What Do You Do All Winter?

Sometimes people ask vegetable farmers what we do all winter. This is our short answer: we order seeds. We feed the horses. We fix tools. We sleep.

This is our long answer: first, we spend a few days not knowing what to do, once the enormous pressure of the season has ended. We drift around the house and fields, hardly comprehending that we don’t have to harvest or weed.

Then we start imagining what we could do, now that we don’t have the enormous pressure. My travel-loving fellow farmer has some suggestions: “Let’s go to Norway!”

I laugh. Our new team of horses last spring cost more than a trip to Norway, and have made trips to Norway unlikely for some time.

For my part, I start noticing all the things we’ve neglected. This year, after the season ended, we fixed the burnt-out light over our kitchen table. After six months, we could see what we were eating!

Then we fixed the broken storm window in our daughter’s bedroom, a project two years overdue. Luckily, the daughter is 24 and not living here full-time, so she didn’t spend every night of those two winters shivering.

Then, since we were on a roll, we asked our clever fix-it-all neighbor to look at our front door, which we’d been keeping closed by using an old sock stuffed in the bottom edge. He put a chink of wood around the latch, and our door closes properly again. What a pleasure!

“It’s almost as fun as going to Fiji!” my fellow says. 

I laugh. Our new team of horses last spring cost more than a trip to Fiji, and have made trips to Fiji unlikely for some time.

Buoyed by all these home improvements, we moved on to larger projects: for example, moving the cabinet we inherited a year and a half ago out of the middle of the living room, into its new home against the wall in another room. This really opened up the view of the couch, where we had stacked everything from the kitchen shelves: books, papers, seed catalogs. 

We cleared the shelves when a puppy entered our lives last April, as we came into the full-on gardening season. He had the run of the kitchen as a chewing-a-lot puppy, with only supervised visits to the living room. 

Thus he didn’t chew on things we didn’t want him to, but we couldn’t sit on our couch for the last eight months. Now we can see one couch cushion, and one farmer can relax there. Soon we will clear the other cushion, and two farmers could sit side by side, holding hands, perhaps, as they gaze at the nicely sleeping dog at their feet.

“Just think,” says my fellow. “We could get the dog used to flying on airplanes while he’s young, when we go to Tasmania!”

I laugh. Our new team of horses last spring cost more than a trip to Tasmania, and have made trips to Tasmania unlikely for some time.

The dog would probably like to go to Tasmania, since he is an agreeable fellow. He is not always nicely sleeping, however. It took us a while to realize that our garden season was ideal for a dog, as he was outside with us most all day. But in winter time, we are inside much more often, and this young energetic dog didn’t have quite enough to do.

“Why’s he being so awful?” I would say to my fellow farmer, as the dog jumped, barked, annoyed the cat, and annoyed the people.

“Maybe it’s adolescence?” my fellow suggested, which is partly true.

“Maybe he’s not getting enough exercise,” I say. “Let’s go hike in new places in Chesterfield! And Walpole! And Brattleboro!”

“Yes!” answers my fellow. “It’s almost like going to Norway! And Fiji! And Tasmania!”

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Feb 5-11, 2025

Farmers, Novels, and Bonbons

One of the strange things about farming is that everyone else isn’t farming. In summer, when we are racing around the fields with our tongues hanging out, everyone else is going to the seashore, or to their cabin in the mountains.

Farmers are out of sync in the wintertime too. Just when people are groaning about having to wear fifty layers to go outside to scrape the ice off their windshields and brave the roads to get to work, we are lying in bed, contemplating a day of reading novels and eating bonbons.

Before we get to the novels and bonbons, however, we have to make it through the last two weeks of the CSA vegetable distribution, which are always a big push. We empty the greenhouses and gardens, keeping enough vegetables for our own use. But there’s always a lot of counting: how many leeks divided by how many members, how many Brussels sprouts, winter squash, pounds of carrots, potatoes, onions, etc.

We’ve been farming long enough that we have a pretty good sense of amounts, but there are always surprises. For example, this year we had a banner crop of fall carrots, and we didn’t even realize it. We could have started digging and distributing them much sooner. 

But we waited until the last month of distribution, and suddenly realized we had mountains of carrots. How many pounds of carrots would our hearty CSA members take on harvest day: one, two, three, four, five, six? Every distribution day we upped the carrot pounds. (Five seemed to be the limit, as on the day of six we had carrots left in the bins.)

Our Brussels sprouts were also abundant this year, and a late spinach planting in the greenhouse came on beautifully. We did the best we could with our counting, but after the last harvest day, when we had a moment to breathe, we made one more assessment. Alas, we still had a lot of carrots. We had a lot of Brussels sprouts. We had a lot of spinach. We had way more than we could eat over the winter, and the farmers’ market had ended weeks ago.

It was time for a Bonus CSA pick-up. We sent the word out to our members; our members responded gleefully. We, however, were not so gleeful. It was the grumpiest harvest morning of the year, even though it wasn’t raining, even though there would be only a few hours of work getting the three crops ready.

By golly, we were grumpy, as we harvested and trimmed and washed spinach, as we weighed carrots, as we used our biggest loppers to cut down the enormous stalks of Brussels sprouts.

“I don’t know what my problem is,” I finally said to my fellow farmer.

“Me neither,” he answered. “I mean, not your problem, my problem. I feel really grumpy.”

“I think it’s because we’re supposed to be done harvesting for the year.”

“Yeah! We’re supposed to be lying in bed, thinking of everything we don’t have to do with vegetables today!”

Well, we grumped our way through the harvest, and then there was the nice part of the day: seeing how happy people were about more vegetables, even carrots. Since this was a farm-only pick-up, rather than our usual farm or town pick-up, we even had a few town pick-up members that had never been to the farm. 

The farm tour went like this: this is our garden, where there used to be a lot of vegetables. This is our mushroom yard, where no mushrooms are growing. These are our horses, who are done working for the season. These are the farmers, also (mostly) done working for the season (except for rolling up irrigation, cleaning out greenhouses, and other trivial matters).

And these are the novels, waiting to be read, and the bonbons, waiting to be eaten.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Jan 8-14, 2025

Waste Not, Want Not

 Story #1: Recently this farmer attended a meeting that had nothing to do with farming. But it was harvest day, and in order to make the meeting, I had to rush out of the field, which meant I was in my working clothes.

My working clothes tend to be grubby and ragged, which generally doesn’t bother me, except when I have to go to a meeting of non-farmers. Then I might throw a decent layer over the grubby and ragged, which is exactly what I did.

Unfortunately, the meeting was held in a heated building, rather than a chilly field of vegetables, and I got way too hot very quickly. It was an interesting meeting, so I wasn’t really thinking as I shed my top layer, revealing the grubby and ragged.

At the break, however, a very nice person, whom I had just met, said very nicely to me, in tones of both awe and delicacy, “I’ve just been noticing your coat.” 

I laughed a little, suddenly realizing I had revealed the ragged and grubby. I said, “I’m a vegetable farmer, and this is my farm coat.”

“It’s a great coat,” answered the person. “I’m just thinking about the play I’m going to be in soon, and I need a certain kind of coat, because I’m playing a Scottish tramp from last century, and I wondered . . .”

Well. That made me laugh some more. “Do you want to try it on?” I asked, and he did. He even took the coat to his rehearsal, but alas, my grubby and ragged farm coat did not make its stage appearance, as the time period of the play required a knee-length coat.

Story #2: Recently a CSA member and I had a gripe session about wastefulness. She was mentioning a sustainability program that would assist farmers in purchasing electric tractors. 

Sounds like a great idea, I said. 

But, she went on, one of the requirements of the program is that the farmer disable any conventional tractors. 

We were both flummoxed. There is something amiss in that logic. To wreck a functional tractor? How is that sustainable?

Story #3: I was picking up my daughter from the train station in Brattleboro. It was another cold day, and as I waited outside on the platform, I was glad I was wearing the multiply-patched lined jeans that came from my dad. He wore them for many years of his farming life, and my mother patched and patched them. When I wear them I am warm, and when I wear them I can think of my mom and dad, both of whom I’ve lost in the last year and a half.

So there I was, warm, and thinking of my parents, when the train rushed in, and my 24 year old daughter arrived. “Wow,” she said, “You look cool in those pants!”

I was flattered. I looked cool at the same time I felt warm. Not only that, I was firmly in sustainability mode, which is also thrifty mode, which is also farming mode. 

Story #4: I grew up on a small family dairy farm, with “Waste not, want not” as a byword. I took it seriously. When I gave the rabbits fresh water, I emptied the eighth inch of water left in the bowl into the cow’s bucket. (Apparently, I thought that amount of stale water wouldn’t hurt a cow.) “Waste not, want not,” my mother chuckled.

There is another saying, from the Depression era: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” There is a lot of wisdom in that saying, whether it is in fashion or not.

Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, Dec 11-17, 2024

Farm Pooch

Dog, dog, dog, dog, dog. This vegetable farmer was amused to realize that the last five out of six sustainable farming columns have been about a certain farm puppy. Not only that, when we had our regular summer visitors, we talked about the farm less than the dog: the dog books we read, the dog documentaries we watch, the dog training classes we attend.

But really, this dog is all about vegetables and farming. 

Green beans: the dog loves ‘em. Brussels sprouts: the dog loves ‘em. Carrots, potatoes, tomatoes: loves ‘em.

Kale, winter squash, beets, zucchini. Yes, yes, yes. Also berries, apples, and cider. (Not to mention corn, popcorn, dog food, dog treats, peanut butter, and cheese, none of which we grow.)

The farm pooch also loves to dig holes, especially nearby a farmer digging carrots, or less pleasingly, in a garden pathway, where a farmer has to look sharp or fall in a heap.

The dog loves row cover, too, which the farmers use to protect crops from bugs. However, the farmers like their row cover without holes. The dog has his own designated piece of old holey row cover, which he periodically improves with more holes.

Plus the dog loves grain bags nearly as much as the farm draft horses do, except they like what’s inside and he likes what’s outside. What’s more fun than a noisy flappy empty feed bag to thrash about?

He does not, however, love the draft horses. They’re mighty big, and sometimes he stands three feet in front of one and barks, until a) a farmer gets annoyed and calls the dog away or b) the horse gets annoyed and walks toward the dog. Then the dog runs away, wisely.

The dog does love the farm cat, who does not return the favor, and no wonder, as the dog bounces around the cat, inviting her to play, and occasionally chases her, if a farmer is not quick enough to redirect him.

The pooch also loves the farmers’ market, and waits in the truck for an hour on market mornings, eager to go. (However, as the season went on, he became altogether too eager at the market, what with all the other exciting dogs and people. Bark, bark, bark, he said. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Leap, leap, leap. Alas, he lost his market privileges.

Happily, there was only one market day left, and there is only so much dog sadness I can stand: I took him on an alternate farm excursion to Stonewall Farm, where he invited the goats to play. At least he didn’t bark at them.)

This dog also loves the CSA members who come to our farm, and mostly he behaves when they come. Recently, though, as a CSA member came up the drive, the dog, after a nice initial greeting, jumped on her. 

“Off!” I said firmly to the dog, and “Oh, I’m very sorry!” to our CSA member.

“Don’t worry,” she answered, “I love dogs,” which was lucky for us. I hastened to tell her that our pooch hardly ever jumps, and had just passed his canine good citizen test at our Monadnock Humane Society class.

“Well, that’s wonderful,” she answered. “What did he have to do, vote?” 

 I laughed, thinking: Hmm . . . if a dog could vote, we might have kindness, understanding, good food, good friends, a comfortable bed, a little freedom to run in the fields  . . . 

Then I explained the ten canine good citizen tasks. On the test, the pooch did beautifully on nine of the tasks. He did need a second chance on the tenth, which was listening to his person instead of leaping delightedly at a new dog. 

“Well, I think he’s just perfect,” said our CSA member, scratching the farm pooch's ears.

“Thanks,” I answered. “We go to training classes so he doesn’t jump on CSA members.” Then we both laughed, as the pooch wagged his tail innocently.

Originally published in the Monadock Shopper News, Nov 13-19, 2024