November. I watch the weather channel, wait for the front which determines winter’s onset. At night the field freezes, in afternoon it thaws, but the ground lies bare, snowless--, by my definition, still autumn.

The planting window narrows. Larkspur, a flower saleable either fresh or dried, needs to be seeded in late fall but before winter weather halts work. If I plant too soon, a warm spell could induce germination too quickly, a wet period might rot the seed; if I wait too long, the ground may freeze or a deep snow could fall—both would preclude drilling.

I cannot wait for spring. The seed must be in place the very moment winter breaks. Larkspur needs forty-five days of cold to sprout—the cycle of frost and thaw softening its hard seedcoat. When soil dries sufficiently for spring planting, the required cold span is partially gone—spring is brief, summer comes quickly in the high desert climes.

The farm equipment is in the sheds. Growers fill the café. Soon they will be tired of free time, but for now they’re smiling, grateful the year is done.

We bandy weather forecasts. Three local channels, the Farmer’s Almanac—four predictions, all conflicting. I listen, watch the morning news on the television in the corner. Satellite photos show clouds, coming in off the coast. If the bank hits San Francisco, it will likely strike us; further north it will only pass us by.

I ponder my choices. I have planted this early and succeeded, planted this early and failed. I sip my third coffee—the caffeine makes me nervous, makes me eager to be done with planting. I subtract its effect as I make my decision. Plant, wait, plant, wait—I force myself to postpone.

The harsh climate is larkspur’s mistress, the winter their long courtship. Time enough, that, to expose weakness in character, through the wearing effects of the desert’s aberrant moods. After a myriad winters passed eroding one another’s faults, the two have found their habit, entwining harshness with durability.

Stubborn and skeptical, larkspur suits its partner, as survivors of difficult times often do. My father an offspring of the Depression, my mother of Nazi Germany, I, like they, distrust good fortune. I know how quickly luck changes, having heard the stories of their lives.

My father’s fall from poverty to desperation, my mother’s trials as Germany lost the war—the bed of assumptions on which I was reared colors the world before me. I expect enemies, thus require them as much as friends; I foresee hardship, need it more that comfort to complete my conditioned outlook. Offered ease I refuse it, given comfort I decline—denied either I connive to seize them. The yin inside the yang, the yang inside the yin, I expect opponents—thus find them.

I kick the frost-crusted earth. The field was leveled a century ago, the soil scraped from the hump in the middle and deposited in the lower areas. An old river bed now lays exposed, its round stones as big as fists. The layers once above it, mostly alkaline clay, rest as powder at the end of the field.

On higher ground, at the ditch, clods litter the soil, havens for next year’s weeds. I grab one, crumble it, fidget in indecision. Regardless of when I plant, I’ll not know until spring if my decision was right—and it will not matter then. Choice is a sickness of the mind, a Zen patriarch wrote—right now I’m inclined to agree.

I step across the furrows. Three high, two low. Too cheap to buy a matching set of cultivator shovels, I have staggered the ones I have. The outside and middle shovels dig deeper, the two between more shallow—I call it an experiment, to see which works better, but the two-by-four wired behind levels some of the differences. Imperfect but inexpensive—I am a harsh gardener: if a method requires money or effort, I deem it unsuitable as a way.

Habit, ingrained to narrow our vision, nonetheless eases our way. We need habit to shrink our choices, make manageable our range. Our senses are trained to exclude perceptions, to make order of abundance—what we see and do is a result of that conditioning.

Even the laws of nature may be little more than habit. Physicist Rupert Sheldrake claims such “laws” may exist only because the universe learned them first, taking this path over others. He calls these paths chreodes—picture them as grooves down which a marble might be rolled—which fork at every moment. You, I, the universe chance these chreodes, acquiring habits and laws as our ways deepen.

My rows zigzag through the field, through loam then gravel then clay. If I could get the first row straight, the others would follow—my return wheel sits in the last furrow made. But the draft arms on the old Ford 8N swing with every change in terrain. On a perfect level, in a uniform soil, if I could drive straight—then, my rows would be straight, too. Instead, as the tractor rocks right, so does the corrugator’s; as the shovels meet a harder soil, they shift accordingly. My first rows crooked, my next pass worse—every squiggle becomes more pronounced. Luckily my lands are narrow, giving opportunity for new beginnings.

Every first path a chreode, each subsequent one a reinforcement of habit—like my earliest choices, having become my most pronounced flaws, as well my most visible virtues. Sheldrake avers that even the universe can be retrained, that it can learn a new trick if its old habit can be broken. Embedded in skepticism I’m doubtful—I’ve yet to straighten a crooked row, no matter how I try.

I glance up at the television in the corner. The forecaster predicts snow tomorrow. I zip my coat, down my coffee. Time to complete summer’s last task, present larkspur to hardship, hardship to larkspur.

I buy everyone’s coffee, head to the field.

I fill the seeder an ounce at a time, plant a quarter inch deep. Up one row, down the next, I try to drive straight but fail: clods and gravel re-direct my path, soft soil takes it off-center. In two hours I plant an acre—less time than spent thinking about it.

The seed will shift through the winter, some drifting into the furrow. Next spring, when I cultivate, I’ll uproot these strays along with unwanted weeds.