in a deep bowl. Two or three women would stand around the container, each with a slender log. Rhythmically they would lift and, in turn, heave the blunt end into the grinding bowl, thumping the kernels into flower and meal. Their timing had to be perfect because the pot was only large enough for one post at a time. The work was hard and would take an hour's labor or more of every able bodied woman every day.
But this young woman also mentioned how wonderful it was to watch these village women do this work together, the beauty and effortless grace of their bodies and arms throwing the poles into the grain in the bowl. When she tried it herself, the people jumped back laughing, afraid they would get hurt at her hearty, clumsy attempt.
Imagine a family eating bread made from grain grown, harvested and milled in such a rich and carefully connected manner. Such food demands remembrance and celebration again and again through the stories and jokes shared while preparing, eating and digesting that day's food. It is nutrition on many levels.
How much would we be willing to pay for the rich tradition and community quality required to grow, harvest, and mill such flour? How anemic can our culture become before we begin to recognize our basic need for food of such high quality? This is nutrition we today lack. This is the food we need to make room for, in our gardens, neighborhoods, towns, and cities.
Before the Peace Corps woman ended her tour of duty, she presented her assigned village with a self-powered grain mill, "relieving the women of this tedious chore."
I wonder what now will the women of that village come together over? How much less will their work be valued? What task will challenge them to the graceful cooperative exertion of their bodies? How long will it be before they can buy Jane Fonda Workout tapes (from the shelves of Salvation Army stores), learn aerobic excercise, or take "folk dancing lessons" to learn to appreciate through pantomime the "traditional work" of their grandmothers?
If humans truly have the ability to tame the wildly rocketing technologies that so dominate our modern "culture" how far it is that we must go when one of our world's most basic, simple, straight forward tools comes into my hands from the other side of the planet, with the edge beveled on the wrong side?
But then: I've been wrong before . . .
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