Fertile Ground USA...Celebrating the people behind the plow

 by Sara B. Franklin

October 29
            Today I biked through the first snow flurries of the year.  Those tiny, elegant white flakes were well-timed, as my farming season came to a close just a few days ago.  The fields are hardening up in the chilly, gray weather, cover crops have been sowed, and we harvested the last of our delicate lettuce heads.

            As I stood on the steps of the (now finished) CSA shed on my last afternoon of work, I couldn’t help remembering how the land had looked a short seven months earlier.  The driveway was pocked with deep, muddy puddles; the goat barn and CSA shed were mere shells, and the fields were still green with the previous fall’s cover crops.  Town Farm was still just a plot of land, yet to be tested for its potential. My god, how far we’ve come. 

            It’s a bittersweet day when the season comes to a close.  During my last week, I found myself gazing at the wide-open sky, enjoying the cold air on the tip of my nose, the snap of the frost-sweetened kale leaves from their stems.  Now my days are mostly spent inside, catching up on the sleep and reading that’s been taking a back seat all season long, making time for indulgences like long stints of writing and slow, meandering walks with my dog in the woods. 

            To be certain, I’m glad to have a bit more time on my hands. But I already miss the rhythm of the work, the sense of being physically spent at the end of a long day, the hours spent in synch with the winds, the clouds, the sun, and the rain.

            Would I do it again? Absolutely. This season, like the season before, came with its challenges. I’m satisfied to know I’ve done my job well, and now I’m ready for some R&R.  The more I talk to people who don’t work with the cycle of the seasons, the more I realize how grateful I am for the opportunity to farm. I start, full of excitement and replenished energy stores in the spring, and then work as hard as my body can handle during the height of the season, slowly ebbing to a gentler pace in the fall. And then winter, a time to rest, a time to reflect, a time to prepare. “To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season turn turn turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  Without the work of the season, I don’t know that I would ever appreciate the luxury of a restful, quiet season.   And without the semi-hibernation of the winter, would I ever have the energy to start a new season come spring? Doubtful.

            Now comes the next challenge. As a young farmer, hungry to meet new people and visit new places, I’ll be moving at the turn of the calendar year.  To where, I can’t yet say. I have dreams of returning to South Africa, where I spent time during college, to work with some young farmers who are trying to reinvigorate native youth’s involvement in local agriculture.  Perhaps I’ll be in Europe, learning the stubbornly-traditional ways of farmers in France, Croatia, and Greece.  And maybe I’ll be here in the States, on either coast (or somewhere in the middle). One of the perks of being a young farmer without ties to a parcel of land is the annual chance to start anew.  For sure, the search is trying, especially at a time when the whole country seems to be strapped for cash. But with a field full of fresh food at my fingertips, I don’t need much to live on, and so the world, with all its possibilities, lies at my feet.

            Perhaps I’ll tune in with developments over the winter. Perhaps I’ll be so dormant that these postings will stop until next season begins.  Either way, thank you for reading and taking an interest. Young farmers are everywhere, and are growing in number by the day. We all appreciate your ever-growing awareness of the importance of sustainable agriculture and appreciation for locally-produced, fresh foods. And with that, I put the 2008 growing season to bed.



 

            Today I biked through the first snow flurries of the year.  Those tiny, elegant white flakes were well-timed, as my farming season came to a close just a few days ago.  The fields are hardening up in the chilly, gray weather, cover crops have been sowed, and we harvested the last of our delicate lettuce heads.

            As I stood on the steps of the (now finished) CSA shed on my last afternoon of work, I couldn’t help remembering how the land had looked a short seven months earlier.  The driveway was pocked with deep, muddy puddles; the goat barn and CSA shed were mere shells, and the fields were still green with the previous fall’s cover crops.  Town Farm was still just a plot of land, yet to be tested for its potential. My god, how far we’ve come. 

            It’s a bittersweet day when the season comes to a close.  During my last week, I found myself gazing at the wide-open sky, enjoying the cold air on the tip of my nose, the snap of the frost-sweetened kale leaves from their stems.  Now my days are mostly spent inside, catching up on the sleep and reading that’s been taking a back seat all season long, making time for indulgences like long stints of writing and slow, meandering walks with my dog in the woods. 

            To be certain, I’m glad to have a bit more time on my hands. But I already miss the rhythm of the work, the sense of being physically spent at the end of a long day, the hours spent in synch with the winds, the clouds, the sun, and the rain.

            Would I do it again? Absolutely. This season, like the season before, came with its challenges. I’m satisfied to know I’ve done my job well, and now I’m ready for some R&R.  The more I talk to people who don’t work with the cycle of the seasons, the more I realize how grateful I am for the opportunity to farm. I start, full of excitement and replenished energy stores in the spring, and then work as hard as my body can handle during the height of the season, slowly ebbing to a gentler pace in the fall. And then winter, a time to rest, a time to reflect, a time to prepare. “To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season turn turn turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  Without the work of the season, I don’t know that I would ever appreciate the luxury of a restful, quiet season.   And without the semi-hibernation of the winter, would I ever have the energy to start a new season come spring? Doubtful.

            Now comes the next challenge. As a young farmer, hungry to meet new people and visit new places, I’ll be moving at the turn of the calendar year.  To where, I can’t yet say. I have dreams of returning to South Africa, where I spent time during college, to work with some young farmers who are trying to reinvigorate native youth’s involvement in local agriculture.  Perhaps I’ll be in Europe, learning the stubbornly-traditional ways of farmers in France, Croatia, and Greece.  And maybe I’ll be here in the States, on either coast (or somewhere in the middle). One of the perks of being a young farmer without ties to a parcel of land is the annual chance to start anew.  For sure, the search is trying, especially at a time when the whole country seems to be strapped for cash. But with a field full of fresh food at my fingertips, I don’t need much to live on, and so the world, with all its possibilities, lies at my feet.

            Perhaps I’ll tune in with developments over the winter. Perhaps I’ll be so dormant that these postings will stop until next season begins.  Either way, thank you for reading and taking an interest. Young farmers are everywhere, and are growing in number by the day. We all appreciate your ever-growing awareness of the importance of sustainable agriculture and appreciation for locally-produced, fresh foods. And with that, I put the 2008 growing season to bed.

October 9

    We picked kale covered in ice on Tuesday morning.  The first real cold snap of the season whooshed in on Sunday night, and left us shivering at home and bundling into hats, fleece jackets, and gloves for an early morning harvest on Tuesday.  It’s remarkable to think that it was only a few weeks ago that I felt I would be eternally grouchy due to the oppressive heat and humidity here in the Valley.  But fall is in full swing here, as if the brilliant rusts and golds of the sugar maples didn’t tell me so themselves.  
    There’s something miraculous about plants that can continue to grow under the stress of a heavy frost.  Kale and collards, two of the heartiest greens, keep on trucking, producing their big, floppy leaves well into the coldest months of the late fall.  And just when I’m beginning to mourn the loss of abundant lettuces, zucchinis, and tomatoes, I find a new satisfaction in the sweetness from the addition of frosted kale to most of the dishes in my kitchen.  
    But the slow down of the farming season presents a real challenge. As advocates of sustainable agriculture and local food systems charge ahead in promoting their cause, residents of the northeast find themselves wondering- how do I walk the walk during the winter and early spring months?
    Winter CSAs are popping up quickly in the northeast, providing subscribers with a bounty of winter squash, storage carrots, parsnips, onions, and some hearty greens.  But even the best of them only supplies until January or February. What about that gap between the end of CSA season and the renewed marketing months of May and June?
    Even I, a dedicated consumer of local produce, find myself slinking into the produce section of Whole Foods, reluctantly purchasing an avocado from Mexico here, an eggplant from California there.  Not only do I crave something other than starchy roots from time to time, but I don’t have an adequate storage system (rental apartments tend not to come equipped with a root cellar and sharing a tiny freezer with 3 other roommates doesn’t exactly facilitate freezing as a method of putting food by) or enough storage crops to last me through the long months during which northeastern farms aren’t dispatching their goods. As the temperature drops and I look at the 7 month gap between now and time farms in this area will be selling again, my shelf of canned tomatoes seems pretty measly.
    It’s during these months that I find myself resenting California, Texas, and Louisiana and their eternal growing seasons.  And perhaps most directly, I find myself seething with jealousy for the Bay Area.  Of course the liberal Mecca can advertise itself as a model of sustainable agriculture and local foods- they have a 12 month growing season! It’d be easy for New York, Boston, DC, or Philly to do the same if we didn’t spend months with the ground frozen solid and, in some places, feet of snow to impede photosynthesis on the ground. We in the Northeast don’t even have green, growing grass in the colder months.
    So my choices seem to be thus- move to the Bay Area, where things are freer and easier; find the money to buy or rent a place where I’ll be permanent enough to invest in a chest freezer and the construction of a root cellar; or sheepishly pay my valuable dollars for food that’s been shipped cross country in a refrigerated truck only to arrive on my plate a bit wilted, not particularly flavorful, and with a heaping dose of guilt.
    But here’s what I think. I pay my dues in time and sweat during the growing season.  Until my means improve so that I can preserve enough food to feed myself through the winter, I’ve got to do the best I can. And that means making the best choices with the resources I’ve got available.
    Yes, I’d choose local over organic from California (controversial to many, I know). But when local isn’t an option, I turn to the giant state on the other side of the continent for my food supply.  As my envy continues and I continue to be situated in less-than-ideal communal housing, I think I’ll try to cut the guilt a little bit.  Hey, even a proselytizer of local and organic food has gotta eat.

by Sara B. Franklin

    Oh glorious fall. The leaves are changing, the mornings are crisp, and there’s a feeling of slowing down and nestling in at the farm. Our CSA distribution shed is filled to the brim with storage onions curing and piles of winter squash.  We just ate the last of our watermelon yesterday, and the tomatoes don’t look like they have long to go.  We’ve been working in fleece jackets and wool hats recently, as the mornings are brisk and chilly.  The dew has turned to silver in the early morning light, and everything seems to be lit in a beautiful golden hue from the slanting sun.
    Autumn at a New England farm is something else. You really have to experience it to understand its otherworldly beauty. And after the urgency and chaos of the summer season, the slower pace and cooler temperatures are welcome changes.  A different tone from my August posting, eh?  The only thing I have to complain about these days is waking up in the dark. But hey, there are worse things in life than watching the sun rise every morning.
    There’s a wonderful sense of cycle right now. We’ve been finishing off patches of greens and beans, plowing them under and seeding cover crops in the freshly tilled soil.  One of our young goats, Maybe, went to slaughter recently, as did our small flock of lambs.  Our chickens, who seemed to be tiny and helpless only a few breaths ago, have grown into full-fledged laying hens, providing us a dozen fresh eggs each day.  Soon we’ll be pulling the stakes and twine out of our tomatoes rows and putting those aggressively productive plants to rest.
    Our farmers market is in full swing, and it never ceases to amaze people when we tell them that we are located “just over there”, barely out of sight from the busy downtown of Northampton.  The distance from farm to plate seems to be decreasing by the day here in the Northeast, and yet, local folks are still getting all wide-eyed when they think of a farm in their neighborhood.  To me, seeing such surprise and pleasure on the face of an avid vegetable eater never loses its novelty.
    All of us on the farming community are getting tired, and are preparing to put our fields’ bed after a long and work-filled season. We too need a good rest, and I find myself looking towards the end of October with a sense of anticipatory nostalgia edged with relief.  My body needs a good rest before gearing up for next season.
    As the season winds down and work slows to a walk instead of a run,  I find myself with a renewed gratitude for the work of the fields, the chance to spend these glorious, fleeting days in the rows instead of cooped up inside.  There’s still much beautiful food to be harvested before the last pickup of the year, and we seem to be, once again, doing our work with high spirits and a bit of extra spring in our steps.

by sara b. franklin

 We started a new farmers market in Northampton! Well, I shouldn’t really say we. My boss, Ben, did almost all of the organizing and PR necessary to get a new market off the ground- man is it a lot of work!

From interviews on the radio to flyers, from sandwich boards to recruiting vendors, starting a new market is no joke.  Ben was wired all weekend, buzzing around, running on adrenaline and very little sleep. Come Tuesday morning, he was up at the crack of dawn, harvesting.  Oona and I finished off the harvest all morning in unusually hot September temperatures, and then used our spiffy bike trailer to haul the produce back to their house to wash and pack, and then off we went. You should have seen us! Ben and I, rolling down the main drag of Northampton on bikes equipped with hundreds of pounds of produce, our EZ Up tent, cash boxes, bushel baskets, and tables for display.  We rolled into town just as the first vendor was showing up at the pedestrian walkway we had reserved for the market, and I scrambled frantically to set up and go retrieve our produce labels from the copy shop while Ben fluttered around, talking to vendors and working out logistics with the parking commissioner. 

 3 o’clock arrived with shoppers anxiously awaiting the go ahead. And what a first day it was! There was hardly a minute without a sale happening which, for a first day of a small weekday market, seemed like quite an accomplishment. With aching feet and a mind fried from making too much change, I made it to 7’oclock, just as the sun was beginning to sink.  And let me tell you, there’s nothing you want to do less after a busy market than pack up and ride a bike home in the dark. But Oona, Ben, and I managed to get all the spare produce back into crates and Ben and I carefully pedaled back to the house.

 I fell asleep exhausted but exhilarated. People were so excited! Expressions of gratitude came at us right and left from folks thrilled we were introducing such a welcoming and exciting community event.  I forgot what a proud rush it is to interact firsthand with customers as they wow over the produce that I helped to grow.  People were so amazed by the bike trailers, and expressed curiosity and amazement that there was a chemical-free farm right in the heart of their town (who knew?). One thing I never tired of was declaring to people that no, we don’t use pesticides and yes, you can walk and bike to us. 

The Tuesday Market may have just begun, but my commitment to small-scale family owned farms has been growing deeper and stronger for years now.  Tuesday afternoon was just another reminder of how important the work of farmers is, and how much joy and unity can build around sharing healthy, sustainably-grown food.

by Sara Franklin
Here we are in August, and all the farmers I know can barley keep their eyes open.  Despite cooler temperatures than this part of the country usually sees this time of year, there’s just something about August that has a way of exhausting the farming community. This is the time of year when many beginning farmers contemplate quitting, the time of year when farmers complain they have no lives, that they spend all their waking hours harvesting and attacking weeds, the “end of the sane farming season”, as a friend of mine put it.
    And yet, ironically enough, it’s the time of year when customers tend to get most excited about farms.  The August bounty of tomatoes, melons, corn, peaches, and zucchini seems to invoke bucolic nostalgia in even the most urban-minded souls. Perhaps it’s because August is a month of barbecues and lazy, mosquito-filled evenings, the last hurrah before vacation season ends and the chill of autumn evenings crisp the air. Whatever the reason, I find the contradiction between the mindset of farmer and customers this time of year a bit unsettling.
    This is the time of year when the cash flow is greatest for farmers, and yet, we’re at our moodiest.  Long, humid days make for grouchy crews on the farm and short tempers at home.  Dropping to sleep immediately after dinner and waking up shortly before I have to be at work is not my idea of the good life. And yet, here I am, willingly putting myself through this sapping daily grind. Are we, the farming community, crazy?
    I find that it’s only thoughts of fall, a lovely season on farms when temperatures drop, the urgency of harvesting slows a bit (note: Right now, tomatoes, zukes, cukes, and melons need to be picked every day and a half or so that fruit doesn’t rot on the vine and the plants continue to produce. As the temperatures drop and these crops peter out, the harvest become bi- or tri-weekly again, akin to the harvest schedule of the spring), and a sense of rhythm returns. All that in contrast to the chaotic rush that defines August.  
    Because of the frenetic pace of work these days, it’s likely I won’t write again until September.  By then, we at Town Farm will have a new farmers market up and running in downtown Northampton. Ah, a fresh start right after Labor Day, reminiscent of back-to-school (there will, after all, be apples at the market!), a time that never failed to excite me.  By then I might even have my feet back under me. Well, let’s not get carried away.

August 6, 2008
Whew! It seems I blinked and July whizzed by.  I guess that’s just what happens when the days heat up, the produce starts rolling in, and it’s all you can do to climb into bed at night after a long day at work.  There are plenty of things to write about, but I’ve been asked to address what happens with our produce when there’s leftover food.  My answer: what leftover food?

As a new farm, we are working hard to get our scale right.  This year, we have 16 CSA members, a small farm stand, and one wholesale customer.  Because our distribution is quite small, we have tailored our planting and harvesting to approximate, as closely as possible, the amount of produce we need to pick in order to avoid having extra.  Sure, occasionally a shareholder won’t show or a particular customer won’t want a given herb or type of produce, but then we, the hungry farmers and avid cooks, gather up the scraps of the pickup and take it home to our own kitchen to feed ourselves.  

Guessing how much to grow and harvest is always a bit of a crapshoot. How does a farmer avoid drastically underestimating, and thus running out of food, or over-harvesting and wasting money and time by letting extra produce go to the compost pile? It’s a tricky science, one that takes a lot of practice and experimentation to get right. This year, my bosses had the good fortune to be able to borrow the crop plans of farmer friends of theirs, thus helping them to plant to their scale based on Town Farm’s number of shareholders.  So far, we’ve done pretty well. But there are inevitably variables that we just can’t predict - rain, drought, rot, poor germination, slow growth, etc.  We do all we can to manipulate these unhelpful problems by fertilizing, hoeing and weeding, and covering crops during extreme weather, but sometimes crops just aren’t ready when, or in the quantity, that we need them.  For example, this past week, a planting of cilantro that we were counting on to get us through two or three weeks of pickups only yielded enough for one single day, only a sixth of its expected yield. Alas, no cilantro for a week or so now, until our next planting is big enough to be viable for harvest.

Not all farms, of course, operate on such small numbers as we do. The farm I worked at last year, for example, used its 9 acres quite intensely, and grew for 300 shareholders and hunger relief donations.  Our method was to estimate the number of shareholders that would show on any given day (experience helped us predict patters, but there were always surprises- the shareholders has the chance to show up on any of three days of every week), and harvest that many shares. Sometimes we ran low and had to do emergency harvests late in the evening, other times we way over-guessed. In those cases, the extra was packed into crates and picked up by various hunger-relief charities that counted on us to provide them with produce for their food supplies. 

In coming seasons, Town Farm may have to adopt a similar model. Next year, my bosses are planning to offer 75 shares, as well as expanding their wholesale operation and selling at a brand new farmers market.  Guessing numbers becomes harder as the numbers go up, and how much to bring to market? One never knows.

But in the meantime, yours truly has the opportunity to keep her fridge full with fresh food largely due to a slight overplanting, imperfect plants (I don’t mind split carrots or tomatoes with a tiny rot spot), or no-show shareholders.  No waste, and a beautifully varied and nutritious diet.

To find your local food bank, go to: America's Second Harvest

July 7
    I’ve been thinking lately about what it is that draws me to farming, what makes me believe I’m suited for it.  There are societal reasons of course, but I’m not the sort to make a lifestyle choice based around a strong philosophical conviction.  What I’ve come to love is farming’s ability to give you space.  Space to think, space to breathe, space to move and be restless and be restful.  Space.
    Let’s backtrack. I didn’t wake up one day and decide I wanted to farm.  In fact, the first farm job I had terrified me. I had been drawn to the farm because of the non-profit that owned and directed their mission.  Hunger relief and community health were at the center of this farm’s workings, and I gravitated towards the combination of public service and physical work.  But mostly, I thought, the physical work of farming would just give me the credibility to call myself part of the non-profit side of the operation. I applied to many other jobs, actually, thinking that working at a farm might be a bit too laborious and a bit too socially isolating (I would be a member of a very small farm crew, after all) for my taste.  But all my other options fell through, and upon arriving back from a stint in South Africa, I began at the farm.
    Although I had believed I would be very involved with the office workings of the farm, it quickly became evident to me that I was going to be in the fields all day every day.  More surprising was that I realized just as quickly that I had no desire to be in the office, and loved my time outside. I was sweaty and grimy, making more mistakes than I’d like to admit, and really connecting with my handful of co-workers.
    Idealism, you say.  It’ll never last.  Listen, I’ve tried having office jobs. No, to be fair, I’ve tried office internships (I’ve never lasted longer than a few months).  It doesn’t take long for me to feel my life energy draining out of me and into the isolation of only communicating with a computer for hours on end.  It just doesn’t jive.  Everything that I love about farming is absolutely absent in the other jobs I’ve tried.
    On the farm, you have to be self-directed. No one can make you hoe faster or harvest more quickly except yourself.  There are no promotions to entice you to put in longer hours. It’s just you and the plants and the open air.
    People-wise, farming is a wonderful synthesis of group work and solitary time.  I find I do my best thinking at work. Something about having my hands busy in the soil or splashing around in the water after harvest liberates my mind.  I’ve had thoughts that border on revelation at work after long, lonely hours. And yet I’ve had some of the most thought-provoking and personal conversations of my life while harvesting, seeding, and washing.  
    This is true even within the larger farming community. There is a sort of camaraderie that emerges from sharing in the kind of work that really demands of you your energy and strength, a work that is at once tedious and immensely gratifying, humble and remarkably beautiful.
    If I wake up restless one morning, full of agitation and energy, I can harness that sensation into my day’s work. There’s nothing like hauling bales of hay for mulch or pounding tomato stakes into compacted earth to rid you of your antsiness.  Or if I come to work emotionally fried, needing to rest, I find solace in the rhythms and repetition of the work.  There’s no need to impress, just to go through the motions, to care for the plants, be outdoors.  To some manual work may not seem like rest, but to anyone who’s ever taken comfort in gardening, a hike, or a swim, they understand. There’s a sense of holistic rejuvenation in the work on a farm, a sense of cycle and rebirth, of need and fulfillment, of simplicity.
    And then there are the more obvious perks.   I get to distribute and eat beautiful food that I’ve helped to nurture, from seed to harvest. There is no pretense to my work- I wake up every morning and throw on yesterday’s dirty tank top and dust-encrusted hiking pants.  And the concept of needing to set aside time for exercise is foreign to me during the season; I spend my day physically exhausting myself rather than restlessly toe-tapping under my desk.
I am awake to see the sun climb up over the trees to pain their tops fiery pink.  I breathe fresh air. The weather dictates my work.  I feel the rain on my back while I crawl along weeding and the mid-afternoon sun as my workdays near their end.  
    I may not be able to sustain a lifetime of full-time farming, I’ve already admitted that to myself. But until I figure out if any other career can afford me the sense of freedom and space that farming offers, I’ll wake with the work of the fields in my hands and my head, reveling in the life it allows me to live.

June 23, 2008

    The dry season should be looming.  As the weather heats up, new farmers scramble to make sure they have a watering system in place in preparation for the summer, the time of year when the crops come on fast and furious but demand a tremendous amount of water given the beating sun and long hours of daylight.  We’ve had our drip lines set up for irrigation for close to a month now, flat black plastic tubing dotted with tiny holes which permit water to drip right onto the roots of the plants, a much more water efficient way to irrigate than sprinklers, which water beds and pathways indiscriminately.  But our drip has been off for the past few weeks due to unusually wet weather.
    In many ways, the heavy rains that have settled into the Pioneer Valley in recent weeks are a blessing.  Surrounding a wretched heat wave, the storms have prevented the plants from becoming parched or stunted and the soil from becoming dust under our boots.  But holds on our plans to get into the fields during this busy time of year have arisen as a result of this unseasonably wet weather.
    There are few jobs in this day and age that revolve around the weather.  Sure, the schoolteacher in the colder parts of the country gets an occasional snowday. And I suppose the opposite is true, that plow drivers kick into high gear during snow season.  But for the most part, careers and work schedules are unaffected by temperature and precipitations.  Farming is not such a profession.
    The ground is soaking wet.  Pick up a handful of soil today and it will form, almost without coaxing, a dense ball of mud.  This means that many of the farm tasks that demand attention between the set days of harvests and markets cannot be done.  Hoeing, for example, comes to a standstill when the ground is wet.  Try running a scuffle hoe through muddy soil, and you’ll have little luck cutting and upturning the lambs quarter and pursulane growing among the crops.  But more importantly, try to do any sort of weed-controlling farm work when the ground is wet and you’ll create a worse weed problem.  You see, the concept of handweeding and hoeing is threefold- to aerate the soil, to remove the weeds from around the crops, and to upturn their roots so the sun shrivels them up and prevents the little buggers from re-rooting in the beds.  But when there’s excessive moisture in the dirt, little uprooted weeds lying on the soil have a good chance of wheedling their way back into the ground before the soil dries out.
    I was reminded this week of how rain is just one more factor that makes farming an unusual occupation.  Farmers have to work around the weather, often working longer days when the weather is prime, and impatiently (although sometimes gratefully, for the unexpected day of rest) waiting until the soil dries out enough to let the hoes, plows, and tillers to get back in action.
    A mixed summer blessing, this rain seems to be.  Mother nature is flexing her annual muscle, proving to farmers that there will always be climatic constraints to how fast and how efficiently they can work, and reminding them that setting a fixed schedule is merely a silly notion (clearly created by the non-farming majority).  In a few weeks, we may be crying out for rain amid a drought or heat wave. But for now, our agendas have been thwarted.  It must’ve been farmers who coined that famous “The best laid plans…” quote.

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