Circle M Farm

I painted my nails dark red today. That’s how I mark that gardening season is heading into high gear. Starting about now every year, the nails get red and stay that way all through summer to camouflage stains.

My daughter Maggie finds this practice disgusting. “Mom. No. You just scrub the dirt out from under your nails with a brush,” she admonishes me. I DO scrub my nails daily, but the stain just refuses to come out of the corners of my nails until about November. Zack, a fellow farm worker, said last year during one of our crew lunch conversations, “All the dirt comes out from under mine when I wash my hair.” Was he implying that I neither scrubbed my nails nor washed my hair all gardening season long? Well, I certainly do plenty of both, especially now that we have an outdoor shower. I can bathe right in the middle of the day as often as I like without tracking mud into the house. But it makes no difference to my nails. They are a determined testimony to all the time I squander playing in dirt. Like the farmer boy in the Gillian Welch song:

All the girls all dance with the boys from the city,
And they don’t care to dance with me.
Now it ain’t my fault that the fields are muddy,
And the red clay stains my feet.

And it’s under my nails and it’s under my collar,
And it shows on my Sunday clothes.
Though I do my best with the soap and the water,
But the damned old dirt won’t go.

But when I pass through the pearly gate,
Will my gown be gold instead?
Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings,
And a red clay halo for my head?

Maggie also shakes her head at the Amazing Technicolored cowboy hats coming back out of storage. She has a remarkable grasp of all things appropriate in every situation for someone of just 14 tender years. Appropriate or not, I find cowboy hats the best way to simultaneously keep sun off your face and sweat out of your eyes without making your head bake. The colors are just for fun in the field, but I try to remember to wear the subtler ones at my girls’ summer softball games.