Pea Soup

The storm was horrible, and its timing, too: A solid ocean chill sat upon us, and young, tender things perished. The first planting of cucumbers lost. Though covered, I couldn’t fool them. The weather was not ready, the conditions not right; nature imposes another round.

You hope. There were eight trays held out, still living inside the greenhouse — they weren’t exposed. Sit tight, I tell them, the sun eventually will come out.

So, too, lost are the baby birds. Washed from ill-conceived nests near gutters, swept from the branches, are featherless hatchlings, ill-timed in their birth. Poof. Little bodies, after the storm, were carried along the drip line of the barn. Grackles, I presume, so quickly do their fragile soft bodies vanish into the earth. I toss the drowned things into the long grass.

It rained just 2 inches at the home farm but closer to 3 in fields just a mile north. The sun finally comes out, and the farmland begins to mist. Mist is one of Sagg’s finest and most undisturbed features. A white haze, confoundingly cooler, rolls like steam, pools like water, stirs with the air just above the earth. Out of nowhere, a mist forms above the freshly plowed dirt; it chases the disc harrow in wisps.

Mist makes the farmland glow. On some days, many, really, especially in late spring, these mists simply continue to build until it is basically “pea soup” in Sagaponack. Elsewhere, you’ll learn, the sun will be out.

My brother is plowing, and as the tractor pulls away from the headland, I step closer to get a picture. The ample plow, the red tractor, the tilth and the aura. But this can’t be captured, really.

Instead, what hits me, as if I’d forgotten, is the deep and delicious smell of freshly plowed dirt. I stop and take in a deep breath. Part of recognizing the smell of the dirt is describing it. Or at least trying, but it’s not easy. Dirt describes other things, and fresh dirt is clearly its own thing.

So finding likeness and adjectives isn’t an assessment or comparison so much as a goal.