Tangents of a Garlic Harvest

I don't mean to complain. I love what I am doing, but there are moments when I hear the voice of reason, devilish reason. Why am I doing this? There are things I simply cannot know if not discovered first hand, by doing. Such as?

For instance, I never would have known that I was allergic to something in the dried leaves of garlic (probably mold). I never would have found out how much our white cat could need to devour those rustling, dried leaves. Could I ever have understood the difficulty of making any money with such a prospect, or how useful it is to own an empty barn or warehouse? Never could I have known that three hours of driving there and then back would create the arc of my attentiveness or how easy it is to have the red and blue lights flashing on my tail.

I should be harvesting today, or even last week, but my hosts were getting married. They are newlyweds and need some time. Meanwhile, I am spinning in my chair with anxiety that every last day was the last day those bulbs would be harvestable. I'm advised that Wednesday would be the best day for my visit, yet the forecast is for rain. I imagine our van, motionless in holiday traffic, with steamed windows. I see the rough and split Asiatic bulbs. I see nine months of work come down to one day in July.

I haven't seen the field since the nineteenth of June. It has been virtually without water for over two weeks. That's okay if all is ready to harvest, but rain now would be a disaster. I fret, just moments before harvest, that I have not found a location, an affordable location, to hang my harvest for the next month. The studio is, putting it kindly, over-warm. At home I suffer from the newly discovered allergy, as if 1500 bulbs could find a place in the apartment, although the cat would be in heaven.

In three days all this will be settled.