Suffering a long lasting broken heart, a forty plus single woman writes a sacred list of three things she needs to do to recreate a sense of place for herself. It leads her across the country to Oregon where she meets her next door neighbor. Soon after, the man climbs a cherry tree in a heat wave and brings her his cherry harvest, hoping the cherries will cool her fair haired flush from the heat. The next day, still suffering in a heat wave, she bakes him a fresh cherry pie with the bounty he brought her. This leads to one of many epiphanies, that she must love him to bake in a heat wave. With her love for him sealed in that crust and fruit, they go on to move to a magical delapitated farm, and they call it Apifera.
What the snippet above doesn't mention is both man and woman had the same last name.
Once on the farm, the man's handy abilities were put into full use. His wife's imagination, thinking up everything from donkey hug areas, to old goat residences and chicken ramps with dutch windows, kept him hopping. While he still runs his own well established landscape contracting business full time, he also keeps Apifera standing, and his wife well fed, since he is the main cook in the house. While she prefers to bake, presenting him with home made pie when he has out down himself, he creates meals with bounties from their land.
The first year they lived on their farm, it was a draught year. As they tended to their young lavender plants, still the size of small seedlings, they carried water buckets, and dragged hoses to the fields. Since they had no tractor, they cut and mowed everything by hand. This amused the locals, who were already amused the couple didn't spray for weeds. There were days when the woman would sit in the dusty field, looking at tiny little thirsty plants, and feel overwhelmed. But the man always made her laugh some how, and it was on one of these days, as the dust blew around their feet, that he declared something like, "They can laugh at us all they want, but we still raise the best dirt in town!"
From then on she called him The Dirt Farmer. He is well known in some circles for his attire, so unique, so functional, so him. From his rubber suits, to his famous Christopher Robin boot look, his pictures always leave the ladies wanting more. Now, let's be clear, none of these outfits are staged, he dresses himself. One day he arrived at the kitchen table with his ripped jeans held together with safety pins. A classic Dirt farmer look.
