The metal push-plow churned up ants and wigglers and little snakes. I pulled back on the bent wooden handle and shoved the blade harder into the earth again and again, pushing and pulling, working an angle to break the new ground with the next lunge. There is no motor on a push-plow, hence the name. I was pushing as hard as I could. The bottomland was softer than the hills where erosion had brought the red clay to the surface. I hated red clay like elbows hate concrete.
People think farming is romantic; Mr. Douglas-types getting back to the land, feeling dirt under their nails and smelling the fecund aroma of the earth being tilled by mechanical means while plants sprout for your amusement. Farmers in TV commercials and movies seem more American than the rest of us – driving their $48,000 F-150’s and Silverados through muddy splendor; Kevin Costner carving a perfect major league baseball diamond out of a cornfield. A cursory flip through Southern Living or Garden & Gun brings perfect rural people, the porchy home in the distance, the Rockwell-ian barn. If you have money, a farm can be a wonderful, idyllic, pastoral experience. It is not so romantic when you are the mule.
Go to a farm. Don’t just visit, stay a while. Help the farmer do everything he or she has to do – sun-up until sunset, or later. It’s hard to be stoic when you are shoveling manure, fighting bugs, weather, bankers, and a tractor that won’t crank. That’s why I was the mule for a summer. Our tractor died.
Southern Living never showed up to photograph our tiny Jim Walter, two-bedroomer, or the ramshackle chicken house, or our 1949 Chevy truck with the floorboard rusted through so you could litter without ever rolling down your window or the dead tractor or the lazy hounds sleeping around the yard, looking like the dead at Antietam.
Thankfully, I only had to be the mule on fifteen acres of our farm, although my grandmother’s garden might qualify for a full-fledged organic farm in many places today. When the tractor went down, the push plow came out and my memory of mules was rekindled on the wrong side of the arrangement.
After breaking ground, hoisting cow manure and turning it into the soil, it is still hard to imagine having the time on a farm to build it so they will come. My grandmother planted pretty much everything you see in the produce section of the grocery store or in the bins at a farmer’s market. She knew the farmer’s almanac like I know ESPN. Being a boy with a strong back and no paying job, it was up to me to plow the fifteen acres. This was no Mr. Ed job. This was a Mr. Wolf (from Pulp Fiction) job. It hurt, involved blood and probably contributed to why my back feels like it does today.
I know why a mule is not the most likable character on the farm. It sucks to be a mule. Terrible job. You know the little calendar program on your computer that keeps track of your responsibilities and daily obligations? This is the calendar for a mule:
Pull. Push. Pull. Push.
Stare at the ground.
Break wind.
Pull harder. Pull deeper.
Sweat.
Pull. Push. Pull. Push.
When you hear that a mule is stubborn and ornery, well, hell yeah. Walk a mile in the mule’s hooves for a summer and you’ll be the most cantankerous son-of-a-b this side of Hades.
Mules are cynical too. They look wearily at everything, even good things. Bring food to a mule, and you will get distain in return. Bring the mule flowers and chocolates and watch the mulish lip-curl. Try to give a mule a massage (I knew a man who tried this) and prepare to take a kick in the groin. A mule’s eyes are like the windows to a joyless, jackass existence. I’ve seen the view.
Plowing is not exactly fun, either, unless you are perched atop an air-conditioned cab, listening to music while the humidity goes by outside. Of course, a tractor is the mule’s best friend. You may say the tractor put the mule out of business, but that is making the wholly untrue assumption that the mule wanted to be in the plowing trade to begin with. Nope. The only time I ever saw a mule smile was when it’s ears picked up the sound of a tractor cranking. Our misguided impressions of the mule’s work ethic needs to change. A mule is really just an angry, Southern donkey.
I gained a new respect for mules during my summer being one. When I see a mule now, I know exactly how it feels. Pissed.
