One Year of Farming: Fragmented Reflections

Spring

One year ago, I was living in the unfinished shell of my cabin. It was dried in, but had no water and electricity. The site I chose turned out to be wetter than I had anticipated - muddy boots, and thus cabin floors, characterized the spring. The land was still scarred from the drilling of the well and movement of large machinery, and the brown of unmowed broomsedge dominated the landscape. I had spent most of my money to get to this point, but was far from having anything to show for it. CSA subscriptions were starting to trickle in, though I almost dreaded them coming. Did these members know I didn’t actually have the farm set up? What if I let down all of these folks who were investing in me? 

Running from fear and towards the ember of a dream, I would lace up my boots and determine what needed doing that day.  Slowly, I fell into the rhythms of being on the farm. I would occasionally stumble into presence and gratitude - not worrying about the next task - just enjoying this thing that I had dreamed of for so long. I started accepting help. New people came into my world, injecting warmth and life into a project that at first seemed to be stealing my most precious relationships from me.

In March, Nathan and Max came to the farm for a weekend visit.  We wheelbarrowed endless yards of compost, laid out garden beds, and installed cedar tongue and groove in the cabin. We laughed and teased as we worked. Days were punctuated by jumping in the cold pond and playing chess by headlamp. Intimate conversation permeated the visit. We could work hard and still enjoy life a little bit. Lighten up, they were showing me.  Engineers by trade, they seemed to internally chuckle at my choice of a site for the cabin. Nathan walked me around the pond, grabbed my shoulders, and spun me around towards the farm. He pointed out to the bare fields and said “Don’t you want the view from your front porch to be of the beautiful farm you are going to build?” I moved the cabin a few weeks later, and he was right, sitting on the front porch, looking out over the farm is now a ritual. He could see the vision, even whilst I was still peering through the fog. Nathan passed from this earth a few weeks after their visit; swallowed by the Atlantic while exploring the coasts of Portugal. But I still see him on the farm. In the wondrous green that erupts from the compost he helped lay, in the massive lone pine that we admired together in the dreariness of early spring, and in the view from my front porch. 

Without warning, the seedlings poked through, reaching for the sun. The days warmed. The once bleak landscape turned to baffling green. Empty beds suddenly filled with seedlings. Tomatoes climbed their trellises. I blinked. And we were filling boxes of produce for our CSA and for the farmers market. A weight lifted off my chest - we were farming! 

Summer

The stale, heavy air of mid summer settled in. Dragon flies wove in and out above the pond and over the unmowed pasture. The once clean garden beds held some missed weeds. Looking closely, some crops bore the scars of the flea beetle or the squash bug’s feast. It was hard, at first, to let go of my strict notions of what the garden should look like. A few tears were shed in the greenhouse after hornworms took advantage of a weekend to defoliate more than half of the tomatoes. My skin thickened. Do what you can, what needs to be done. Share the harvest with a few bugs. Leave the rest to be as it will, you can’t control it anyways. Enjoy the beauty in the imperfection. 

Soon it was time to pull the onions. Stacked on pallets to dry, for use in the coming months. The onion tops yellowed, shriveled. The air in the greenhouse aged with the pungence of the curing process.

Fall

Suddenly we were planting fall crops. Rows of carrot tops emerged, dancing in the breeze. Cabbages began to form, spheres emerging from their base of leaves. 

Splitting garlic. My father, Sam, and I sit on cheap camp chairs, huddled around a folding crate, as we peel the cloves apart from each other, dropping them into the crate. Our thumbs stained of garlic, are sore. We talk freely and gayly, enjoying the excuse to sit and enjoy the fall weather and each other’s company. Planting garlic is a chance to digest the growing season. To reminisce and to be gratified by the product of persistent effort. But it is simultaneously an act of hope and trust. As we push the cloves into the ground we are already imagining what next year may bring.