It's been a strange six weeks. I attended a month-long yoga teacher training program in Upstate NY and while there, felt a ton of constant, lower back pain. This was different from the sometimes-lower-back-pain I have had for about 8 months now. I chalked that 'sometimes' pain up to an active lifestyle filled with strenuous activities I love, namely farming and yoga. I thought it was the early onset arthritis I was diagnosed with in 2005 acting up. I wasn't gonna let a little arthritis get me down, so I kept moving, not addressing the pain. But this pain was different -- it was sharp, and unrelenting. After a doctor's visit, I found out I have a fracture in my lumbar spine, L4 to be exact. My physical therapist tells me to forget about the fracture, that I'll probably have it the rest of my life and that it won't impact my functioning if I focus on moving properly for my body, and strengthen the areas around my lower spine. I am happy that my medicine is not a pill or surgery, but rather a series of core strengthening exercises and that the worst of it is forearm plank for 3 minutes a day. (sidenote: I literally cannot do the forearm plank without cursing wildly when it's over.) So that's what I'm doing these days-- convalescing in NYC. And I have to admit that once my personal pity party stopped, I started feeling lucky and happy again. I think healing is my work right now and am very fortunate to be able to have the time to devote to moving slowly. But then there are the plants! They don't speak English and don't understand that I hurt my back and can't drive to PA every week to care for them as I have been. First of all, driving is pretty painful these days, and then of course, there's the activity level that farming involves. It is just too much for me right now. I have to be okay with this. I am learning to be okay with this. There are several hundred tomatoes at the farm right now, ripe as can be, that will just go right back into the earth. I picked some a couple weeks ago, on my hands and knees, with my spine in a neutral position, and enjoyed the heck out of them. These days, the weeds are making a jungle out of the garden that I poured hours of time and labor into earlier this year. The strawberries and young fruit trees are not on their regular watering schedule. I, and they, have to rely on the rain. And it is what it is. We can't control nature, farmers only try to. There are so many lessons embedded within the work, or in this case, the non-work of farming. It's part of the reason I love it. If I had my old desk job, I'd be able to let the work pile up and then one day, climb back into the saddle and pick up where I left off, but farming is different. Nature doesn't stop, time doesn't stop, we all know this. So it seems appropriate that I'll climb back into the saddle and find an entirely different landscape. I'll be able to see all that the plants did on their own. They don't need me, they really don't. They'll survive, or they won't, and either way, it'll be fine. I also really like the idea of a vocation that needs me to be healthy in order to do it. What a good reason to focus on getting, and staying, stronger. It's not all for me, some of it is for those little green guys.
Transferring old blog to new blog, transferring old thoughts to new thoughts
The newest chapter is starting. The pause button I pressed years ago by leaving the farm to go to graduate school is now being unpressed. As I do this, as I figure all of this out, I'm finding myself looking back at the work I did at the farm between 2008 and 2011. Yes, I'm delving deep into the archives and finding old websites, the blog I forgot I kept, hundreds of pictures, and documents confirming my LLC back when I had no idea how to start a business. I'm finding hundreds of tomato stakes in the barn, irrigation equipment in random drawers, soil amendments in glass jars, harvest knives, farm gloves with holes from hard work, dusty tractor attachments, and even old notebooks full of plant spacing information with random dirt smudges. In some ways, I feel very far away from that work and strive to be fully immersed in it again. My friend once told me that happiness is complete absorption. I long for complete absorption in this work, I find myself craving a focus, aiming to build a farm team again, hoping I'll get to work in the community building aspect of farming that I so deeply love. I find myself saying, "Look at how much you (with a lot of help) did, Stef. Look at all that work." But the next thought seems to be, "Wow, you did all that and here you are, six years later, with the very same confusion about what to do with this land." I used to say that I wanted to save my family's farm but I don't think it actually needs saving. Maybe land just sits there and sits there and sits there? Maybe it responds to what happens to it, but ultimately, anything I do will be done for a little while, and then something else will happen to these 140 acres. There are no permanent solutions. This isn't depressing, it's rather quite uplifting. We must enjoy the moments we get with the work we want, with the dreams we have and pursue.
For now, I'm going to transfer the content from a blog I kept in 2009 & 2010 to this new, fresh, hippity hoppin' site. Maybe someone will read this. Maybe not. Who cares.... because YAYYY, new projects are fun!
Late Blight
So, our tomatoes are not looking so good. In fact, they are dying. Some of the 14 varieties seem more resistant, but it's just a matter of time before they succumb to it. What they've got is called late blight ... and it's everywhere in the Northeast this year. The wet weather helped the conditions for it, the spores are airborne and it was bound to happen. For weeks we've heard nightmarish stories about farmers losing their whole tomato crop. Some farmers grow upwards of 20 acres of tomatoes and sell them all to canneries. And it's sad, cause tomatoes sell for a premium and farmers bank on them every year. Farmers are hurting. So we worried, and sympathized, but thought we might escape its wrath. We started our tomatoes from seed. Our plants showed no signs of it. Blight? What blight? Or so we thought. Then, in one day, it happened. One freaking day. The plants died. Some show a little sign of green. The fruit that already formed looks good, so that's a glimmer of sunshine. We'll pick them clean. We'll enjoy what we've got. It's funny too, because we reached a point in tomato season where it was getting overwhelming. So many tomatoes. So so many tomatoes. We've sold a ton, but they were producing so many and ripening so quickly that we started to smell the funk -- the rotten, over-ripe tomato funk that gets all over your clothes. Once you reach that point in a season, you start thinking about the good tomatoes differently. The good tomato smell starts to remind you of the rotten tomato one and once that blends, salads turn strange. Anyway, now that the season will be shortened significantly, I'm looking at each tomato tenderly once again, just like the way I did when that first tomato came in. Things that are fleeting tend to get looked at tenderly, with much sweetness. Once a thing becomes a permanent fixture or if there's an over abundance of it, it can be taken for granted. It becomes a given. I don't want to sound too depressing or too inspirational here. I don't want to make this a profound meditation on life and its lessons. It's simple, really. We grow plants. Plants are a part of nature. We do what we can as farmers to make sure everything goes "right," but ultimately, nature is in charge. We'll eat (and savor) the rest of the tomatoes and move on, as all farmers do.
Apprenticeship
Grandpa teaching my brother how to farm
Same Style
Eating some corn in 1985
Corn Consumption
SUNDAY:
WEDNESDAY:
Roadside Stand
Roadside Stand
By Charles Simic
In the watermelon and corn season
The earth is a paradise, the morning
Is a ripe plum or a plump tomato
We bite into as if it were the mouth of a lover.
Despite the puzzled face of the young fellow
In scarecrow overalls reading a comic book,
It's all there, the bell peppers, the radishes,
Local blueberries and blackberries
That will stain our lips and tongue
As if we were freezing to death in the snow.
The kid is bored, or pretends to be,
While watching the woman pick up a melon
And press its rough skin against her cheek.
What makes people happy is a mystery,
He concludes as he busies himself
Straightening crumpled bills in a cigar box.
Retrospective
Then (April, 2009) :
Now (August, 2009):
The only way I can describe it is like this:
THEN: = NOW: II
Let's Advertise, Yes?
Greetings from a tall corn field.
It's impossible to imagine that these fields were empty four months ago.
We needed signs, so we made some signs.
We still need to ask permission from landowners to see if we can put some up on the southbound side of 11/15. The northbound side is looking perty.
We needed brochures for the local health food store and some restaurants, so we did a large scale printing of them.
Then, we delivered them.
We made postcards to hand out to everyone we've ever met and ever meet. We will go to art fairs and festivals, and hand them out. If you are reading this, I hope you have a postcard.
We needed a CSA sign-up form, because there's interest. So, we wrote one up and printed some. Now, we can send info packets out to everyone who inquires about our indestructible, unstoppable vegetables. Did you know we figured out a way to prevent them from ever rotting? Tricks of the trade. Eternal immortal vegetables. Errr... umm... sure.
Here are some photos. Share them with your grandchildren. Or your pets.
Not a Bad Way to Spend a Weekend
Chamomile, mint, basil iced tea. Oh. Yes.
We Found Purple
It's Healthy Not to Think of Vegetables Sometimes
Sample Baskets and Pho Night What What
Oh man. Marley's uncle, Chris, made us pho on Sunday night. The broth takes four hours to make and is loaded with herbs and spices - anise and coriander to name a couple. The beef (which is sliced really thin) gets cooked when you pour the broth into the bowl. Broth, rice noodles, hoisin sauce, chili peps, basil and bean sprouts and you've got yourself a Vietnamese soup that eats like a meal. Holy toledo. Imma go have some for lunch.
Monday we filled baskets with an array of samples from our field and brought them around to local businesses and restaurants. We probably should have done this a while ago, but better late than never. We're learning as we go. Learning to put ourselves out there, learning to be bold, learning to take the first step, and then take the lead. For some places, we were just wondering if we could leave brochures for their customers to pick up. They said yes. Oh yeah. For the restaurants, we're hoping that after the chefs sample our goods and see our flowers, they will want to place orders. On the spot, we already got a tomato order from the Doyle Hotel. It also was pretty sweet to walk into a diner this morning for breakfast, and be met by a bouquet of flowers that once grew out behind the barn. It was like, "Hey, I know you guys. You guys are as bright as you were a few days ago when you were in my backyard. Good to see you again. Now it's time for some eggs over easy."
And Then You Find the Perfect Timing
After that last post about 900 squash and one tomato, I just learned to eat my words. I devoured my words. Wooden Hill has found the perfect timing. A salad is not a salad without lettuce, tomato and cucumber. I think this is the only week in the whole season where we will be enjoying a complete (read: perfect) salad using only our produce. The lettuce is still in, the cucumbers and peppers are just starting to reveal their tasty selves, the carrots are still hiding their delicious secrets underground, and hell yes, I've found a couple cherry tomatoes. Perfect timing. Totally worth the wait. Kismet, as they say. Sometimes we just fall together.
I FOUND ONE! ACTUALLY, TWO!
Combine those tomatoes with their favorite buddies
Good looking group of friends
Oh baby
Nine Hundred Squash and One Cherry Tomato
The name of the game is Eat in Season. It is, for sure, a game. Just when you think you have eaten all the squash, there's more. Just when you think you can't eat anymore squash, there's more. Squash on the grill, roasted squash, curried squash, sauteed squash, stuffed squash. Raw squash. Yup. And then finally, just when you want more squash, there's none. It's best not played alone. In fact, the main objective in this game is to find the most amount of people in the world who want to eat squash. These people are hiding everywhere. They are rich and poor, old and young. This game inevitably becomes a story about both patience and indulgence. It's about knowing what other players are charging to get rid of their squash. Yes, get rid. Ultimately, it becomes about giving squash away to the community that can't afford your squash, but that wants to be eating in season. One needs to be both gluttonous and reserved to play this game. Also, we must not be too picky. Squash will come and squash we will eat. Tomatoes will come and tomatoes we will eat. Radish season was tough for me, but I got through it. Squash squash squash right now. I want to eat a tomato. I stopped buying them at the store a while back in anticipation of tomater season. Has tomato season arrived? For some it has. For us, we've eaten one cherry tomato. One. 1. Uno. Life gives you lemons, they say make lemonade. Life gives you squash, makes some squash pie, squash pancakes, squash art, squash paper, wash your clothes with squash. Dreams of salsa and gazpacho while I eat another eight ball.
1979
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell would be proud to know that this organic farm has recently reached its tipping point. Within the past week, things have just exploded out here. We are harvesting every day. Contrary to the USDA's food pyramid, I'm thinking we all should be eating about 45 servings of vegetables daily. The summer squash cannot be tamed, them beans need to be picked every day or so, the flowers are almost all in bloom. Le tomatoes are getting big and green and are about to produce ethylene gas to ripen up any day now. There are baby cucumbers, flowering melons and hot peppers abound. All that energy in, and now we sit back, chow down and sell some bushels. ... and work our tails off keeping those weeds under control ;)
Thoughts During a Thunderstorm
I went from living in the largest city in the country, with 8 million people, to living on a farm next to New Buffalo, PA, population 123. I moved out of New York for lots of reasons. One of the reasons was to s l o w s t u f f d o w n . Have I been successful? Hell no. There's a ton to worry about in the city, and a ton to worry about in the country. Safety concerns and making ends meet come to mind quickly for both. There's a ton to do in the city and a ton to do in the country. Museum concert stuff your face vs. pick squash shovel mulch stuff your face. I have come to the ever so un-life-shattering conclusion that life is busy anywhere. Different tasks, same hands moving. However, there is stillness where you find it and where you create it. The best way to slow stuff down in life is to think it slowly. Be methodical. Take your time with your thoughts. There's a heck of a lot of time to think and plan when you spend 4 hours hoeing corn. Seize it. It's yours.
Food
Deep breath. Okay. We have started networking. Lots and lots and lots of networking. We connected with a chemical free blueberry grower and are selling ze wonderful fruit at our stand. Restaurant owners have approached us asking if we would sell them our produce (we will once we are an official business). We've got a meeting with our accountant Thursday. We might also go to a local farmer's market once or twice a week. We finally donated our surplus to the food bank and will continue doing so weekly. It felt amazing to provide them with safe, healthy, fresh food. We are getting to know our community. We got invited to a neighbor's 4th of July party! We are getting positive feedback and much encouragement from our neighbors and community. We are already moving locations. Starting July 17th, we will be setting up shop next door to our farm at the Trading Post, a local novelty shop. This business happens to be directly on Routes 11 & 15. The stand currently is about 100 feet off this main highway. Needless to say, we anticipate this location change will encourage much more traffic that's just passing through. We sold beets by the half bushel. We actually sold our whole beet crop. There are about 10 secret ones in the field for our own private culinary purposes, though. Don't tell the arborio rice. Some things go right back to the compost, which I'm still learning is OK. We need a walk in cooler, stat. We are suntanned and tired. Things are moving quickly and like I said in the first post, it will be October before I know it.