Farm City_ The Education Of An Urban Farmer Part 8

Five years earlier, my sister had abandoned America. She had been living a life of excitement and excess in Los Angeles, full of parties, Botox, and extreme waxing. My mom had worried about Riana, who, in the ultimate reaction against hippie values, had become a materialist working for a high-end department store and driving an SUV. But then she met Benji in, of all places, the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. I found it amusing that I rediscovered bacon in Las Vegas, while my sister found true love. "I knew the minute we kissed on the dance floor, sober," Riana said, "that he would be my husband." Now she and Benji lived a quiet life in a seaside village in the south of France near the Spanish border. He worked as a math teacher, and Riana became a travel writer.

In March, after a fourteen-hour flight from San Francisco to Barcelona, I took a train from Spain to Narbonne, where Benji picked me up from the station. Like any immigrant, Riana missed a few key things from her native country, and so I entered Europe bearing the tastes of home: baking powder and, though they aren't technically American, corn tortillas. The road from Narbonne to St. Pierre, where my sister lived, pa.s.sed rolling hills of wild thyme, oak woodlands interspersed with grapevines. I ignored the beautiful scenery-I couldn't wait to hold that baby.

At the apartment, which had been the summer home of Benji's parents, I clambered up the stairs. My niece, Amaya, was exquisite in her purple onesie. Large eyes, dark hair, olive skin. She looked just like Benji. And yet there was a hint of Elvis to her-a little pompadour, a snarl to her lips. Yes, she was American, too. I buried my nose in her baby neck and greedily smelled her baby essence. Then I pa.s.sed out on the couch from exhaustion and jet lag.

The next morning-after I had settled into their place, learned how to work the espresso machine, and ventured out briefly to explore the sleepy seaside village-Riana pried Amaya out of my arms and sent me and Benji to the market in Narbonne. Our mom was arriving that afternoon, and Riana wanted to make her a special dinner.

Les Halles in Narbonne reminded me that I wasn't in Oakland anymore. There were stacks of sardines, still shiny from the sea. There were the boucheries chevaline, boucheries chevaline, the horse butchers, selling blood-red cubes of horse-flesh. There were reasonably priced goat cheeses, solid blocks of tomme, and ripe epoisses. The chickens had their heads and feet still attached. The French housewives sashayed through the covered market stalls and stopped to examine the scales on the legs of the chickens before buying. the horse butchers, selling blood-red cubes of horse-flesh. There were reasonably priced goat cheeses, solid blocks of tomme, and ripe epoisses. The chickens had their heads and feet still attached. The French housewives sashayed through the covered market stalls and stopped to examine the scales on the legs of the chickens before buying.

"To make sure it is fresh," Benji explained, his French lips lingering irresistibly on the "sh" sound.

We were an unlikely pair-Benji suave, calm; me wild-eyed, loud, and s...o...b..ring. We paused at the rabbit stall. Skinned bunnies lined a gla.s.s case, their heads still attached. So that's how they look underneath their fur, I thought. They were pure muscle, with no fat. Their back legs looked like skinned chicken thighs.

The rabbit farmers had mounted photos of their idyllic south-of-France farm on the wall. Their place looked nice-rolling hills, a stone farmhouse. The lady behind the counter smiled and greeted me. "Bonjour!" I said, then worried she might say something else. I couldn't even say I didn't speak French in French. It was a comfort to have Benji at my side.

"Benji, will you ask them how they kill the rabbits?" I said, and nudged him.

Benji sighed and reluctantly said something in French to the woman. She looked a little surprised. Benji laughed nervously and said something else and pointed at me. The woman cleared her throat and looked at me while she made some brisk sawing motions with her hand while explaining.

"She said they make a slit in their throat," Benji reported.

"They don't bash them in the head?" I asked. "Or break their necks?"

Benji asked in French. The woman looked mortified. Who was this barbarian?

"No." Benji has these big brown eyes, and they were cast downward in shame.

"Sorry, Benji," I said.

I was sorry to embarra.s.s Benji, but I had to figure it out for my own project at home. The Whole Earth Catalog Whole Earth Catalog had been silent about how to actually kill a rabbit. had been silent about how to actually kill a rabbit.

The French rabbit lady nodded her head when we pointed at a plump bunny in the case. She took out an enormous pair of scissors-I mean enormous: the blade was almost two feet long-and cut our rabbit up into pieces like a chicken.

At my sister's insistence, we brought the rabbit's head home. Though many French people do eat the head-the cheeks and the brain are particularly toothsome, according to Benji's grandmother-this one was for Lucky the cat.

Back at the apartment, Riana announced that Mom had arrived while we were shopping and was taking a nap. While Benji unloaded the groceries, I held and bounced the Buddha-like Amaya on my knee. I couldn't get over the fact that my sister had become a mom. I wondered if having a baby around had any similarities to raising farm animals.

Riana dredged the pieces of rabbit in flour, thyme, piri-piri. Her blond hair up in a bun, she stood at the gas stove wearing an ap.r.o.n and fried the rabbit in hot oil. Growing up, we had always been mistaken for twins, even though we are separated by eighteen months-we both have angular faces with prominent chins and tend toward the tall and leggy side of things. My sister, who has always been a confident person, both in cooking and in traveling, now had a slightly different aura. She just seemed more authoritative than usual. In her time in France, I could see that she had really blossomed. And her cooking had clearly reached another level of deliciousness.

Riana and I had always been into cooking. We could make a marinara and a bechamel sauce before we hit p.u.b.erty. We learned to cook because we had to. When I was ten and Riana twelve, our mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. One morning, she went blind in her left eye and had to wear a patch. She had trouble walking. And since she was a single parent with a full-time job and a sickness that left her exhausted after a day of work, my sister and I learned to make dinner.

My parents had divorced in 1977. My mom then took us to Shelton, Washington, a rainy logging town near Seattle, where she got a job as a schoolteacher. Times were tough-teaching didn't pay well, and my dad didn't pay child support and rarely saw us. I remember overhearing my mom talking with one of her friends. "You're like a mother wolf, taking care of your babies," her friend had whispered. My mom protected us and wanted us to thrive.

The image of my mom as a wolf stuck with me, because my mom brought home all manner of free food for us. She worked at a school on the Skokomish Indian reservation, so her students often gave her whole salmon caught in the Skok River and sacks of oysters from Hood Ca.n.a.l. She and friends would go out on chanterelle-mushroom-picking expeditions. My mom also grew-and had Riana and me tend-a large kitchen garden next to our house. It was a small reminder of her ranch days, except instead of fields of corn and tomatoes, it was just a few rows.

The door to the guest bedroom opened. My mom, jet-lagged, staggered out. She sniffed the air with her long nose, which I inherited.

"Smells like rabbit," she said. We hugged, and then Mom sat down at one of the kitchen stools to watch Riana cook. "I remember when I would take you two girls out to the rabbit hutches . . . ," she began, fingering her long, dangly turquoise earrings. Despite her jet lag, she was awake enough to recount another one of her farm stories.

Riana glanced at me, and we simultaneously rolled our eyes.

We've heard all the Idaho farm stories so many times that if Mom starts one, Riana and I can recite it verbatim. The time Zachary the dog killed the chickens and Dad had to shoot him. How we would watch my mom milking the cow, waiting with bottles in hand for our milk fix. And, yes, the rabbit butchering, when Mom, wearing a down coat that she had stuffed herself with goose feathers from the farm, would give us a tour of the inside of a rabbit. "These are the small intestines; this is the heart," she would instruct as she'd point with her knife tip, the rabbit, tied to a tree branch and flayed open, steaming in the cold air.

There's also a piece of photographic evidence for this ranch tale: Riana and I standing in a snowy glade with bad haircuts, Riana holding a big white and black rabbit in her arms. These animals were not pets.

But that was a long time ago. Along with most of the other back-to-the- landers, my mom had realized that the remaking of our entire American society might not be possible in her lifetime. That spinning wool or churning b.u.t.ter might be fun for a while, but eventually the conveniences of modern life-grocery stores, clothes driers-seemed pretty wonderful. The possibilities for mockery, in hindsight, are endless. The back-to-the-land movement's failure, as inevitable as the collapse of every other utopia, became a buffet of schadenfreude at which even I had occasionally feasted.

But now that I was farming, I knew it was hard work and that plans never went the way you thought they would. After the Maude tragedy and the watermelon debacle, I would never laugh at my parents' hapless experiment again. I'm sure my mom had many a run-in with an opossum-and that s.h.i.t is not funny.

Most of my memories of the farm disappeared in the 1980s, replaced by neon-hued socks and crimping irons. But our mom kept the idea alive with her endless retelling of farm stories.

Although Riana and I give her grief for it, I could see why she did it. Her time on the farm had been filled with defining moments: the first beam raised in their house, her first homemade cheese, her first baby. It was an era when creatures had become characters in the fabric of her life, when the apple harvest meant there would be fruit throughout the winter, when a rabbit raised and slaughtered behind the house meant both a biology lesson and a tasty dinner. There was a lot of room for nostalgia. It was also a time when she was young and healthy and could do anything. And so Riana and I let her tell her stories, out of respect and sometimes curiosity, and tried to imagine what she had been like then.

In honor of Mother, Riana was making civet de lapin, civet de lapin, rabbit in blood sauce, a step up from how it was usually prepared on the ranch in Idaho, fried like chicken. Riana put the browned rabbit into a tagine, a ceramic cooking vessel. The still-raw liver went on top, and a bottle of wine was poured over the whole thing. This all was covered with the smokestack lid of the tagine and whisked into the oven. rabbit in blood sauce, a step up from how it was usually prepared on the ranch in Idaho, fried like chicken. Riana put the browned rabbit into a tagine, a ceramic cooking vessel. The still-raw liver went on top, and a bottle of wine was poured over the whole thing. This all was covered with the smokestack lid of the tagine and whisked into the oven.

We sipped the local rose and watched the sun dip into the Mediterranean. My sister and I dutifully listened to my mom tell the rabbits-on-the-ranch story again, happy to be together, making new memories in France. I halfheartedly wished that my dad could have been there, too. He spoke perfect French-he had studied for a year in Gren.o.ble when he was a young man. After he and my mom got together, they traveled through France. Not far from my sister and Benji's home, my parents had picked grapes as hippie gypsies. My mom loved to tell the story about how the other pickers would call her the Snail. She was slow because she was pregnant with my sister, and she had to periodically stop her work and quietly vomit into the grapevines.

My sister was born in Idaho but had, thirty-five years later, found her way-all this way-back to where she had been conceived. It is my mom's-our family's-most amazing story.

Later that night, Riana was up with the baby. Since I was sleeping on the couch next to Amaya's crib, I was up, too.

"How did Mom do this?" Riana said, looking down at Amaya nursing. While Riana couldn't relate through farming, motherhood had made her see my mom in a different light.

"Dude," I said, "they didn't even have electricity."

"And they-we-lived in the trailer while they built the house," Riana whispered. "That tiny trailer," she said, and wiped Amaya's chin. "I can barely cook dinner with a baby, much less build a house. build a house."

"All those animals," I added. Our minds were boggled at our parents' moxie.

That night, lying there on the couch, I thought about my life in Oakland and its general trajectory. My parents had, by my age, built a house from scratch, had two children, and fed themselves from their land. My sister had, in the past five years, gotten married, given birth to a beautiful child, and learned to speak fluent French and cook flawless French food. I, meanwhile, had some raggedy chickens, some borrowed rabbits, and a dead beehive. On land that could be bulldozed at any moment. My peers were homeless people and freaks.

In France, I noticed that I had even come to pick up some of the patois of the rough-and-tumble streets of Oakland. At dinner, I found myself saying "How you?" and "h.e.l.la cool." My clothes were stained and starting to disintegrate-part and parcel, I suppose, of being an urban farmer.

However, even that ident.i.ty, viewed from a distance, was starting to seem rather . . . thin. When I explained to my sister and mom that I was an urban farmer now, I could see that they had concerns about that self-definition. Because whom was I really feeding? Yes, I had successfully raised a perfect heritage-breed turkey, and it had been delicious. But was there any evidence that I could actually feed myself on a day-to-day basis? I was young and healthy, in my prime, I could do anything, and I was ready for a challenge.

Around 2 a.m., a reckless thought about self-sufficiency came into my head. It niggled at my brain while I tossed, wide awake, on the couch. It made me do some math involving rabbit-breeding cycles. In the morning, over the first of many cafes noir, the idea hatched: for the month of July, when the first of my so-far unborn rabbits would be ready to harvest, I would feed myself exclusively off my urban farm.

"Hey, Riana, can I get that rabbit recipe?" I asked, rocking Amaya in my arms.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

I arrived home from France on a Wednesday night in April. Bill picked me up in our jalopy. Though it was late, I was wide awake. I also had a smuggler's high from successfully getting contraband stinky cheese and cured duck breast from Les Halles past customs, wrapped in my dirty underwear and socks. I waved a Ste. Maure goat cheese in Bill's face as he drove. arrived home from France on a Wednesday night in April. Bill picked me up in our jalopy. Though it was late, I was wide awake. I also had a smuggler's high from successfully getting contraband stinky cheese and cured duck breast from Les Halles past customs, wrapped in my dirty underwear and socks. I waved a Ste. Maure goat cheese in Bill's face as he drove.

"Vella, I got bad news," he said.

My stomach dropped. I immediately thought of the rabbits, the chickens, our cat. Dead. Or that Jack Chan had reared his real-estate-developing head again.

"What?"

"Lana's moving away."

"Oh, no."

Bill took the overland route instead of the highway. As we cruised up MLK, I reacquainted myself with the sprawling garbage, the guys pulling shopping carts, the drug dealers on the corners. I had only been gone for ten days, but GhostTown looked grittier than I remembered. I wondered what Benji would think of this place.

When we pulled up to our house, I suddenly had a fear: Was my diamond in the rough actually a cubic zirconia in a pile of s.h.i.t? Had I been deluding myself? I pushed past the gate to the garden. The air that greeted me smelled fresh and clean. Even though it was dark, I knelt to examine the lettuces growing in the raised beds; they were st.u.r.dy and vibrant. I sniffed at the sweet peas that sprawled up a trellis. The garlic shoots, I was pleased to see, had grown a few inches. Yes, yes, this was a worthwhile project.

While Bill carried my backpack upstairs, I went around to the chicken house with his flashlight. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," I said at the door, preparing them for my intrusion. They clucked and made a high-pitched trilling noise. Chickens are immobilized by the dark. I shined the light across the perch, catching glints of their feathers, a chicken eye, the c.o.c.ked comb of another-all huddled together. They were fine. I shined the light down to the rabbits. They ran around in circles, biting each other. I squatted down closer and saw that they were-yes, that's what they're doing-humping. Does on does, a doe humping Simon the buck. I would have to separate them tomorrow. The humping was good news, though. It meant they were ready to start breeding.

After checking on the animals and rea.s.suring myself that the farm was worthwhile, I went over to Lana's. A sign posted on the metal door of the warehouse said the speakeasy had closed. Years ago, Lana had given me the key with permission to enter at will, so I let myself in.

Inside, Lana and her sister were sitting near the faux fireplace, the clutter of fifteen years billowing around them.

"Everyone just gets drunk," Lana said when I asked why she was calling it quits.

"No one performs anymore," I agreed. I had stopped going months and months ago.

We heard some frantic knocking at the door. Lana ignored it.

"Let's burn the couch," Lana's sister said to cheer her up. "Under the overpa.s.s." Lana shook her head no.

Lana told me she was moving to Mexico. I nodded-I had seen it coming. She had recently lost Maya and had been devastated. I helped bury the guinea pig in the garden. We interred her next to Maude and the duck and goose. Lana placed a large pair of praying hands on the grave to mark it. While we buried the little brown and black guinea pig, I couldn't help but think that people in South America eat guinea pigs. I was terrible.

Sitting at the bar talking with Lana and her sister, I had a horrible thought: Were my animal-killing ways causing her to move away?

"I'm sorry about killing Harold," I told her. Not that I had killed him, but that she was upset by this act.

"It's better than most meat eaters," said Lana's sister. "At least you faced it."

Lana shook her head. But I knew I had b.u.mmed her out. She was like a child in her love of animals. The day after I killed Harold, Joel called to say Jackson woke up in the morning, pulled a turkey feather from underneath his pillow, and cried, "I miss Harold!" Jackson pledged to never eat an animal that he had known personally. Joel and I sighed. Another plan had backfired-did this mean he would insist on factory-farmed meat exclusively? I had hoped, in the back of my mind, that I would become for Jackson like one of my mom's friends whom I fondly remembered from my childhood. Now I was afraid his only memory of me would be a ghoulish, frightening one.

Lana and I looked through photos, and I helped her pack. She ordered a pizza, and Oscar barked at us until we fed him a slice. She found one picture of us standing in the clearing of the lot before any of the beds or plants had gone in. Because of the angle of the photo, we looked like homesteaders on the prairie. The gra.s.s and weeds were a tawny gold.

I didn't know how to thank her. She was a big reason we came to live on 28th Street. She had been directly and indirectly responsible for so much of my happiness.

"Lana, I'm going to miss you," I said, unable to think of anything better.

But as I walked back to my apartment I knew that with Lana gone, as much as I would miss her, my experiment in self-sufficiency-in proving to myself that I was a real farmer capable of feeding myself-was going to be so much easier.

Rising at dawn because of jet lag the next morning, I went out to our seventy-five-square-foot deck, where the defunct beehive still sat, and created a rabbitry: a series of tunnels and boxes, hutches and cages. I threw hay and tossed sawdust onto the deck floor, which was made of rough roofing material. To add a festive air, I hung a clattering bamboo and coconut-sh.e.l.l wind chime over the whole thing.

Then I got the rabbits.

Adult rabbits, I had read in the Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Catalog, need to live in their own private quarters. They are considered adults when they start humping each other. If I didn't separate my rabbits, Simon would relentlessly try to breed with the females, and the females might kill each other's babies, maybe each other. need to live in their own private quarters. They are considered adults when they start humping each other. If I didn't separate my rabbits, Simon would relentlessly try to breed with the females, and the females might kill each other's babies, maybe each other.

At the chicken-run door, I held out a stalk of celery. Simon hopped over. His nose was just like one in a children's tale-remarkably dislocated from his body, and fuzzy. Like cats, rabbits have a flabby layer of skin along their necks and backs that makes a great place to hold on to. I just had to get close enough for a grab. I petted Simon, but he seemed uneasy. Tentatively, he pulled the celery out of my hand. Then I collared him.

Instead of running, Simon tensed up every muscle in his body so I couldn't get a handle. Buying that critical second, he heaved to the far side of the hutch. The females cowered in the corner.

I had to go in after him. By turning my shoulders, I crammed my five-foot-eight frame through the small doorway of the rabbit run so half my body was inside the cage, half out, and managed to grab Simon. As I shimmied out, for a second I had the irrational fear that I would be stuck inside this cage, my legs dangling out. The chickens would eventually start pecking me, the ingrates. But luckily, my hips cleared the door with no problem, and Simon and I left the cage together, farmer and bunny.

His legs drew up and his body curved into a C shape. His fur was impossibly soft. Wading my way through the chickens, I cradled Simon close to my body. He, in true rabbit style, tucked his head under my armpit. If he can't see what's happening, nothing bad will happen. Fuzzy logic.

When I opened the door to his very own cage (feathered with timothy hay, straw, wood chips, one of my old wool sweaters, and his personal water bottle), he arched his back and pushed both his hind legs off my body to leap into his new home. His feet have claws-remember those '80s rabbit's-foot keychains?-and I winced as they ripped into soft flesh.

"Hi, Novella!" Lana yelled from across the street. I waved back, standing in front of the rabbit cage so she wouldn't see the newest meat on the farm. She had a box in her arms and added it to a growing pile on the sidewalk, then disappeared back into her warehouse.

I looked down at my Simon-inflicted wound. Two parallel scratches, four inches long, puckered my forearm. A bit of blood oozed out. A man in a truck with an enormous MICHOACaN b.u.mper sticker pulled up in front of Lana's.

I went downstairs to say goodbye. Lana seemed calm, determined even. Her hazel eyes were a bit red when we hugged. She eyed the scratch on my arm but didn't say anything. I made plans to pour some hydrogen peroxide on my wound.

Lana gave us some stuff from her house: a giant puppet hand, a cracked salad bowl from Italy that had been glued back together, some espresso cups. The guy with the truck attached her bike to the truck bed with a bungee cord, then Lana climbed into the vehicle with Oscar the dog and was gone forever. I saw her in profile as she left, looking forward, her chin jutting out a bit. Oscar stuck his head out the window.

One by one I relocated the female rabbits. They each got their own box (to hide in), water bottle, and food dish. I put the cages close together so the rabbits could smell one another. The deck was utterly transformed. The straw on the floor glowed gold. The rabbits scurried around in their private cages, smearing their noses against the new surfaces. Simon thoughtfully chewed a piece of celery clutched between his paws. My deck looked like a third world country. And I liked it.

Downstairs, while I was watering the garden, I heard a commotion on the street. It was Bobby going through the boxes of stuff Lana had left in front of her house. It looked like he was rearranging his living situation, moving the television over to a table he had set up directly in front of Lana's former gate.

We Americans relocate with impunity, most of us on a regular basis. I thought about Benji, my sister's husband. He still lived in the town where he was born. His great-great-grandfather lived there. But in the States, an idea strikes and we're gone.

When Lana left, it was as if one of the biggest trees in the rainforest canopy had fallen. She had lived here, in one place, for seventeen years, a record for our block. But this is city life-when someone leaves, another rushes in to take her place. In the vacuum of Lana's absence, Bobby took over. Within days, the end of the 2-8 resembled a bingo hall, with all manner of tables and chairs set up. His ever-growing collection of tires and shopping carts sprawled across the dead-end street. What had once been Lana's sidewalk had now become Bobby's domain.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A couple of weeks after Lana left and Bobby unfurled like an enthusiastic kudzu vine, I built a rabbit love nest. It was April, so the rains had stopped, but the gra.s.s was springtime lush. If I was to be self-sustaining on the urban farm starting in less than three months, I needed my breeding-stock rabbits to actually breed. couple of weeks after Lana left and Bobby unfurled like an enthusiastic kudzu vine, I built a rabbit love nest. It was April, so the rains had stopped, but the gra.s.s was springtime lush. If I was to be self-sustaining on the urban farm starting in less than three months, I needed my breeding-stock rabbits to actually breed.

In the squat lot, I erected an enclosure of chicken wire in a half-sun, half-shade spot, then kicked in a red ball as an icebreaker. I placed Simon in the love cage with one of the speckled brown and white does. At first they were shy. Though they had grown up together, they were now living in separate hutches. They sniffed each other, explored a little, and tasted the different varietals of gra.s.s and clover within the bounds of the enclosure. I noticed they especially liked Lana's weed, the Malva parviflora Malva parviflora. To achieve the best purchase on the spiky weed, they had to clamber over each other. Then, I hoped, one thing would lead to another.

Rabbits, I had come to realize after some reading, had provided meat for people h.e.l.l-bent on survival farming way before the hippie back-to-the-land days. During World War II, "thousands of resourceful Americans raised rabbits in backyards to put meat on the table when ration stamps were not sufficient to do the job," wrote Raising Rabbits Successfully Raising Rabbits Successfully author Bob Bennett. "In cities and towns, in the best of neighborhoods, rabbits were housed in wood and chicken wire hutches, busily putting meat on their owners' tables." In the best of neighborhoods. author Bob Bennett. "In cities and towns, in the best of neighborhoods, rabbits were housed in wood and chicken wire hutches, busily putting meat on their owners' tables." In the best of neighborhoods.

As I weeded and planed near the new lovers, I sensed that they might feel exposed away from their safe pens, suddenly out in the garden with open sky and the whizzing sounds of the highway. I added a bucket to the love cage.

Just then, the woman Hillbilly walked by with her Chihuahua and beckoned me over to the sidewalk. After Lana had left, I finally found out the Hillbillies' real names: Peggy and Joe.

"Are you still doing the community garden?" Peggy asked.

"Yes," I said. I tucked my dirty gloves into my back pocket. "Do you want to have a plot?" I asked. So far Mr. Nguyen had been the only person to take over and dutifully tend one of the raised beds.