Amanda Cleary Eastep

The farmer’s wife and I stand shoulder to shoulder considering the state of her squash. 

“Why, two summers ago, we couldn’t even give it all away,” she says, as we both stare down at the drooping stems. 

Having gardened my entire life in the Midwest until four years ago, I’m still on a learning curve as steep as the Appalachians. I have no advice. My own gardens have been a mix of tomato sandwiches from heaven and alien-looking bugs that have turned my pumpkin leaves into lace. Since moving to western North Carolina, my husband and I have experienced a winter straight out of Narnia and the nearly apocalyptic floods in the fall of 2024. 

“Makes you wonder why we do this at all,” she adds with that laugh that means I could buy zucchini at Ingles for less. “I guess it gives us purpose.”

The next day, a late June rain falls so hard in the space of thirty minutes that the runoff from the mountain behind us carves a shallow trench all the way down the gravel lane we share with the neighbors higher up the hill and the farmer and his wife at the end. Each heavy rain sets everyone on edge. Since the floods, the towering trees, the still-under-repair mountain roads, and the compromised bridges beneath our cars and tractors and feet feel fragile, like clay models built by a boy dreaming of other lands.

Read the full essay at Cultivating Oaks Press:

Faithful with Leaf and Bird and Boy