Here on our new Hampshire vegetable farm, we look forward to the cool, invigorating autumn weather. It might start early in September or late in September, but either way, we're glad to have it- especially the invigorating part. We're feeling kind of weary this time of year, what with the summer crops- tomato, zucchini, yellow squash, basil- giving a last hurrah, and the fall crops- potatoes and winter squash and broccoli and more- all clamoring for our attention.

The vegetables want weeding, and they want harvesting, and they want putting by for the winter. And the farmers? We're thinking more of sleeping, followed by a little nap, and then sleeping, followed by a little rest. It gets harder and harder to get up early in the morning, and the couch and the bed and even the floor look more and more inviting.

Sometimes those beautiful autumn days- crisp, misty air in the morning, warm sun in the afternoon, heavy golden light over the fields in the evening- aren't enough to entice a farmer out to the field. Sometimes a farmer is tired of going out to the field. Sometimes a farmer even takes a little perverse pleasure in not going out to the field first thing on a beautiful day.

Hah! Beautiful day! Take that! You can't make me come out there! Even if you are bathed in beautiful light, or bursting with color, or sonorous with crickets and autumn breeze and rustle and snap!

I will stay inside and can tomato sauce instead! I will stay inside and wash some dishes! I won't go out into that great big messy gloriously full of food and work garden. I will stay right here, in the messy gloriously full of food and dirty dishes house! Freezing peppers! Freezing kale! Freezing chard! Freezing salsa and squash and pesto!

Oh, it's a funny thing, this farming, how it brings out the rebel in a body. And it's even funnier what a body might rebel against: crisp, invigorating air, beautiful light? Good weather? Good grief.

But hey, maybe that's how we got to be farmers in the first place: that spark of rebellion. We are rebelling against something, against lots of things, not least of which is somebody else's agenda or idea of a work schedule. As we like to say, in league with many a self-employed person: “We never get any time off, but, hey, we can take it any time we want to!”

We are also rebelling against some societal and cultural ideas of what constitutes a useful, meaningful way to spend a workday, or a worklife. Small-scale sustainable farming isn't so much a norm any more; now it is in itself a rebellion, against the industrial, the massive, the impersonal, the uncaring.

And, heck, we care, we care a lot, we keep caring, even when it's hard and painful and wearying, when there's hail or floods or droughts or locusts. We want to do work that feels right and good, that sustains us and helps sustain others too: the land and air and water and wildlife, and all the people that eat our vegetables and enjoy our farm.

We enjoy our farm too, of course, and we also feel a little weary . . a little rebellious. . . No, I won't take advantage of this exquisite weather and go out and weed those carrots! I'm going to get some work done inside, even if the rainy days won't cooperate with meals and laundry and writing columns, all necessary and important items in a full, balanced life, and all so blessedly close to the couch . . . the bed . . . even the floor . . .

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Sept 3 – Sept 9, 2014

September, on a vegetable farm, is all about food. Though we farmers are certainly grateful for the abundance of the harvest, we are also a bit daunted by the effect it has on our farm kitchen.

Every surface is covered with food. There are freezing projects, canning projects, drying projects, and pickling projects, all happening at once. Or more accurately, not happening, all at once.

The idea of squeezing time out of a full farming schedule to put food by for the winter is crazy, yet it seems crazier not to. After all, we’ve nurtured and labored over this beautiful, local, healthy produce for months; now we just need to labor over it all a little more so it will nurture us this winter.

“This is just important as weeding the cabbage, or putting in the cover crops, ” I announce, surveying the kitchen, trying to bolster myself for the task.

“That’s right,” agrees my fellow farmer.

But I am unbolstered. I hold my head and moan. “I don’t even know where to start.”

The five-gallon bucket of paste tomatoes? The several trays of zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers? The mountain of basil? The heap of peppers? The mound of beans? The limp pile of Swiss chard?

I want to give up, and try to put my head in my arms on the table. But the table is completely covered in heirloom tomatoes, waiting to become sauce and salsa.

Luckily, my fellow farmer is a man of decision and action in both field and kitchen, and he steps boldly up.

“All right!” he says, “This chard is too tired to freeze. Let’s compost that.” “But we could have it for supper?” I suggest.

“Nah,” he says, “We’ll go get fresh chard if we want if for supper. This is from last week. And these cucumbers are dried out. Let’s compost these.”

“But we could have them for supper?” I repeat.

“Nah,” he says, tossing the sad little cucumbers in the compost bucket. “And this basil? This is too far gone.”

“Supper?” I say. “I hate to waste perfectly good food.”

“But it’s not perfectly good food,” my fellow says reasonably. “It was perfectly good food. Now it’s tired, dried out old food, that would be really good for the compost. We want to preserve the best, freshest produce, so it keeps. The farmers are supposed to eat well, remember?”

“Yeah. But the farmers are supposed to eat or preserve all this best, freshest produce before it gets tired and old.”

My fellow pats me sympathetically on the back. “The farmers can’t do everything. They’re doing the best that they can.”

“They are?” I say doubtfully.

“Yes!” my fellow answers firmly. “Now let’s work on this together. I’ll get these paste tomatoes on the dryer, and maybe you could cut those others up for sauce.”

I edge out a tiny space to work and start cutting, repeating soothing mantras to myself: We’re doing the best that we can. We can’t do everything. We hardly waste anything. It will be good for the compost. We should eat well. And, my best mantra: it’s mighty nice to have food in the winter.

My fellow and I make tremendous progress, clearing out the old and putting by the new. The sink reappears. Counters reappear. Even the table reappears.

It has taken far more hours than we imagined, like most things on a farm, but now we admire our beautiful jars of sauce and pickles, our drying herbs and tomatoes, our frozen beans.

We are caught up until the next flood of food. We sit down, and admire our clear and clean table.

Our clear table. Completely clear. Breathtakingly clear. And here it is, supper time. We’ve got lots of room to eat our nice supper.

Except. Nobody’s planned supper. Nobody’s made supper.

There’s no supper.

We farmers look pathetically at each other. We groan.

September. It’s all about food.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Sept 4 – Sept 10, 2013

Farm Talk

Kim Peavey