Morning Friend,
It is perhaps best that you cannot see the grim set of my steely and "opaline-eyed" ( ala Dirk Pitt) features in front of the computer monitor this morning.
The source of my consternation is a telegram which arrived yesterday from the International Botanical Society of which I am a certified card and T-shirt holder, and "consultant at large".
I've been interested in plants and plant life since I was a fair-haired lad eating dirty carrots out of the garden of my childhood home.
That interest - like tape worms and other associated parasites, found FERTILE GROUND in young Abraham Stainer; a Prairie whelp of unbridled ecological enthusiasm, and rich agricultural ancestry.
A diligently earned Cub Scout merit badge in "houseplant care" didn't exactly shake the Geoponic world at large, but to me it was the first tendril in what has now become a fully rooted and life-long commitment to our World and its' plant life.
( If I REALLY wanted to push the envelope of believability I could say the decades I spent in a drunken "potted plant-like" stupor were for "research sake", but you could easily replicate and condense that experiment by feeding your dieffenbachia beer for a few weeks and see how IT "thrives"? )
That history aside, my membership in the I.B.S. means more than just the key chain, nifty badge and t-shirt I received in the mail.
It means more than the countless hours spent in agricultural chat-rooms comparing notes on nitrogen levels, plant husbandry and soil maintenance.
It means more than earnestly researching and monitoring the growth of my tomato plants for countless hours under the hot summer sun with little more than a paperback novel and a spray bottle for mental and dermatological respite.
It means being ON CALL for any botanical emergency requiring my inimitable wealth of skill and knowledge ; my horticultural "heap", if you will...the WORLD over !
Therein lies the reason for the aforementioned telegram; it is one of THOSE emergent calls....and it's not pretty.
Nor is it a "pretty" thing to be called away from my beloved homeland to some horrid nadir of this, the freshest, loveliest and most invigorating of seasons.....blessed Winter!
Yes my friend, a cry for help has sprung up like a miasma of fear from the Caribbean Agricultural Coalition of an emerging and potentially catastrophic fungus affecting their sugar industry and economic life-blood.
It's sounds initially like none other than the dreaded CANE BLIGHT, and the I.B.S. ( with authorization from Passports Canada), have decided to send their BEST "field" man.....yours truly !
I have a mere nine sleeps....I mean DAYS... to slough off these extravagant trappings and comforting layers of Winter euphoria before heading off to the estimated source of the scourge; the wretched and untamed isle of Barbados, some 3305 long miles to the south-southeast!
A cursory glance at an atlas tells me this little coral "rock" some 900 miles from the equator must me breeze-blown, snow-free and sun INFESTED!
I must, if I can, in the coming short days before my reluctant but resigned departure, SOAK UP as much of Winter's ambrosiatic essence as possible because the hellacious environs which await are likely to be almost inhumanely "tropical" in nature?
Hopefully I can manage some rest in the fearful days ahead because my work there will surely involve long and intense days along the shoreline where my instincts tell me the BLIGHT's cursed seed lies dormant in a menacing sand dune, or perhaps lurks unassumingly in some ominous chlorinated pool water somewhere?
But as the great Mexicali patriot Josita Perez bravely said to his followers on the eve of his trial for vagrancy, "Don't Cry For Me Montenegro!"....or something like that?.....
This is the life I've chosen, and I knew going in, that the life of a Botanist at Large would be equal parts hair-raising excitement, back breaking drudgery, heart-stopping thrills as well as perilous adventure and sacrifice....not for the feint of heart, questioning of sprit, or lacking of soul. ( "girly-men", home-bodies and Chia Petters need not apply !)
I know I'm trading the comforting stability of solid snow and ice for the treacherousness of foreboding beaches; a rosy cheeked glow for some ungodly hue of ecru, and sub-zero zestiness for equatorial ennui, but the sacrifice and hardship will fade like melting snow should I somehow solve this Caribbean cane conundrum.
I shall find my solace in the salvation of the sugar cane farmers; their joy and peace of mind in knowing that there will be another crop to harvest, and mine in knowing that there's always NEXT Winter to luxuriate in.
Love tImMy :/
( I B.S. you not )
Laugh as much as you breathe
and Love as long as you live. ( all inclusive)
