I wonder how many folks reading this have ever “hilled” potatoes.

What’s that you say? “Hilled potatoes”?

That’s right. Let’s start with the basics. We’re in the family garden. Mom and Dad never did anything small when it came to the garden, so our potato section could have fed the Irish during their famine!

Potatoes don’t grow on trees. They grow underground. The tiny plant shoots out of the ground and is allowed to grow for a while. While the soil is still loose from tillage, Bro and I, hoes in hand, would heap the soil at the base of each plant, forming a little “hill” around it. This provided the underground condition most conducive for potatoes to grow.

Hilling potatoes was never fun. It was hot, sweaty work. Prior to starting, we’d already done a few hours of hot, sweaty work in the cow barn, so hilling potatoes was just a hot, sweaty variation.

It always amazed me, the number of potatoes grown by a single plant. Scads of them! No wonder hilling potatoes was just nothing but ingratifying work. Nothing was left too show for it.

Digging potatoes at harvest time was, at least, a little gratifying. The Jersey ground grew them like mad, some too big to fit on a dinner plate. When baked, cut one open, throw in a generous hunk of freshly churned butter, salt and voila.

I quote from the cover of MEMOIRS of a JERSEY FARM BOY, “We worked like peasants, we ate like kings.” Funny how, at the time, my juvenile mind didn’t realize how privileged I was.

And here I thought that it couldn’t get any sweeter. but the Autumn of the year seems to have outdone itself… again. The understated browns, the yellows, the scarlets, the russets, even dare I say, the last of the lavenders are yet to tumble from the trees.

They’ll have to hurry. They do have a deadline, you know. It is commonly called “whenever”, the very last moment of the very last day when that very last leaf could possibly come to rest on the forest floor.

You might attempt to foretell when that moment will occur. I, in the meantime, am content to keep guessing. I live deep in the woods. How well do I know that your guess is as good as mine.

There is a special privilege about living in the woods. It is defined by the inability to see or hear those things that are commonly identified with human presence. Yes, the occasional airplane is heard. Quite infrequently a car rumbles down the gravel lane, but most commonly one’s attention is compelled by wildlife, if compelled at all.

The sounds of the night are, well, intriguing. Commonly unidentifiable. But, we’ll not worry about that, shall we? Surely the cicada will intone again tomorrow night with its same subtle vigor. The distant coyote will remind us again of its free forest life and the sun will rise in the morning, complete with its array of silent deer and jumping fish.

The most wonderful phenom is that it occurs again on the morrow. A day has thinly veiled itself, but eternity remains. Another day lies in wait and if Divinity will allow, it is ours to embrace.

If, indeed, there is such a phenom, it was bestowed upon the teams of New York City last night. Shall we call it the Evening of the Long Ball? Or, to evoke a bit of the Babe, Swat Evening.

For those who don’t follow, the Yankees are in 1st place in their division of the American League. The Mets are in 1st place of their division of the National League. In both leagues there is an ever-tightening pennant race. Baseball is nearly convulsing! Ya gotta love it!

Last night’s game wasn’t cooperating with the Mets. A three run Pete Alonso bomb aided the cause. Better yet, in the eighth inning the Mets loaded the bases. Entering the batter’s box is the Mets’ slugging Short Stop, Francisco Lindor.

No, not many Short Stops are power hitters, but Lindor swats a monster Grand -Slam home run, putting the game out of reach to the hosting Milwaukee Brewers and cementing the Mets’ spot in the play-offs.

Not to be out-done, the Yankees have a few power hitters of their own. Aaron Judge had been closing in on Babe Ruth’s home-run record for a year, but last night’s game was getting gloomy. The Yankees trailed by 4 runs. And then, SWAT. Over the wall goes Judge’s #60, tying Ruth’s record.

Still, the Yankees trailed, but later loaded the bases. Enter the slumping Giancarlo Stanton for the Yankees. You guessed it. SWAT, a grand slam. The Yankees win the game and accomplish multiple reasons to celebrate.

What a night for New York baseball!

Entertaining? Definitely.

Sobering? Yes, that too.

Old Timer’s Day at Citi Field caught me a little off guard. How so? It was a reminder that time is whizzing by like a Jacob DeGrom fastball.

The Mets trotted out 60 to 65 former players, some that christened Shea Stadium in 1964. They had a little festive game of their own at Citi Field. Among them was Ed Kranepool, whose autograph I collected as a giddy eleven year old at the’64 World’s Fair.

Here it is all these years later. Who says baseball is waning? Just between the two New York teams, a monumental tradition of sport reigns prouder than ever.

I’m not certain there is a more soothing scene than the one my eyes are locked onto

at the moment. How fortunate I am to see it frequently, but today nature paints it with a notable flair.

The vista is from the accustomed “Writer’s Perch”. Nothing unusual about that. My view is in the more westerly paddock where two horses placidly graze. Best guess? They are 400 feet from my chair. Seemingly their tails swish in unison, suggesting their complaisance with the surrounds. The grass is much too green for them to dislodge their noses from it. They are the picture of contentment.

I suppose I am, as well, but no, I’m not grazing! It’s just the scene that makes me content. I hope those horses are aware of their good fortune that prompts them to swish those tails. It is a scene in the countryside that never fails to disappoint.

It was but a few days ago that through this same line of sight a bear ambled by, probably on its way to a nearby stream. If one commodity is plentiful on the farm it is water. The bear was walking at a deliberate pace. He’d get there when he got there. He wasn’t twenty feet from the perch, so I bade him good morning, but he barely acknowledged my presence. He then continued his stroll toward the spring.

Well, it was just plausible for me to wonder how the horses perceived their circumstances here on the farm. Why not the bear? But, wait a minute. That’s an unfair comparison. Why? Because one is a domesticated animal, the other is wild.

I suppose a story could be hatched: Once upon a day at Tuckaway a bear wandered by the horse paddock fence. He was on his way to get a drink of water and knew that if he crawled under the fence boards and through the paddock, he’d get to the spring faster. The bear had done this before, but today was different. There were three horses peacefully grazing in the middle of the paddock.

There was another complication. The bear’s big body hardly fit under the fence….

Pardon me, dear reader. This is what happens to me when I sit at the writer’s perch. Lord knows what it will lead to ! I didn’t like where this was headed, anyway.

Bobbie Gentry might have called this afternoon “another sleepy, dusty delta day”. But then I wonder how many folks out there still recognize the name Bobbie Gentry. The lyric might be more recognizable.

Around here we walk across the Delaware River, not the Tallahatchie, but the question is still out there. Just what was it that Bobbie and her boyfriend were throwing off that bridge, or will the question forever swirl in the vestiges of mystery?

If you will, pardon my rumination. It’s the heat, you know.

It may sound political, but it’s not. Far from it, in fact. Indulge me for a bit of Hunterdon County local color. Let’s say the year is 1960.

The subject is telephony. That’s right, the telephones that we all used 60 some years ago. That isn’t so many years, well within my own recollection, at least.

No, smart Alec. It wasn’t as though, when I was calling someone, I picked up the receiver and said, “Thelma, get me Harold.”

A few years had gone by since those days, but not really that many. Phones still had those circular dials . We were not yet a “push button society”. It was, in fact, still the era of the “party line”.

“What’s that?”, you younger ones might ask.

Well, a wire still made the singular connection between the phone that you were using in your house and the phones in 1,or 2, or 6 other nearby homes. All of the phones in those homes were on the same circuit. That made the set-up easier, the closer together the homes were, the better (for the phone company).

What did that mean? It was simple. If you and one other of the 6 happened to be using the phone simultaneously, you then heard their conversation as well.

Now, let’s attempt to fathom the unlikely incident when 6 Harolds were simultaneously attempting to call 6 different Thelmas . Remember, they were all on the same circuit. Can you begin to see the complications here ?

Another problem: Enter the love struck teenager. Vacuous lulls in their conversations were quizzical. Stone silence would persist on the line for untold lengths of time. They just couldn’t find the words or whatever the HELL they wanted to say. So they didn’t say anything. It was the proverbial game of chicken. All of this while a neighbor might well have been waiting to use the phone. Dad used to get pissed.

Lucky for us, over time phone service improved. Party lines faded to obscurity. Most of us are versed in the leaps and bounds of technology that have improved the way we communicate. Comparison to the old school is stark. Surely Thelma no longer has to get Harold !

O

Marty Baker is a few years younger than me. We’d pass each other in the halls now and then as students at Del-Val. Being in a different class creates at least a perceptible degree of separation. You know how that is when you’re in high school.

There was another degree of separation when we were growing up. It was a fence; a fence on the surveyor’s line that separated his Dad’s farm and my Dad’s farm. Beyond that we were both farm boys milking cows in the morning and milking again at night. Summers were wrought with the fevered pitch of stacking hay. All of that left no degree of separation. It was just gut-wrenching work, no matter which farm.

Time marched on. Marty’s Dad found a more conducive farm to do the dairying, way up in north-central Pennsylvania, Tioga County that is. The Bakers joined the legions of Hunterdon dairy farmers who left the county for “greener pastures”. We would no longer hear through the woods the sound of Bakers calling their cows in to the barn at milking time. We were doing the same. It was the end of a mini-era.

Draw any line you might, Marty’s departure was emblematic of the churning change unfolding in Hunterdon’s agricultural makeup. However, don’t assume that the boys on those farms don’t still sense the draw of farming that kept their feet planted to the ground, even when they were youngsters.

Witness that the phone rang today. It was Marty. He was looking to wish us well and just check in. We chatted, talked farming for a while. Marty’s had his share of maladies. So have we all.

But as we de-coupled from our conversation, I felt good. Our chat had been born of a bunch of good years, fertilized on our farms. Life is good. God is grand. Thanks for the call, neighbor.

June 16, 2022

Robert Frost would have run out of ink if writing about this June. One after the next of splendid days have been ours in which to luxuriate.

How well do I know? Take it from a Haymaker. No, that’s not the name of a constellation in the nighttime sky, or much as it may sound, the name of a drink at the bar down in Pittstown. No, it’s just as it sounds; one who makes hay.

Slinging bales in June has been my lot since the bales were bigger and heavier than I was. And why in June? Simply put, “then, if ever, come perfect days.” Thank you for that, Mr. Frost. Indeed, perfect sunny days are needed by the Haymaker to get his perfect bales.

Before I get bogged down, the Haymaker is, decidedly , a unisex deal. Nowhere is it written that all hay help need be boys. In fact, I recall those instances when, from my tractor seat, I’d peer across the field and see all feminine bale-slingers. Indeed, the work was getting done on that beautiful day, all by the ladies.

Back to this June, though. Spring is typically attended by very unsettled weather. Many Springs will drive the Haymaker nuts, timing the endeavor around the next raindrops. Would I jinx this heretofore perfect June by noting that it has been most cooperative?

Oh boy, now I’ve said it!