Free Epitaph for a Peach by David M. Masumoto Page A

expensive for the nerves.
    I ask, “Where did you find the five worms? Does each tree have five worms? Each branch?”
    â€œOh, no,” Pat answers. “I looked at dozens of trees.”
    I relax a little. Five worms divided by two dozen trees means only a few worms per acre. But this could be the beginning of a new hatch, with only the first wave having emerged.
    Pat explains how he found the worms. He inspects each branch for tiny half-inch or smaller worms or any visible signs of their feeding. It requires hours to inspect a dozen trees. “You’ve never found an OFM?” he asks.
    â€œTo tell you the truth, I’ve never looked,” I blurt. “And I doubt if any farmer has ever committed an entire day to searching hundreds of branches for worms. No wonder you found some, looking so damned hard.” I occurs to me that I may always have had five worms in my spring orchard and never knew it because no one spent hours obsessed with finding them. I ask again, “So how many worms do you think are out here?”
    Pat shrugs again.
    I’m not used to that kind of answer. Pesticide salesmen never shrug their shoulders. In fact they would love my situation: five worms, peach crop threatened, worried farmer, instant sales. Farmer paranoia and good sales commissions go hand in hand.
    â€œWhat do five worms mean?” I mumble out loud. Pat smiles and says that sounds like a Zen master’s question. I glare at him and he wanders over to another row of peaches.
    The five worms challenge my attempt to farm these peaches differently. Their discovery threatens my organic methods, all the work I’ve tried this year. I sense a coming crisis of faith, knowing I could spray and kill all the worms in the field but then possibly repeat another ordinary harvest of homeless peaches. I have been hoping my alternative farming practices would become a marketing tool, leverage to get attention for these wonderful-tasting fruits.
    But how can I live with nature? By learning to live with five worms and my stress? I realize that for the rest of the season, with the early morning rising sun or at nightfall with the heat lingering in the air, I’ll stand on my farmhouse porch thinking about five worms.
    I join Pat and we scan a few branches of leaves and green peaches. “Thanks for letting me know about the five worms,” I say. He nods. “By the way, what did you do with them?” I grin. “I’d like to see their squashed bodies.”
    Pat turns to me with wide eyes and a blank look.
    Learning to Fail
    The farm is never far away from my family. Our produce comes from the work of family. On the Masumoto farm our fruits and garden vegetables have been family food for generations.
    My eight-year-old daughter, Nikiko, has witnessed both the successes and the failures of our farm. She has touched and tasted ripening fruits and has watched the power of weather unleashed on the fields. She knows her father is vulnerable to things out of his control. The farm is part of her picture drawing. She watches spring thunderstorms march into our valley and ravage tender green shoots with a downpour of hail. As the first ice balls crash down from the heavens, she sees me stand outside under the darkened sky and cry out, “Stop!” Later she draws a picture of the storm with a farmer wearing a big hat to protect himself.
    We plant an annual vegetable garden, and this year Nikiko helps plant some of the seeds and seedlings. But after growing initially, they begin to die.
    Nikiko’s garden is failing. A virus attacks the fragile squash, causing the leaves to yellow and the delicate growth to wither. Her eggplants glisten from a sticky juice secreted by a herd of aphids with a company of tending ants. A phantom creature even munches on the hardy marigolds, taking huge circular bites out of the dangling leaves.
    Daily I monitor the slow death, assessing the new damage, wondering if I