The Squishy Joys of Despotism

As the farm intern, Anna is allotted her own plot of land, just under an acre, which she can use to grow and sell whatever she likes. Anna has taken advantage of this opportunity and quickly filled the space with cherry tomatoes, lentils, beans, melons and potatoes—lots and lots of potatoes.

The potatoes take up most of her space and they’re growing well. They were due for a hilling when I arrived, and since they cover so much land it seemed like an overwhelming project to do with a shovel and hoe. Always innovative, Anna inspected some abandoned farm machinery and had an apostrophe.

There was an old horse-drawn cultivator gathering dust in the barn. After rummaging for parts, she also discovered a couple large, rusted rotating discs that could be used for hilling if mounted properly at the right angles. Of course, we had no way of attaching these things to the cultivator, but that wasn’t about to stop us (as her friend and cohort, I like to tag along on her projects).

I always enjoyed trips to the tractor store in Utah, so I couldn’t wait to check out the outlet in St. Ignatius. What I saw when we arrived, however, was more of a tractor graveyard. This place was acres and acres of used tractor parts, disassembled, separated and spread out in some semblance of order that more or less kept engine machinery in one half and everything else in the other. It was a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack, except that we weren’t sure if the type of clamps we needed even existed in the first place. Despite the challenge, we had quite a bit of fun rummaging and wondering what on earth some of the pieces we found were supposed to do. I decided this would be a great place to visit if I ever decided to build a giant killer robot.

After a lot of digging, we found two clamps that were a little large, but otherwise perfect for the job. And, go fig, they were lying in the very first heap of metal we passed after we parked there.

It took a little elbow grease and a lot of WD-40, but we managed to turn a horse-drawn cultivator into a tractor-drawn hiller. Since Julie was called away on some farm business, Anna was next in line to drive the tractor, which meant I got to ride the contraption we built. I have to admit, I was a little giddy about it. With all the levers and pedals, I felt like a 19th century inventor testing out his first time machine.

It took a bit of tweaking, but our makeshift hiller worked like a charm. The discs dug the ground up along both sides of the potato lines and heaped it up right to the plants. At the end of the afternoon, we could sit back and admire the beautiful job we did. At least, we would have if it weren’t for the pesky Colorado Potato Beetle.

The Colorado Potato Beetle is a sneaky little bugger that lays its eggs on the underside of potato leaves. After they hatch, plump orange critters spread like wildfire and gnaw away at the leaves so that they look like Swiss cheese. If they’re left at it, they’ll ravage the plants until nothing is left but a puny little stem, and that’s more than a little undesirable. Anna’s potatoes somehow became infested with the tiny monsters and it’s hard to look at a plant covered in orange dots and not want to do something about it. We saw a lot of them that day, so we went to work.

Like I said, I help Anna with whenever I can. Unfortunately, she hasn’t found a better way to deal with potato beetles than to pull them off by hand and squish them between her fingers, and that’s become our regular afternoon activity. If you’ve never squished a potato beetle before, then let me tell you that calling them plump is an understatement. These pests are like little volcanoes just waiting to erupt. When you squeeze a good-sized one, you better make sure it’s aimed away from your face (a lesson Anna and I both learned the hard way). I keep thinking some avant-garde artist would have a blast bringing a blank canvas out to this field and making a masterpiece out of flying beetle guts.

It may sound disgusting, and I won’t argue that it isn’t, but after squishing a few thousand of these things you start to get desensitized. For that matter, it feels somewhat empowering. After spending so much time tending and weeding potato plants, it hurts to see some bratty little bug come along and try to ruin it all. I really enjoy the ego trip I get knowing I’m wiping out their entire population by hand, and I think Anna does, too. Kind of gives me an idea why so many tyrants like to kill people. Also, I’ve employed the trick I learned digging ditches in Utah, which is to imagine seeing the faces of people I hate in the bugs. It makes that pop even more satisfying, and gives a burst of energy that keeps me going.

Yeah, I know—I may need therapy after I’m done farming.