Epitaph for a Peach (18 page)

I planted my last vineyard in 1980. It replaced a beautiful orchard of Le Grand nectarines that had the same qualities as my Sun Crests, wonderful taste but poor color, luscious fruit that no one wanted. I convinced Dad to give up and replant the field with grapes. That's when he first met Marcy, but then she was only a friend.

She was visiting the farm. We were falling in love and wanted to do everything together, including digging holes and planting vine rootstocks. She fell in love with the farm and loved the mountains surrounding us. The landscape brought back memories of her family's farm and goat dairy. She had been away from the dairy long enough to repress memories of the twice-a-day drudgery of dairy life, milking at 5
A.M.
and again in the evening, seven days a week, every week of the year. Besides, I had induced her to come to my farm on a spectacular spring day, when the air was clear and the mountains visible for their once-a-year show.

She was dressed in boots and farm clothes, old jeans and a faded shirt, too good to throw out, too embarrassing to wear in public. She was working with mud on her hands and dirt in her hair when she noticed someone walking through the cleared field toward us.

“Is that your dad?” she asked.

I nodded and jammed another vine cutting into a small hole.

“I must look a mess,” she whispered.

Then it occurred to me that this was their first meeting. I looked up and Dad was smiling. I was smiling, Marcy tried to smile. The introduction was cordial. I enjoyed the work break, and Marcy was good-natured about it all.

I didn't decide to marry Marcy at that exact moment, but I sensed we had participated in a grand tradition of family and farming. Surely many prior generations initiated a future spouse by planting a new crop. Surely many a bride was introduced to a future family and the farm at the same time. Did Dad break from tradition or did he return home to tell Mom, “Marcy looks like she'll make a good worker”?

 

T
HE ACTUAL DECISION
to pull out my Red Top peaches came a few seasons ago with a series of discoveries. A week before harvest, I found a few trees with huge broken limbs. Until harvest was complete, I dreaded entering the orchard knowing I'd find another fallen giant, fruit smashed and scattered around its carcass like orphaned children.

Every year the upper third of these trees grew denser, gradually shading out the lower sections. Branches from eye level down died from lack of sunlight. Meanwhile the trees spread higher and higher, and the orchard began to feel like a rain forest. The majority of fruit clustered at the very top and burned easily in the summer heat, making it an easy target for flocks of roaming, hungry birds. Soon, workers had to use towering ladders, becoming high-wire acrobats to pick fruit suspended in the heavens.

The death knell for this orchard rang clearly when I fell off a ten-foot ladder stretching for some huge juicy peaches. I was balanced on the top rung of the ladder, one foot gingerly placed on a tree limb, while my fingers grabbed a skinny stem with lots of leaves. As I rose above the canopy, a rank green sea of leaves appeared, with occasional red peaches like the one I sought dotting the horizon. First I stretched for my prize, my fingers just grazing the fuzzy skin. Then I lunged at the dangling fruit, managing to brush one and knock it off the branch. I gasped and watched it tumble to the ground, the fruit was heavy with juice and sweetness and so ripe that the slightest tap freed it from the stem.

Next I swiped at the closest peach, grabbing it with my fingertips as I felt the ladder slip from my toes. With one hand I caught a branch and swung like Tarzan of the peach orchards. It was fun for a brief moment, until I heard a snap. Half the tree and I tumbled to the ground.

I survived with only facial scratches and a nasty gouge on my forearm, but I still held onto the peach. It was soft and dead ripe. I turned it over to taste my reward, only to find that birds had beaten me to it weeks before. What was left was oozing brown rot. Treetop fruit proved very costly.

To the general public, farmers may appear stoic, with a strong streak of common sense and level-headed patience. In truth, emotions often are the catalyst for change. Crucial farm decisions, like pushing out an orchard, are made in the heat of the moment.

It's expensive to plant a new orchard. Each tree costs four to five dollars, plus the labor of planting and caring for it until it bears fruit. After clearing the field and burning the stumps and branches, I have to level and smooth the ripped earth. I'll probably spend a thousand dollars an acre over the course of three years before I see a single peach.

Beyond the economic issues, a new orchard clarifies values. I have to select a peach variety, map out the orchard, and accept the reality that I'll live with these decisions for years. A new planting is like having another child, requiring patience and sacrifice and a resounding optimism for the future.

When Dad started farming, there were only a few peach varieties available. Today I have dozens to select from. Some ripen in early May, others in October; some are full red, others a blush color; one variety bears well in heavy clay soils, another in lighter sandy ground. Few of the older varieties like Sun Crest have survived. The new ones are like thoroughbred racehorses, bred for a specific characteristic and trait. New peaches sprint to become the dominant variety in the marketplace sweepstakes. Nurseries race to be the first out with a newer, supposedly superior variety.

These new breeds come with little history. Rarely do I know of anyone who has worked with them for more than a year or two. When a nursery salesman suggests I take a look at a new variety, he means a quick drive-by inspection from the cab of a pickup to judge the tree without talking with the farmer.

One newer variety ripens about the same time as Sun Crest. It has excellent characteristics and good taste, and I think it will like the ground where I'm planting it. Also, I work well with these midsummer varieties that ripen in June and July, because late in the summer my organic farm is confronted by new pressures. Worms hatch and scour the fields for food, pathogens multiply and invade ripening fruit, weeds take root and go to seed. Also, by August my family is hounding me to take a break from summer work, a quick escape before the grapes ripen.

A small family farm can't absorb many mistakes and losses. I may well be gambling with my children's college education with this new orchard. I select a variety because I think it fits my farm, and then all I can do is hope for the best.

After variety selection, I'm preoccupied by the design of the field and the exact distance between the rows of trees, a space I can't change once I plant. Over the years I have collected a file full of notes, a suggestion box to myself about orchard replanting. Some reminders I vividly remember, such as allowing for more room at one end of the field in order to turn my tractor and bin trailer. A twisted tree marks the spot when I learned too late that a trailer and our big tractor can't make the bend without hitting something.

One note reminds me of the time a worker ran over a cement irrigation valve because it was hidden by a tree. Another note diagrams a six-inch strip of weeds that escapes our disk and requires an extra pass on the tractor. When I was starting to farm, I didn't mind the extra work; now I hate the additional two hours it takes—on a hot tractor in the middle of summer—to turn a narrow band of weeds. Years from now, when my children start to help and work the tractor, they'll thank me for narrowing the new orchard. An extra two hours can be an eternity to an adolescent child.

With years of suggestions incorporated into a plan, I can map out the new orchard. But while a design may work fine on paper, it's not until I'm out in the field that I can visualize the mature orchard. I jam sticks into the ground and imagine ten-year-old trees. I pretend to drive a tractor while pulling a disk, checking to see if the wheels will clear the branches and if the disk will have enough room to turn. I use stakes to mark one border of the field and then let them stand for a few weeks. I want to live with them awhile before embracing a specific plan.

A friend drops by and asks why I waste so much space in the avenue separating my farm from my neighbor's. He suggests I plant closer to the property line and fit in another row of sixteen trees. But I explain that an extra row might crowd my neighbor, who often uses large equipment. I can imagine his frustration swelling as my trees grow and expand into our shared border. Good neighbors are worth more than an extra sixteen trees.

I hire a trained work crew to help plant the trees. Were it only a few hundred trees, Dad and I could probably handle the work. But my new orchard will have over five hundred trees. I negotiate with the workers to come early in the planting season, before other farmers demand help in planting their twenty-acre blocks and thousands of trees.

My crew will plant the bare-root trees by hand, which is rare these days. Most other orchards are planted with machines that measure, rip open planting holes, and seal them, requiring human assistance only to drop the tree into the trench at the proper time. Instead, my field will be filled with a dozen men running after a stretched tape measure, marking the proper spacing with straws, then hand-digging small holes for the trees.

Roots are trimmed, leaving only a few strong tap roots, then jammed into the narrow holes. We lean the tree slightly to the north, anticipating vigorous growth toward the sunny southern exposure. Holes are filled, and loose earth packed down by boots.

The culmination of years of decisions is completed within a few hours. An empty field is transformed. I anticipate that with the first signs of spring, earthworms will tickle these new roots and the trees will discover their new home. They will push down and explore my land. I hope they'll take hold with few rejections.

A planted field exposes my opinions like an open ballot to the world. I reveal a commitment to my neighbors and those who pass: by planting a permanent crop I announce my plans to be here for a while.

New Year's Day

Every New Year's Day we follow Japanese tradition and open our house to family, friends, and neighbors. Guests begin to arrive by late morning, and the first plates are loaded with sushi, teriyaki chicken, tempura vegetables, and shrimp. We toast with sake and talk about the year past and the year to begin.

Decades ago, I can recall my relatives and Japanese American family friends having their own New Year's Day open houses. I'd make the rounds, first stopping at a favorite aunt and uncle's place for lunch, a Japanese neighbor's for an afternoon snack, and still another aunt's for dinner. Once I became a teenager, trying to coordinate a quick visit to the homes of friends and a few potential girlfriends, the schedule became more complicated. But over the years, New Year's Day gatherings have changed. Fewer and fewer families host their own. Instead, they thank us and contribute some food to ours.

Most of the food is prepared by Marcy, my mom, and my sister, with Nikiko helping. A few aunts arrive with platters of sushi or
manju,
red bean pastries. As they hand me their dishes, they whisper, “It's really nothing. Happy New Year.” They help begin the year with humility.

No matter how well Marcy prepares Japanese food, throughout the day a series of accolades will be heard: “What a good cook you must be!” I sometimes voice their unspoken words, “for someone not Japanese,” and catch them nodding their heads in agreement.

Guests continue to arrive throughout the day. They first gather at the dining table, then move to a couch or patch of sunlight on the porch for more conversation as another wave of friends arrive. Attendance varies from year to year, depending on the weather or the extent of New Year's Eve partying. Just counting the relatives and neighbors, we'll always have at least fifty guests, and in some years our home has welcomed over a hundred. The pace is relaxed. We have grown accustomed to certain friends arriving at noon, others arrive later in the day and stay until evening, and some will join us with the evening fog.

New Year's Day remains a celebration. Food trays are emptied and refilled, children run and play outside no matter the weather, voices fill our home and farm with life.

We renew friendships as we cluster around the table and talk over food. Groups form and chat; relatives gossip and whisper; bows, embraces, and smiles are plentiful. At a certain point the noise level rises and reverberates throughout our wooden house, I find myself shouting with frequent toasts of sake. As the day unfolds, our windows fog from the moisture of intense conversation and serious discussion.

Inevitably, farmer friends gather outside on the porch. Two or three will adopt their roadside stance, a relaxed posture with hands in their pockets, or lean against the porch railing as if it were the side of a pickup. One may begin to paw nervously with his foot, making imaginary patterns on the wood flooring. Talk of prices and politics will blend with personal stories of success or failure. Enough time has passed so the mistakes can be laughed at, enough distancing has occurred so that emotions have calmed. The farmers can talk in terms of the coming year and the lessons gained from the past.

Some can't help themselves and walk out into the fields. An instant farm tour is organized with half a dozen farmers tramping through the cold damp fields. Most of us stroll with a drink in hand, others balance sushi on napkins. The parade returns to wives, who ask, “Where have you been?”

We then stomp off the moisture soaking our shoes and answer, “Any more food left?” The hike will have stirred appetites, and another feasting begins.

I celebrate the renewal of spirit on New Year's, a confirmation of farming one more year. I tell others, “What better way to begin a year than with a gathering of family and friends?”

I began the year hoping to save my Sun Crest peaches, now I begin the cycle of a new year in fellowship with others.

Homebound

There's a Chinese proverb that says, “A journey begins with the first step.” But it never explains when the journey ends. As the new year begins, I realize that what I seek is the satisfaction of growing my peaches the best I can. I relish the fact that people enjoy the taste of my fruit. Perhaps that's where the journey ends and another begins. My peaches are my gift, and with each new year the joy of giving is renewed.

My quest to find a home for my peaches began with farming them a different way. During spring I competed with nature, fighting a war with the weather and pests. My strategy changed in the summer, when I accepted the fact that I will win sometimes and lose other times. The key to farming seemed to be one of compromise, and I accepted this only grudgingly. Then a simple September rain forced me to acknowledge that nature will always, in the end, dictate my work rhythms. In the autumn and winter I farm in a cooperative, collaborative relationship with nature.

I feel like many of the old farmers who don't know when or how to retire. They're not good at endings and will probably die on their farms. My destiny is to work the land and leave behind a farm. Growing Sun Crest peaches is all part of my lifelong journey. Now I know why old farmers keep hanging on. They greet each season anew and maintain a passion for their work. They rise early, anxious to start each day. They understand it's the journey that's important, not the end.

A seventy-five-year-old Nisei farmer explains, “Farmers, we're like that Japanese character
hito,
which means person.” He pauses, then draws a kanji in the air with his finger. “You know
hito,
written in two strokes. A long one with the other holdin' it up.”

His hand mimics a long even brush stroke, a diagonal line starting at the upper right-hand side and dropping down and to the left. Then a short stroke follows, a quick flick of the wrist and forearm creating another line that begins at the belly of the first one and drops at a right angle. He repeats his motions, and the image seems suspended in the air: a long flowing line with a slight curve, and a second movement that seems to prop up the first stroke.

He continues, “A farmer can't stand alone, has to lean against someone. Today, that's the way it is.”

My Sun Crests help me understand what this old farmer knows. I began the year ready to wage a foolish war, one farmer battling nature, my peaches fighting for a niche in the marketplace. Over and over, though, my struggles were resolved only when I included my family and neighbors as part of the solution. The greatest lesson I glean from my fields is that I cannot farm alone.

When I gaze over my farm I imagine Baachan or Dad walking through the fields. They seemed content, at home on this land. My Sun Crest peaches are now part of the history of this place I too call home. I understand where I am because I know where I came from. I am homebound, forever linked to a piece of earth and the living creatures that reside here. What others may find confining, I find comforting: I feel secure.

A neighbor in his forties insists that only the bottom line counts. He says he's not here to raise pretty fields and he won't farm for very long if he can't make a profit. I know that pretty fields are very much part of my annual profits. Farming provides me with meaningful work, a way of life that integrates family, community, and tradition.

Can I afford to keep my Sun Crest? Or should the real question be, Why not? My peaches offer me a taste for life; they teach me about the flavors of nature. I decide to keep them for one more season. I feel an obligation to try because I have the opportunity. The ghosts who dance in the winter fog whisper this to me. They trick me into pruning one tree and then another and another. They coax me into replanting a new tree to replace one that dies. They understand the power of watching a new generation grow and become established, the young and the old all part of a whole field.

The challenge stirs my emotions. I hope to leave my mark on this landscape like worn initials carved in a tree. I do not need to compete with others. I seek no compromises from nature. In the solitude of the fog I work with myself and my family and friends. I commit to another year and the decision warms me. I am confident new stories will fill my fields with life for the coming season.

Return of the Egret

In the winter I often walk under a bridge where irrigation water flows during the summer. Along the sides are hundreds of swallow nests, tucked up in the corners, layered one upon the other. Each dab of mud hangs intact, cemented to the others by gifted crafters and engineers. I feel like an explorer visiting abandoned villages of the true natives of this land.

Every spring the swallows return to this ditch, my own Capistrano in the San Joaquin Valley. But this is a man-made river, an irrigation canal that brings life to a desert. The bridge is not a quaint wooden crossing; its gray cement supports rise out of the sand at right angles, an asphalt roadway crosses overhead.

The swallows build their homes in the summer, but even in winter I can picture them swooping and darting past me. As I stand on the bridge, they zoom beneath me, skimming the water. I like to imagine their view of the world as they launch themselves under the bridge and then break out of the darkness on the other side, flinging themselves into the daylight. I can see a burst of sunlight greeting them and a pale blue sky rising above the cool mountain water, green farmlands stretching as far as the eye can see.

This is the place we both call home.

A white egret comes to my ditch bank each winter. I believe it's an egret. I also believe it to be a spirit that comes to haunt the farm, and I hope it's the goddess of life returning to watch over me.

Years ago my cousin and I shot an egret. We were young, he was from Los Angeles, a city kid let loose in the countryside. On our farm, he wanted to live out his cowboy dreams from
Bonanza
and other TV shows from the late fifties.

We were walking on the ditch bank when we discovered a wonderful white creature perched still, stalking its prey. I stared with wide eyes in amazement while my cousin turned to me and whispered, “Let's go home and get a gun.”

The excitement of discovery turned into the emotional rush of the hunt. We ran the half mile back to my house, sneaked past our mothers, and ran back to the ditch. He carried my older brother's pellet gun, and I had the pellets jammed into my pants pockets.

The egret had disappeared so we began searching along the grassy bank. On one side of us, the first green shoots of a vineyard reached upward, stretching for the sun. On the other side lay a ditch thirty feet across, a seasonal river carrying water to thirsty fields. As we marched, the water silently drifted in the opposite direction. Occasionally a peach branch or a gnarled old vine stump floated in the current, along with some trash which seemed to multiply each year.

We talked, the thrill of the hunt alive in our veins. Images swept through my mind—the rush of wings, the great white bird heaving itself into the air, the crack of the gun. I imagined witnessing the creature suspended in the air, shot and conquered. We'd both meet for that moment, a shot penetrating the white feathers, piercing deep into the flesh. Then the body would buckle, collapse, and fall into the water. The splash of the hunted, my prey conquered, cleansed, and cooled by water.

My cousin grabbed my arm, squeezing hard. It hurt. I spun and tried to jerk free. “There she is,” he said.

I looked up. Across the ditch the egret stood motionless, her white body frozen against the gentle swaying of the ditch bank grasses. She was hidden from the road and protected by the farmlands around her. But we stood thirty-five feet away on the opposite side, separated by the river of water.

“We gotta go back, cross the bridge to get a better shot,” my cousin whispered. We tried to walk slowly, but anxious feet shuffled and then scurried down the dirt trail. We pretended we were Indians, walking without breaking a stick, silent stalkers of nature. We ended up running down the road, back over the bridge, dashing toward our prey.

I had expected the egret to be scared and take flight. I imagined her rise, each flap of wings propelling her higher and higher away from us, saving herself and us.

My cousin's arm thumped against my chest, almost knocking me over. “Give me a bullet,” he ordered.

With sweaty hands I fumbled in my tight pants for a pellet. Bullet? I said to myself. I had never called them bullets.

He loaded, crouched low, and walked up the bank. I watched as he peered over the edge and raised the gun. Then he pushed the muzzle into the weeds, maneuvering closer to the creature. At point-blank range, he squeezed a shot.

I ran and watched the great white bird slump into the water. There was no flight, no spreading of wings, and no soaring. The egret rolled into the water with hardly a splash.

My cousin held out his hand for one more pellet but I wouldn't give him another. I distracted him by pointing out that our prey was now drifting downstream with the current. He turned and we both watched it float away. Then I broke and ran along the ditch bank. My cousin stood angrily, cursing the water.

I caught up to the great white carcass as it rode the silent stream, and then ran as fast as I could to the bridge to beat the current. I stood over the water, waiting for the white mass of feathers. It slowly drifted toward me and slipped under the bridge. I ran to the other side and for a moment it failed to appear, as if it all had been a dream. But then the body slipped out from the darkness and into the brilliant sunlight. I watched it float downstream until it became a white blur.

 

E
VERY WINTER WHEN
I walk my fields, I see a white egret on the ditch bank. I stop my work and watch her, keeping my distance and staying in my vineyard.

The creature stands motionless. Each of us studies the other. Then the egret crouches, bends her legs, and launches herself upward toward the heavens. I watch her spread her wings wide and, with each stroke, soar higher aloft, circling the farm and me.