by Sara Franklin
June 12, 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot about neighbors, friends, and communities lately. Moving to a new place where you know nobody at all has a way of making one reflect on such things. But more than anything, it’s a neighbor we have at NoHo Town Farm that’s made me contemplate.
For the sake of this entry, I’m going to call him Hal. Hal is a Northampton old-timer. He grew up in a house right across the street from our little farm, and remembers NoHo’s agricultural heyday. Watching the fields across the street be mowed, plowed, and tilled drew him over to Ben and Oona last summer, and now, it seems, we’ve earned ourselves an honorary crew member.
It’s always something. More often than not, I arrive in the morning to see Hal and Ben talking, leaning against one of their pickups casually, exchanging stories, information, and laughs. Or sometimes they’re bent over one of our temperamental Farmall tractors, trying to figure out exactly what isn’t working that particular day. Hal always seems to have an idea.
When I began at NoHo Town Farm, I thought perhaps Hal was just helping us get through the muddy spring. He was around an awful lot, acting as an unofficial consultant for our myriad of infrastructural projects. But it soon became clear that Hal was going to be a mainstay. And ever since, his presence has only increased.
Sometimes Hal comes just to chat while we weed endless rows on our knees. Other times he shows up with gifts, ranging from ample bunches of wild asparagus from his fallow fields in the meadows of NoHo to handmade weeding tools made out of secondhand steak knives. More often than not, he’s got advice on the weather to offer as well. This makes for amusing conversation between he and Oona, who has recently become obsessed with the local radar weather forecaster. They argue good-naturedly about whether rain will come by week’s end and whether or not the severe weather warnings (read: tornadoes and golf ball-sized hail) will pertain to us. One recent day during an extreme heatwave, Hal spent the morning in our shady CSA shed, shirt unbuttoned, just passing the time. All of us were prolonging our morning slowness, wary of the hazy heat that promised midday highs of 100 degrees. But Hal just sat, happy to be in good company, encouraging us to take a dip in the Mill River during our lunch break. “You must!” he hollered in his rusty drawl.
I’ve never had a neighbor like Hal. And although I don’t live on the farm, he feels like he’s always just around the corner. He’s always ready with a treat at the end of a sweaty and exhausting day or when we’ve just about given up on using the Cub to mark beds because it’s refusing to behave yet again. In my suburban upbringing, we barely knew our neighbors. We smiled at them, sure, but we all went home to our cozy homes at night, content in our little self-absorbed worlds.
Farming, I’ve come to realize, has a way of bringing out the community member in people. For Hal, maybe it’s because he remembers what it was like growing up in a farming family where farmers relied upon one another to get by. Few farmers can afford all the advice, supplies, and manpower they need. A mutual exchange of manpower and free consultation was necessary to get through the season with a successful harvest. Or maybe he’s just lonely. Who knows. But his kindness is touching and utterly unique. So for the first time in my life, I’ve got a neighbor, and even the seeds of a community. Now, to find a way to pay it forward.
Ah, harvest season. Finally, after months of slinking into markets to pay ever-rising prices for organic greens, I can relax and just pick them! I tell you, there’s nothing like the first head of lettuce of the season. Tender and flavorful, these leaves are a far cry from the bland and limp bundles that have been shipped across the country. As I crunched through my first farm-fresh salad of the season, I found myself thinking about how easy my access to delicious food become when the growing season kicks into full gear. And man, as a foodie, do I appreciate the taste difference in this gorgeous produce. But after an especially hot day this past week, I began to reconsider that floating feeling.
Easy? Not so fast, Sara. Yes, by harvesting most of my summer and fall produce from the farm, I’ll be saving myself hundreds of dollars in grocery bills and also decrease the number of food shopping trips I have to make (a blessing given the recent spike in gas prices). But the ease of snipping off green leaves at then end of a workday and knowing I’ll have enough veggies for two days is awfully deceiving. What I save in money and mileage, I began to think, I pay for in other ways. Primarily, lifestyle.
After a year of being involved in farming, I still get the funny looks. “You’re doing WHAT?” Especially at my recent college graduation- you should’ve seen the jaws drop on my friends’ parents. My skin has thickened up to the raised eyebrows and the confusion about what exactly farming entails (my, how far we’ve gotten, as a nation, from understanding that it’s farmers, somewhere, who produce our food). But what I’m just getting used to is stomaching the reality myself.
I don’t make much. This isn’t for lack of hard work, and it’s not for lack of generosity on my bosses’ part. It’s just that small-scale organic farming doesn’t net much. Now, I’m not whining. I know I made a choice to farm, and every time I get up and throw on dirty jeans and a tank top or step out into a bed of seedlings on a clear morning, I remember why. Farming is certainly work (and hard work at that), but it’s not the kind of occupation that I’ve realized I dread- sitting in front of a computer (she says as she types away), locked inside, disconnected from all that’s going on outside in the real “real world”. But when it comes time to check my bank balance, or even do the grocery shopping, I remember that my choices have real implications on the way I’m able to live my life outside of work.
Recently, I’ve been feeling the pinch in all sorts of places, driving my boyfriend crazy with keeping track of receipts and reaching over to turn off the car as soon as he shifts into park. There are, of course, the costs that most people, worldwide, are confronting more and more these days- food and gas. We’re big eaters in my house (it comes with the territory- you work growing food, you want to eat food; you spend the day hoeing, you’re starving by dinnertime), and aren’t planning on going on a permanent diet anytime soon. But, we’ve surely made changes in the way we shop and how we consume- we even tried going off ice cream for a month (that lasted less than a week, we’re shameless addicts). And alas, the cost of butter is hindering my pie-making habit. Where I used to generously roll out crusts and give pies away freely to my friends and co-workers, I now find myself thinking twice before even making dessert for my home.
You may just be thinking I’m a junk food junkie, but it’s these corners of my life (and checkbook) that I never thought twice about before that are taking up brainspace these days. Some days I’m a grouch, wishing I had the salary of a paralegal or a Teach for America volunteer, some of the professions my friends have jumped into right out of school. But then I remember the simple pleasures and valuable lessons that are coming out of my choice to farm.
I’ve begun getting to work via a combination of bike and bus. She’s so eco-conscious, all the readers say! Well, yes and now. This all started because of rising gas prices, not a commitment to combat global warming. My commute to work is a stop-and-go 7 ½ mile trip which was eating through the gas, even in my relatively fuel-efficient little Prizm, at eye-popping and bank-breaking speed. So I started, one day a week, now more and more. My commute is 40 minutes longer than it was when I was driving, but I now get to relax in the mornings and afternoons, reading the New York Times and novels, feeling like I’m reclaiming some of the time I’d otherwise spend cursing out my window in traffic. By way of healthcare, I’ve been learning to navigate the new government-provided healthcare system in Massachusetts, since I now live well below the federal poverty line. After four years of studying health disparities and talking about the difficulty of access, I now understand. And even my leisure time is different-I’m spending almost all my time outside, walking my dog and taking notice of my community. I’ve been cooking with my boyfriend and with friends more and more, exchanging recipes and conversing as we prep, cook, and linger over meals. I’ve even found a local yoga studio that’s willing to let me pay for classes with farm vegetables.
Conclusion? I don’t have one yet. Whether or not I’ll farm for the rest of my life remains to be seen, but I find that there are real perks to the “entry level” career decision I’ve made, even if it doesn’t come with an enticing salary. Through farming I continue to build community, focus on priorities in my life, and consider the value of purchases and expenses. And on some fronts, I’m sure that I have it better than even the mega rich who can afford to stock their kitchens entirely with Whole Foods wares- I’ve got those gorgeous and tasty heads of lettuce fresh from the fields to prove it.
by Sara Franklin
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