Robins in the Hoop House
Veggies are chasing the sun in the hoop houses and to give them their best shot at beating out the dandelions and chickweed and grass, we become combative. In between harvest and delivery, field work, and weekly tray seeding at our dreamy seed bench in the barn, I make my rounds through the hoops, hoe in hand, to strike down the weeds...ever the competitors. Last week, I stepped outside the house where a chilly morning received me. Entering the first hoop house, I entered was a wholly different climate. Only trapped heat augments the conditions inside, making them balmier than on the other side of the double layered plastic sheeting. It's a beautiful, passive growing strategy for the shoulder seasons. Those conditions aren't just ripe for the veggies growing inside the confines of the tunnel, but also for the two robins who happened to be confined themselves overnight. Birds are perhaps the freest of the animal kingdom, until humans interfere.
They must have been up in the rafters when the automatic sides rolled closed for the evening, set on a temperature gauge as they are, so that cool winds or spring overnights are shut out. The next morning I decided not to open the walls which would chill the house down. There was just under an hour until the sun was high enough to warm the space and there was plenty of room for all three of us to cohabitate. I set to work, crouched in the most humbling of weeding positions. When weeding young carrots within their row, the spacing is so tight between plants that it is difficult to do much other than use your fingers to pinch out the covert young grasses that grow in between them, or even a sharp serrated knife. This is the most laborious weeding we do all season: the initial and tedious weeding of baby carrots while they are establishing their canopy, which afterward can shade out other competitors while swelling delicious, beta-carotene laden roots underground.
On my knees for the carrots, easing my way down one row at a time, my eyes sussing out the various shades of green and cotyledons, I was hardly a threat to the robins on the far side of the tunnel. At least I wasn't dangerous enough to one of the two robins, for its guard was down as it scavenged in the soil. And good on him...earthworms abound in the hoops at the crops' feet. The plants can spare some for the robins. Over the course of our time cultivating this land, we've accumulated plenty to go around. The second robin, however, was stressed out, apparently feeling the limitation of her confinement. Or maybe she realized how much there was to do outside of the plastic walls at sunrise. I myself had to wonder: where had the robins laid overnight? I made a note to read about how robins sleep and have since learned that females typically rest alone or with their young in a nest, while males roost together. Maybe last night this duo had slept beside each other, breaking all of the rules of their species.
The two contrary behaviors interested me...the female talking quite animatedly,"we aren't safe here! We shouldn't be here! One of those beasts who lives in the big box with the deathly invisible panes is here!! Robert, stop eating! Don't you see!!!". The male all the while remained nonchalant and went about a morning forage. It reminded me of a human experience which is top of the mind for me: a child's lot in life. A kid comes crashing down to Earth into a particular situation, housed with a certain person or group, and all without their consent. All is out of your control: the quality of the person or group you find yourself with, the place you call home, the position your body is lying in at any given time, and your basic needs being attended to. Not unlike the lady robin, you find you have a voice, you can raise it and wield it for what it's worth. And you see that it has an effect. You have a voice!
You grow and you gain more ability and intellect, and you still have that voice that you discovered as soon as you were born into the world and your airway was cleared. I remember two times hearing that heartbreaking cry of birth...May and three years later, Jack rang out their birth songs. And yet, despite the autonomy gained year by year, throughout childhood there is still so much outside of your reach. You may be able to manipulate your environment more, or your custodian, and thank God you can move your body and escape into your developing mind. But your set of circumstances are still regulated by your adult(s). I'm one such adult...a controller of kids. Ambitious little buggers that they are, Rich and I have attempted to provide May and Jack with an environment where they can set their ideas loose, one where they can learn from trying and form their own ideas about the world as they discover it. Even so, they're discovering it through the paradigm of their parents, as we did with ours.
Whether it is an uninspiring year of school, or a relationship with a person in their world which makes them feel small, I've seen them experience different situations not unlike the robins who were trapped for a night and a morning in the hoop house. Situations which can make you yearn for more control or to fly. The inevitability of a child to feel helpless is crushing. What a cruel rite of passage they go through. But how necessary it is! For to be freed to fly before your wings have developed the ability to hold you aloft would be much crueler. I feel quite a responsibility as their mom to allow them to breath, so as not to feel so clautrophobic in the confines of the environment we allow them. Sometimes they rage against the machine like the female robin: make noise, fight the man and lean into bull-headedness. I see a lot of myself in those parts of them. At other times they make the most of it, and find a way to take advantage of the situation and juice it like the male robin helping himself to the hoop house's morning buffet. I have found that most young humans are much better than their (eventual) older selves at doing the latter...because they don't have a choice.
And their spirits are freer for it: next to no inhibitions and a knack for living wherever they are and throwing themselves into it. They tend toward emulating the buffet robin. And their resilience and perseverance rewards them with worms-worth of riches: contentedness, humility and inner peace...which itself is true freedom. When I feel trapped in circumstance, I want to emulate the kids as they do the robin.
Thank you for reading :)
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