Yesterday was a day of heavy labor digging soil; that night I dreamed deeply about smashing monuments.
I am digging a trench for a French drains that will line three sides of my cottage. The job is simple yet far from mindless. It does not require the precision of thought nor the creative energy of carpentry, but it does call for some mind in addition to heavy labor. Soil, at least the soil around my cottage, is far from the soft loam or sand that one would hope for. It is clay that is typical of the area and full of rocks, and the roots from the bay laurel that lies lurking beneath my patch of land. My sense that I was digging into a former sea bed is confirmed by a quick study of soil types. Either that, or I am digging in soil that was deposited here after being washed down a mountain side. The mark of water is evident even now, in the middle of summer, when the ground is dry.
The work is far from monotonous. Sometimes I have to scrape the heavy pick in the trench to loosen the soil a bit. If I hit a rock, I have to get the pick under it to pry it out. If I hit a root, I have to swing the pick higher to chop it out, maybe dramatically so, lifting it so high that the handle and my extended arms are vertical and perpendicular, or nearly so, to the earth on which I stand. With practice I have become pretty accurate with my swing, even when coming down with full force. Once the obstructing piece of matter is extracted, sometimes a half-hour enterprise, I can continue with my stooped scraping and, finally, my scooping, as I move the loosened soil out of the trench and off to the side. The work is exhausting but well rewarded by a glance at the trench that lengthens and deepens with gratifying regularity.
My neighbor lent me a handful of tools, saying that they would make the job easier, but I find that my pick is the best and only tool for the job.
Something that I find a bit disturbing is the realization that my zeal for digging in the earth overwhelms my concern for any plants, always in the form of roots, since I am digging in soil that was previously covered in concrete (dare I write about that process also?). The trench is the privileged object, and any roots that get in the way are ripped out with satisfaction. How odd it is, in the afternoons, because there is no way that I can dig a trench all day, when I tend to my dymondia in the front garden, weeding for a seemingly endless session, stooped again, similarly removing plants I deem unwanted and offensive.
The difference is that the trench digging involves a form of geologic engineering that seems to hit the same, or related, essential quality of being a human, that is offered also by hoeing, which is the same thing only shallower and less laborious. A history of human earthwork, either in service to agriculture or not, would be fascinating to read, or write. Considering vegetal approaches to the same activity, or other nonhuman agents, would enrich the work even further. Worms and roots have the same shape for a reason.
I am digging a trench for a French drains that will line three sides of my cottage. The job is simple yet far from mindless. It does not require the precision of thought nor the creative energy of carpentry, but it does call for some mind in addition to heavy labor. Soil, at least the soil around my cottage, is far from the soft loam or sand that one would hope for. It is clay that is typical of the area and full of rocks, and the roots from the bay laurel that lies lurking beneath my patch of land. My sense that I was digging into a former sea bed is confirmed by a quick study of soil types. Either that, or I am digging in soil that was deposited here after being washed down a mountain side. The mark of water is evident even now, in the middle of summer, when the ground is dry.
The work is far from monotonous. Sometimes I have to scrape the heavy pick in the trench to loosen the soil a bit. If I hit a rock, I have to get the pick under it to pry it out. If I hit a root, I have to swing the pick higher to chop it out, maybe dramatically so, lifting it so high that the handle and my extended arms are vertical and perpendicular, or nearly so, to the earth on which I stand. With practice I have become pretty accurate with my swing, even when coming down with full force. Once the obstructing piece of matter is extracted, sometimes a half-hour enterprise, I can continue with my stooped scraping and, finally, my scooping, as I move the loosened soil out of the trench and off to the side. The work is exhausting but well rewarded by a glance at the trench that lengthens and deepens with gratifying regularity.
My neighbor lent me a handful of tools, saying that they would make the job easier, but I find that my pick is the best and only tool for the job.
Something that I find a bit disturbing is the realization that my zeal for digging in the earth overwhelms my concern for any plants, always in the form of roots, since I am digging in soil that was previously covered in concrete (dare I write about that process also?). The trench is the privileged object, and any roots that get in the way are ripped out with satisfaction. How odd it is, in the afternoons, because there is no way that I can dig a trench all day, when I tend to my dymondia in the front garden, weeding for a seemingly endless session, stooped again, similarly removing plants I deem unwanted and offensive.
The difference is that the trench digging involves a form of geologic engineering that seems to hit the same, or related, essential quality of being a human, that is offered also by hoeing, which is the same thing only shallower and less laborious. A history of human earthwork, either in service to agriculture or not, would be fascinating to read, or write. Considering vegetal approaches to the same activity, or other nonhuman agents, would enrich the work even further. Worms and roots have the same shape for a reason.
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