Patience

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

I have never been a patient person; and at this late age, I doubt that patience will ever be a skill I'll master.

I remember as a child I would gobble up my iced popsicles so fast that a cold freeze rose painfully to the top of my head. Not so my little brother. He took his time. I believe that he licked away at his frozen treat so slowly that more of it dripped down his fingers in a sticky mess than he actually swallowed. My popsicle consumed, I'd look at him longingly, wishing I'd had more patience and had eaten mine more slowly.

As a young single woman, if a first-time date arrived after the agreed upon hour, that first date became the last for that particular fellow. I had no patience for waiting. Greg was, obviously, on time.

Then, when I practiced law as a trial attorney, and the jury retired to deliberate, and all I could do was wait for them to return of their verdict, I would find myself in total distress. It was not that I feared what the verdict might be. As long as I knew that I had tried the best case possible on behalf of my client, I was content to let the system work, and let the jury decide. It was the waiting, when there was nothing left for me to do but wait and my anxious affliction would set in.

So, one might now imagine that because Greg and I rarely eat ice cream, and he is ever so punctual, and I am totally retired from the practice of law, that I have no need to wait and thus no worry. Alas, this is not so.

It has been a challenging year to garden with the endless rain, but my green peppers have flourished. The dill and basil grew perfectly. The cucumbers have been sublime, and the zucchini and summer squash grew wonderfully well. Sadly, I wish that I had such a glowing report for my tomatoes.

Early on, the deer and rabbits ate my young plants, not just once, but several times. Eventually, my fencing held strong and my young plants grew. Then they set flowers. Then it rained, and rained, and rained some more, and the flowers fell before fruiting.

More flowers grew. I waited, and the rain held off, or if it did rain, it was a gentle rain and the flowers did not fall.

I waited some more, and the flowers set small green fruit that began to grow, ever so slowly. My friends reported how delicious their first summer tomatoes tasted. My little green tomatoes were barely the size of my thumb nail. Then one dear friend joyfully told me how much she enjoyed the tomatoes she had harvested from plants I had given her. I smiled and let her know that my tomatoes were still green and I was sadly waiting for that first bite. She offered some of her produce, but I declined. I suppose that not only do I dislike waiting, I am also a bit stubborn.

Every day, I stop by the garden, multiple times throughout the day, and check on my tomatoes. They are still flowering and setting small green fruit. My largest green tomato is now about the size of an apple. One of the bigger ones has begun to show a tinge of orange color. I wait.

"Be patient, Christine," I tell myself. I sigh as I try to master this summertime task that I find so very difficult to master. One of these days, in the hopefully not too distant future, how wonderful that first ripe tomatoes will be!

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in Ohio south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.