Farm Life in Haiku

By Kaila Topping, Phase II Fellow

Daily life on the farm at Augusta Health is hard to describe all at once. It is fun, hard, and always loaded with vegetables. Therefore, I have written a series of haikus, chronicling trivial aspects of life on the farm at Augusta Health.

Snap peas crunch sweetly

but loathsome to the picker

I compost with joy

Remay in the wind

twisting about my body

veil for the new bride

washing cut lettuce

the bane of my existence

torture me no more

all the daily woes

delirious in the heat

happy in hindsight

aphids on the farm

they feast on my sanity

make Pat go crazy

the snails are my buds

rudely munching on our crops

contentious friendship

eggs of the lacewing

hang in delicate balance

eat up our aphids

oh, fish emulsion

bringing strength to our new plants

how I reek of you

Many sides of Pat

Patrice, Patty Pan, Popcorn

Self-assigned nicknames

Tony the t-rex

what a colossal helper

with arms too tiny

greenhouses come late

erected with much trouble

it’s still not quite right

bend your knees, she says

minding the ergonomics

come back from Texa

B.C.S. tractor

why won’t you turn on for me

uniquely painful

summer solstice sun

speedy growth, no end in sight

uneven tan lines

keeping pests away

I bathe all my leaves in clay

ghostly cucumber

together again

but never for long enough

missing these people