Gritting, Longing, Wondering, Raging, Yodeling: Life on the Farm

It's March on our vegetable farm, and there's a stir in the air. There's a warm breeze, wafting over the ice and mud, and we farmers lift our faces to the sunshine, smelling spring. Spring is surely close by, in March, and even if it isn't quite here yet, our heated greenhouse hollers Spring! Spring! Spring!

Every year we fire up the greenhouse's propane heater on March first. We turn on the heat mats, and we fill up the flats with soil mix, and we open the very first seed packets of spring – the onions, and the scallions, and then the lettuce and the salad greens, and the tomatoes and basil.

We press the tiny black or white or brown seeds into the dirt, trying to press in a little blessing for each seed too, a germinate, grow well, be healthy and happy, and bear much fruit! blessing. It is fine meditative work, there in the warmth and protection and almost-outdoorsness of the greenhouse. We feel the sun, smell the dirt, hear the birds warming up their spring songs. Such peacefulness, such quiet, such good vibes, amongst the seeds, the soil, the farmers . . .

Well, maybe there's not good vibes every minute between the farmers. Because, in the spring, there is a) the one farmer, who likes to meditate in the peace and quiet while sowing seeds, and b) the other farmer, who likes to listen to the radio while sowing seeds, and c) the fact that the radio can't be both off and on at the same time.

A small difference, perhaps, but over the past twenty years of working full-time together, the meditative farmer and the radio farmer have worked through many spring seed-sowing scenarios:

1) Gritting

Two farmers, sowing seeds: One happy farmer, listening to the radio, and one grumpy farmer, gritting her teeth, wishing she wasn't listening to the radio.

2) Longing

Two farmers, sowing seeds: one happy farmer, meditating restfully with bird-song and breeze-song and seed-song, and one slightly restless farmer, longing to turn on the radio and find out what's going on in the big wide world beyond this one little greenhouse on this one little farm in this one little village in this one little state.

3) Wondering

One farmer, sowing seeds: one happy farmer, listening to the radio while sowing, and one slightly restless farmer, working on boring bills and CSA advertising, and wondering what fun she's missing in the greenhouse.

4) Wondering, Take Two

One farmer, sowing seeds: one happy farmer, quietly meditating and sowing, and one very restless farmer, working the last of his winter substitute shifts at the local food co-op (where the radio is playing, but not his station), and wondering what fun he's missing in the greenhouse.

5) Raging

No farmers, sowing seeds: one enraged farmer, who's going out to the greenhouse to join her already sowing fellow farmer, but who discovers that the fellow has gone off to another urgent farm project, leaving the radio blaring, with no person even there to hear it! (Clearly this enraged farmer's meditative efforts aren't quite strong enough: she mutters and curses as she violently unplugs the radio, and then stomps off to find out what the other urgent farm project is.)

6) Yodeling

Two farmers sowing seeds: the meditative farmer, in a fit of tolerance and loving kindness, builds a shelf in the greenhouse for her fellow farmer's radio. The radio farmer, for his kindly part, turns the radio off when the meditative farmer is approaching.

“Here I come,” the meditative farmer yodels cheerfully, “will you turn it off?”

“Did you say 'Turn it up? Turn it up?' All right!” yodels the radio farmer back, laughing a lot at his own funny joke, and unplugging the radio.

The meditative farmer laughs too, and there we are again, another spring, two mostly contented farmers, having occasional bits of conversation, enough to satisfy the restless but not disturb the restful, and sowing the seeds of March together.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, March 16-22, 2016
 

Scratchy-Bitey Farm Cat

He's a fine cat. He's been with us a long, long time, longer than our draft horses, our farm, our teenage daughter. He's caught more than his share of mice and voles and moles and rats and squirrels and chipmunks and birds. And he has made a fine reputation for himself as a scratchy-bitey farm cat.

As a kitten, he was so vigorous and gleeful in his pouncing on the feet or any other moving body part under the blankets that we had to lock him out of the bedroom. Then, in the night, when I had to get up to visit the bathroom . . . I knew it was coming, but I didn't know when. I tiptoed across the floor, holding my breath in the dark. Then . . . Pounce! I would squawk, heart pounding, while the kitty wrapped his paws firmly around my ankle. I shuffled along, the kitty happily sliding across the wooden floor, gnawing on my leg. Our kitty loved this game. I found it a little daunting.

The kitty, for his part, found our various moves daunting: from the first pleasant house of ankle-gnawing to the second terrible place of four dreadful dogs to the third so-so place with its startling appearance of a team of draft horses and a baby. Then on to the fourth place, our vegetable farm in New Hampshire, where our scratchy-bitey cat came into his glory.

He wondered from haymow to garden to field to farmhouse, catching rodents. He slept where he chose, ate what he chose, and scratched and bit whom he chose. When we started our CSA garden, our kitty ran up to the CSA members with great enthusiasm. He rubbed his head against legs. A hand descended, ready to pet. The hand petted; a voice crooned. The kitty put his ears back, swished his tail, hissed and spit and scratched and bit, and ran off, apparently insulted by the whole proceeding.

We began to issue kitty warnings. This is a scratchy-bitey kitty, we'd say. He might seem very friendly, we'd say. Consider yourself warned, we'd say. Quickly people learned about our kitty, and their children learned too, with occasional tears.

Things went on fairly calmly until, a few years later, we got another kitty: another all black kitty, a very friendly, lovey-dovey kitty.

“Uh-oh,” CSA members would say, “Which one is that?” as an enthusiastic black kitty ran over.

“Look at the toes,” we'd advise. “The friendly one has lots of toes.”

As one member said, “By the time I figure out the toes, it's too late.”

Sadly, our second black kitty disappeared one day, after only a year with us. Then it was quite clear again just who the resident black kitty was.

Over the years, our scratchy-bitey black kitty has risen to new heights. For a while he decided that sleeping on the dark shelf where members reach in blindly for plastic bags was a fine idea. He didn't like his naps disturbed, needless to say. Then he began to believe that taking a nap on a tray of cucumbers that we had set aside in the house, ready for pickling, was appealing. We discouraged this strongly.

Next, one day in the shed, as a farmer came to greet a CSA member, the latter said, “Boy, am I glad to see you! I started to reach in the bin for my lettuce, but your black cat is sitting on the top of the cloth. I took my hand out again, fast!”

“Oh, geesh,” said the farmer apologetically. “I don't know why anyone would want to lie on a wet cloth on top of lettuce. Come on out of there, you naughty kitty!”

From then on, we made Scratchy-Bitey stay inside on harvest day. He seemed happy to come back to taking naps on our pickling cucumbers.

But as he gets older, our fine kitty is more tolerant than he used to be. Sometimes he asks us to pick him up and pet him. He even purrs, a small rusty purr.

One morning, when I am holding and petting the kitty, I say to my fellow farmer, “I feel a little more confident with him, when he's actually purring,”

My fellow makes a wry face. “Sometimes he's been purring when he scratched and bit me.”

I draw my head back from the kitty's teeth and claws.

“Is that true?” I say to Ol' Scratchy-Bitey.

The kitty purrs.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Feb 17-23, 2016
 

Farmers Been Swamped

Swamp Farmers, defined: New Hampshire vegetable farmers who have been invited by dear friends to join in a week-long trip to Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. These farmers haven't had a family vacation, for oh, say 14 years, which just happens to be the same number of years since they bought their fine farm. Now they are so excited about the Okefenokee Swamp, they want to live there!

Why a big old swamp in Georgia, you ask? Oh many, many reasons:

Eighty degrees in December. Ah . . . maybe a farmer could Georgia-swamp-it in winter and NH-plow-it in the summer?

Related point of interest: As the farmers study the farmland north of the swamp, one farmer asks, squinting against the sun,“What's that white stuff in the furrows? Doesn't it look a little like snow?” The other farmer shades his eyes. “That's sand, my dear,” he answers. “That's sand.”

400,000 acres of wetlands, in a National Wildlife Refuge. That's a nice big chunk of land that doesn't require plowing or planting or weeding. Of course, somebody did have the idea to drain the swamp for farmland in the 1890s, and guess what? It didn't work. The logging worked, however, and thousand year old, twenty feet around cypress trees were cut down and hauled out, before the swamp was established as a refuge in 1937. The cypress grow at a rate of one inch in diameter every twenty years, an incredibly long slow quiet beautiful process. The whole swamp itself is a beautiful process, full of the lovely ibis and egrets and herons and anhingas and buzzards and cormorants.

Related point of interest: the swamp is also winter home to the beloved phoebe, who nests over the farmers' back door every spring. “Aren't you surprised to see us here, friend?” said one farmer to the phoebe. “I sure am surprised to see us here,” said the other farmer, followed by, “It's so wonderful! Let's stay here forever!” After all, there are black bears and turkeys and robins and deer and fox and otters here, too, along with the pygmy rattlers and swamp frogs and swamp fish and swamp plants. Surely a northern farmer could fit right in.

13,0000 alligators. That's a nice big bunch of critters that don't need grooming or feeding or watering. And the farmers saw almost all 13,000 - they are so numerous that a New England farmer forgets to be scared, and enters the calm still basking-in-the-sun state of the alligator.

Related point of interest: a farmer also appreciates the sweet slow slipping of the alligators under the water when the canoe comes too close. “Thanks, gator!” say both the not-so-scared-yet-still-mighty-respectful farmers.

50 canoes and 100 paddles. All lined up waiting for swamp farmer adventures. The trails at the Okefenokee are mainly canoe trails, and paddling through the cypress and live oaks and Spanish moss takes a whole different set of muscles than farming. That is a fine thing. Sometime as a farmer needs to use a different set of muscles. Especially the basking set. 

Related point of interest: The four basking farm horses and three basking farm kitties were so glad to see the farmers, when they got back to the snowy farm. Wonder what the horses and kitties would think of canoeing in the swamp?
 

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Jan 20- Jan 26, 2016

Greenhouses, Dollhouses -- Life on the Farm

 I love dollhouses. Growing up, I filled my shelves with miniature scenes, tiny dolls and furniture and food. I had a little grocery, and a little library, complete with mini-produce and mini-books. I still have all my dollhouse beds and books and beeswax apples and pears, all tucked into boxes. One year, for my birthday, I decided what I really truly wanted, besides world-wide peace and world-wide sustainable agriculture, was to unpack my boxes, into a whole big proper dollhouse.

I drew my dollhouse all out on paper, and my sweet fellow helped me build it, using scrap plywood from our woodshed, and old paneling from our house, and our kind neighbor's precise and numerous tools. My dollhouse is a wonderful project, and so far, after eight years, I have the siding cut and nailed on, and the shingled roof three-quarters completed, and the windows and doors in. I haven't even begun on the interior (or on unpacking my boxes) yet; this is a life-long wonderful project.

And what, you may ask, does all this have to with sustainable farming in winter in New Hampshire? Everything, I say! Of course, farming itself can be a life-long wonderful project, if you're inclined to be a farmer. Plus a New Hampshire farmer in winter has a lot more time to work on her dollhouse than a New Hampshire farmer any other time of year.

But the big connection? You guessed it: greenhouses! We have four greenhouses on our vegetable farm, and surely greenhouse are the dollhouses of the agricultural world, each greenhouse a miniature farm.

The greenhouse mini-farm has dirt, and sun, and air and light and water. It has plants and compost and insects and the occasional butterfly or bird or vole. But it's all on such a small, manageable scale (especially if you conveniently overlook the manufacture and construction and maintenance of the greenhouses, the drip irrigation, the propane heater, and other such trivial details). A dollhouse has a roof and walls and windows and furniture and inhabitants, but it too is all on such a small, manageable scale.

The greenhouse is also a highly protected environment, just like the dollhouse. No high winds or beating rains or deep snows generally come and wreak havoc in my dollhouse, and no high winds or beating rains or deep snows generally come and wreak havoc in my greenhouses, either.

And, just like in a dollhouse, in a greenhouse a person can believe that she has quite a lot of say about the inhabitants, whether they be tiny ceramic or wooden or woolen people, or whether they be tiny tomatoes, peppers, and onions. I can suggest to my dollhouse people that they all take naps, or celebrate Christmas early, or turn the living room into a bedroom, and generally it happens.

Likewise, I can suggest to my greenhouse irrigation that it rain a lot, or rain a little; and I can suggest to my greenhouse heater that the place warm up a lot, or warm up just a little; and I can suggest to my greenhouse plants that they grow quickly or slowly, with the clever use of irrigation, heaters, and compost; and generally that happens too.

Then, too, both dollhouses and greenhouse provide endless pleasant tinkering. This time of year there is the unhurried pulling up of dead plants, the digging of beds, and the applying of compost. In a few months, there will be the sowing of seeds, the potting up of seedlings, the watering and pruning, all on a much smaller, lighter scale than in the big outside world of field and weather. This is especially nice for a farmer such as myself, who prefers light and medium duty greenhouse and dollhouse work to the heavy farming work that involves grunting, jostling, and pulled muscles.  

In the dollhouse, there is little jostling and grunting, and so far I have strained no muscles in the endless pleasant tinkering of making tiny wallpaper or tiny embroidered blankets or tiny framed pictures; or in making mini-presents for the mini-people to open in front of their mini-Christmas tree, festive with mini-decorations: oh, the possibilities are endless!

But the best thing about greenhouses and dollhouses has to be the shared element of fantasy: the belief that everything will turn out just the way a person hopes. For example, the dollhouse people will lead happy, fulfilled, and productive lives, and the greenhouse plants will live happy, fulfilled, and productive lives, which will help the farming people to live happy, productive, and fulfilled lives.  

And then of course, there is always the dream of greenhouses and dollhouses coming perfectly together: imagine a tiny glass greenhouse, filled with tiny living plants, and tiny watering cans, tiny hoes, tiny shovels! So lovely! So fun to make! So manageable! So sustainable! So everything!

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Dec 23- Dec 29, 2015