July 4th weekend in 1995 was sunny and dry. My lover's band, "Wiley Peyote" rocked their set at our friend's weekend long pig roast in Shawsville, VA. Our home-brew was a big hit too.. A great time was had by all, though some overindulged, myself included.
We came home to a thirsty, withered garden. He had to hurry and clean up before heading back into town for his shift of delivering gourmet pizza. The old electric water pump chose this afternoon to burn out, though the pressure tank held enough to let him finish his shower, the water wasn't going to work at the turn of a spigot until we both got paid again and could afford to replace the machine.
Suddenly I was dropped back into the agrarian realities of the mid 1800's. If our garden was going to supply us with nutritious food for the rest of the year, if we were going to enjoy a winter of homemade spaghetti sauce, organic potatoes and onions and all the delicious fresh veggies mid summer provides, I would have to tote water from the spring bucket by bucket. Luckily I had found an old wooden carrying yoke in one of the out buildings. It was well worn, years of hard use evident in the marks the old rope had left on the wood, but it still worked. I put this hand carved yoke to good use that afternoon, carrying two mostly full 5 gallon buckets up from the spring to the garden. I gently “dippered” the water onto the base of each thirsty plant in our large garden.
It took multiple tripped of exhausting work to hand water all of it. The buckets were heavy and the day was hot. This was an exhausting chore, yet the plants couldn't wait. A few more trips to the spring house and i could rest, but the garden had to be watered before anymore damage happened. I bucked up and lifted the yoke to my shoulders once more and trudged up the path to the garden, water splashing on my legs, soaking my Birkenstocks.
I don't remember slipping. I don't remember falling down in the mud, the yoke falling as it scraped down my arm, the buckets dumping out and soaking my tie-dyed t shirt. I don't remember anything except coming to, sitting on the cement edge of the spring.
And there was Lillie…
She gentle washed the mud from my face. Her delicate tawny features glowed in the early evening light. Her green eyes sparkled with the reflected sunbeams shining off ripples in the bubbling pool of spring water. Her sun kissed curls bounced with her every moment as she tended to me.
She spoke in a soft soothing tone, heavily accented with the mountains and a strange hit of the harsh z’s and v’s of Bavaria. She said, “ Don’t you worry now child. I finished ‘vatering d’ garten’. Da’ plants all perked up. Everything is done.”
She patted me softly, wiping more mud from the scrapes down my arm.
“All is ‘vell’. You’ll heal quickly,” she said with a sweet smile on her broad full lips as she got up and opened the door to the spring house and stepped inside. It slapped shut with the creak of the spring that once kept it firmly closed. I snapped to full wakefulness.
All this was very weird because the door was old, half off it’s hinges and nailed shut. The rusted broken spring that used to keep it closed hung from the rafters now, part of a wind chime i had made with odd scraps of metal I had found around the old farm. It was heavy and clunky and only clanged with the strongest of breezes, but it was chiming sweetly now.
I turned and looked beyond the muddy path to the green and healthy garden, all the plants standing up firmly, some reaching for the fading sunlight. I turned back to the spring house. I looked in through the broken window, but there was nothing except old shards of broken crockery, rusted butter forms and broken bites of tools.
Lillie was gone, returned to where ever she had come from.
This image is from a print of a watercolor done by Walt Hewes in in 1995, the summer he lived with us in the old farm house we rented from Russell Lugar in Craig County, VA
