What's That At The End of the Tunnel?

I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide,
his lip was curled, and his leg was fried.
and his hand was froze to the wheel like a tongue
to a sled in the middle of a blizzard
Wolf Creek Pass
CW McCall


A few things have happened here at Let It Grow over the past week that seem indicative of this whole farming thing, and I'll try now to recount some of them in some kind of coherent fashion.
Everything's kinda calmed down over the last day or two, and I've lost that bottom of the adrenaline reserve edge that would have made this post a lot more entertaining. Anyway, I'll try.
Saturday last was our best market in about two years. And we had nothing. A few cases of greens, a few cases of lettuce, some broccoli, a few herb plants, and, of course, fish. I shut down the market having made more money than I have in a long, long, time. An hour later it was all gone.
All gone on nothing. A jug of motor oil, a bag of irrigation supplies, a tank of gas, a few groceries, various tools and replacement parts, and I was right back to where I started. Flat broke and waiting for the next market.
It leaves me wondering just how it is that I'm ever going to get ahead. Even after an outstanding market I'm still flat broke.
Work harder, is my usual response to any challenge. Home with the interns, we got the fields looking better than they have in a long time. No particular crop is hopelessly lost to weeds. The summer planting, though a tiny bit late, is in and looking healthy. Nothing really, really important is broken. The state of things always looks good. Wednesday coming home after market the truck lost all power, coasted a little ways, picked up power again, and then lost it all. I managed to coast down an off ramp. Near midnight I gave up on trying to fix it. I was close enough to MB*s ex-roommate's place to beg a place to crash, and then called J* the next morning. She brought me home, I returned to A'ville with Intern #1, and nursed the truck home. I fiddled with it until dark and seem to have it running fine. Everything I'd made at market, again, was gone.
Next day we're up early to pick, and, that all in, I head into Hot Springs. I'm gonna get J*s car, pick up our fish, pick up I*, and head home. Only J*'s car starts acting up. We scramble to make arrangements to get I*, I take the truck into town to get the fish and get home by dark. We load the truck and fall asleep. Up at four the next morn to get into market. Another really good day. And another intern shows up. Intern #3 is wandering from farm to farm this summer, and has ended up here. He'd like to stay a while. More help in the fields. Another mouth to feed. Maybe we'll manage to break even.
I limp home and collapse.
The truly sad and tragic part of all this is that there is not once in the past week that I've regretted a thing or for a moment wished I was somewhere or someone else.
There's a country music song about a couple of truckers who lose their brakes going down the Great Divide with a load of chickens. They have a series of misadventures along the way, but, somehow, manage to stop safely at the bottom.

We went down and around
and around and down
'til we run outta ground
at the edge of town
and bashed into the side of the feed store
in downtown Pagosa Springs.
CW McCall
Wolf Creek Pass