gretchening

On farming

I haven't been posting much about farming this year, and I'm not exactly sure why. I think there are a lot of feelings and thoughts that seem inexplicable, or at least too tactile to translate into blog posts. I think instead of writing about the farm, I cook about it--I can be very meditative when cooking, which is the act of transforming vegetables and meat that comes from a land I have known and worked, from the hands of people who are such good friends they often feel like family. I have learned invaluable things from them--patience, cultivation, joy-in-work that's so unlike the solitary joy-in-work of writing and reading.

There's a depth to the experiences I get from farming, a history of my work on this farm and the one I worked on before, that feels like an abiding warmth tucked behind my heart. I don't get to work out there as often as I'd like, but I love doing it whenever possible. This was my fourth summer working on an organic local farm--for two years I worked as a field hand twice a week at a small farm that sells to Madison-area high-end restaurants. I could go to the Old Fashioned, the Willy St Co-op, Lombardinos, Sardine, and more and order something off the menu and know that the tomatoes that came with them, or the basil, or onions, or the microgreens, were ones that I had gotten sick trellising, that I had planted and weeded and harvested. For the past two summers, I have worked a CSA work trade with a local CSA farmer, Kriss, and her kids with whom I had worked at the previous farm. So I've known the family for over four years now, and I have learned so much from them and have been so warmly welcomed by them that I can't even begin to explain it.

I remember earlier in the summer on the day we harvested several hundred carrots in the pouring rain. One of my boots was full of water, I was wet and constantly sneezing and fiercely happy, to be in the garden with my friends and talking about how we came to this local community, the ways it has healed parts of our hearts that we didn't even know were unhappy. The utter breathtaking beauty of four colors of carrots, freshly scrubbed in giant heaps. Eating them in the rain, with grit in the teeth and laughter bubbling up from the throat.

Or there was a time this summer I spent about four hours on impossible weeding and mulching in the peppers--every time I came out there after that, there were the plants growing red or green or purple fingers straight up toward the sun, unhindered by the four foot grass that used to be there. The beauty of beets, the heady scent of chamomile and basil and thyme, the joy of picking beans in the garden directly next to the sow and her gamboling baby piglets, the inquisitive lows of the steers and the cacophony of the herd of sheep bleating and baaing each with its own distinctive voice. Having to constantly fend off the snuggly affections of Captain Jack, the scruffy, scarred, half-tailed most loving cat in the universe.

I even cherish the heartbreaks. The tomato crop was practically nonexistent this year because of a blight, which is just depressing after all the work and care and maintenance that goes into tomatoes. Last year we got heavy heavy rains early in the summer, and the entire lower garden was hip deep in standing water--all the work that everyone had done seeding, planting, and weeding it was gone overnight. I've learned so much from witnessing these setbacks and how the farmers learn to accept them and move on.

I know I'm very lucky to live where I do, right in the middle of an active and engaged and productive network of CSA and organic farms. I'm lucky to have the flexibility of schedule to allow me to trade 40 hours a summer for a box of food. I'm lucky to have a body capable of doing this work. It's not the kind of work everyone or even most people can or should do, but I am happy I am doing it. It teaches me and nourishes me to grow and love and experiment and be present and remember and share in ways that most other things in my life don't do.

On Sunday I had the rare pleasure of giving back just a little. As you know, I work in a bookstore, and we're heavily involved with the WI Book Festival. We were an outlet for the tickets for Wendell Berry, so I snagged three tickets early on and invited Kriss and my friend Sandy. I'm not a huge Wendell Berry fan, but I knew Kriss is--in fact, I got her a copy of a beautiful edition of The Mad Farmer book for Christmas, and that's been my only exposure to his work. However, she says that Berry is one of the reasons they decided to move away from the city to a small town in rural Wisconsin and start their own farm. Anyhow, the talk was interesting but the best part was having hot chocolate with my friends afterward and discussing interdependence and balancing the pros and cons of small communities. Kriss wrote a bit about it in her blog, which I'm posting with her permission.

This weekend I'm going to the farm to do some post-CSA season organizing and even some planting. I'll also be getting some lard from them for use in a pie crust recipe I just got from friends. I have two giant pumpkins and a bunch of gone off apples from the organic discount bin at the co-op, so I think my house is going to smell really amazing. I love farm food so much, it's such a joy to handle and chop and cook and eat. I love the bizarre colors (purple carrots and kohlrabi are my favorite!). I love sharing it with friends, like the curry I made for movie night the other night.