Greenhorns
Page 11
Write It Down
* * *
BY JENNA WOGINRICH
The fiddling shepherd of Cold Antler Farm, in Jackson, New York, Jenna Woginrich is an office worker by day and a farmer by passion. On her six-and-a-half-acre homestead, she raises sheep, chickens, geese, rabbits, vegetables, and bees. The farm’s main business is the fiber CSA that produces yarn for shareholders all across the United States and Canada. She’s also the author of several books on country living for beginners.
* * *
There’s a fire in my woodstove, and between that and two glasses of homebrew, I’m very warm tonight. I just ate a simple dinner of pasta and tomato sauce, then (with a slight buzz and a full belly) I pulled my fiddle off the shelf and played a few Irish tunes to light up the room. In a little white farm house in Jackson, New York, “The Scartaglen Slide” and “Man of the House” trotted out with my bow while the dogs wrestled on the kitchen floor. I did a little dance and hopped about with them as I fiddled, the fray of gnashing teeth and my laughter tearing up the peace. It was quite a sight.
What a life this has become! Over my pigtails, I’m wearing a warm hat that I made from wool off the sheep in my pasture. There are eggs in my fridge from the birds in the coop, and there are chickens (and a rabbit) I harvested in the freezer. Besides the meat I’ve raised, I’ve made bread, sauce, jams, cheese, beer, cider, and pies. There is honey I pulled from my own hive, and a truck in the driveway. I have a fine pair of geese. I even held one of their just-born goslings in my palm this time last fall. I’ve grown a garden full of vegetables and held pumpkins as big as bobcats. I’ve hunted pheasants and shot at foxes. I’ve heard coyotes sing in the pale moonlight and watched them from the edge of a sheep pen with a crook and a lantern. I caught a native trout on a dry fly and I know when a river is angry. I’ve raised rabbits. I’ve written books. I’ve sewn clothes. I’ve ridden a dogsled in the blue glow of a winter sunset, and I know how it feels to bottle-feed a baby goat on a porch during a spring rainstorm. I can now sit high in a dressage saddle and do a posting trot with a sixteen-hand horse. A little black-and-white rocket of a dog runs about as I write, and he’s the future of this farm: my business partner, Gibson the Border collie.
We have a CSA in the works, we shepherds, and soon we’ll be sending out packages with wool and thank-you letters to our inaugural subscribers. There are sheep on the way, too. Those ewes will be heavy with lambs and I’ll bring them into the world this spring.
Tonight my plans don’t involve any hot dates — and certainly nothing like a night out on the town — this is a night on my farm. Cold Antler Farm. This place didn’t exist in a gasp five years ago, and tonight I’ll be reading about the proper bedding and pen setup for a pig.
* * *
When I knew a farm was something I wanted, I sat down and wrote out exactly what I hoped it would be.
* * *
Tomorrow, I add a little swine to the mix. It seems as normal now as deciding which fabric softener to buy from the grocery store. This is my everyday life.
I’ve been told that I’m a goddamned fool. I must be. Only a fool would be living like this, doing all this, and dancing with dogs to tunes no one else knows anymore. You can call me whatever you please. I’m not changing a thing about this messy life. I like messy. It suits me.
Listen, I don’t have much money, and I’m nobody’s Daisy . . . but I’ll be damned if I’m not happy tonight. I feel like the wealthiest beast in the world. And you know why all this happened? It happened for two simple reasons, and I believe this with all my heart. I landed here because:
1. I always believed I would (not could, not might, but would).
2. And because I wrote it all down.
Something that stuck with me in college was a blip I heard on the radio one night. A person was telling someone on NPR that if you want something to happen with your life, you need to get out a pen and paper and write it down. He said that only 2 percent of people with goals actually take the time to write them down, but out of that 2 percent studied, 90 percent achieved their dream. Something about the certainty of pledging it to yourself made it more real to the people he observed. I wanted to be in the 90 percent of that 2 percent.
When I knew a farm was something I wanted, then, I sat down and wrote out exactly what I hoped it would be. I wrote about a hillside outside my window, about the sheep, about the black-and-white dog by my side. I drew a pickup truck parked outside, and a veggie garden alive with a lush bounty.
Okay, so not everything came true, but the point is that most of it did. I carried that piece of paper with me until it naturally disintegrated into scraps. It was my totem, my prayer. And I think because I physically held it on my person, I could never forget it was there, and always being on my mind forced me to always strive toward it.
That said, it’s not a magic trick. It wasn’t exactly as if it fell into my lap. Nothing was given to me; I had to earn it. I had to wheel and deal, and beg, borrow, and steal to make it happen. But it did. I pulled it off, paycheck to paycheck, a little at a time, until it rolled into something so epic it wore me down and built me up again. Somehow, I got a mortgage, a collie, a truck, some land. Somehow, I raised a barn. There are fences outside and a CSA on the books. Thanks to the help of many hands, my amazing parents and siblings, friends, blog readers, thoughts, prayers, and (I think) my daily diary online, my aspirations went from a pipe dream to a steam engine. If it was something a girl from Palmerton, Pennsylvania, could get, you can too. I promise.
So if you are someone who wants your own land, your own farm, I urge you to sit down and write what you want, tonight. Write it all down, fold it up, and put it in your pocket. It might take five years before you’re in your own kitchen dancing with a Border collie. But hell, those five years are coming, one way or the other. Might as well have a farm at the end of it all.
And keep dancing in your kitchen. It can only help.
Growing Not for Market
* * *
BY DOUGLASS DECANDIA
In the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, Douglass DeCandia lives, grows produce, and raises animals. He manages a farm operation and oversees a food-growing program with the Food Bank for Westchester to provide fresh produce to individuals with limited access to good food and to support a hands-on education for young adults and students.
* * *
I remember the day, the conversation, and what was being done when I was asked a really good question.
A neighbor and I were in my field, among the growing leaves, young fruit, and earthen smells of early summer. I was tired and my will was fading away from the harvest at hand. The Swiss chard I held, as wholesome as it was, was heavy. There was a weight put on everything I grew: It all had to be and look a certain way in order for it to go to market and sell. Producing for high quality wasn’t what was bothering me; it was the fact that most of the people I was selling to were more concerned with what the produce looked like, tasted like, and how it was grown than with how much nutrition they were getting from it. The weight from that made me feel as if I was doing something I didn’t really want to be doing, even though I really did want to be farming. Maybe I just needed to do it a different way.
“Why don’t you just donate the produce?” a friend asked.
It was a simple question, but it ran deep for me. It made me realize that not only did I need and cherish the physical work of farming, the mental exercise of running an operation, and the spiritual connection with land, but I also wanted to share all this with others who had less access to good food.
“Why don’t I do this?” I asked myself.
“Well, because I can’t make money donating food,” a small voice in me responded. “I want to farm full time, and if I can’t make money doing something full time, I can’t do it full time. It can’t happen.”
That didn’t feel right. I knew it could happen.
We all need good food — to nourish our mind, spirit, and body so that our
whole being can function at its fullest. Malnutrition doesn’t discriminate. It plagues the rich as much as it does the poor; young and old suffer from it. Although many of us have access to good food, way too many do not: the homeless, the young, the hungry, the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, the most vulnerable. Without proper nourishment, the ability to think and make good decisions, to maintain and build physical strength, to develop the will and spirit is greatly weakened. With good food comes empowerment.
My ambition became to grow nourishing food with and for those with limited access, while also meeting my own needs. I pursued private and public funding, regional food-justice organizations, and friends and family, trying to find the land and money needed to begin a farm. I developed relationships with good people and organizations, found a place on committees and boards, and was eventually offered a position with my county’s food bank.
The Food Bank for Westchester (New York), with its mission to lead, engage, and educate the county in creating a hunger-free environment, wanted to increase the quantity of locally grown produce it provided to its clients. It hired me, gave me a livable wage, and offered me the opportunity to farm and not grow for market.
What to Do If You Think You’re Not Good at Anything
* * *
BY A. M. THOMAS
A first-generation farmer and writer, A. M. Thomas comanages East Hill CSA, a small-scale vegetable, fruit, and bread operation in rural Middlesex and Rochester, New York. He maintains what he describes as “a serious literary blog” called Wear a Wax Dustcoat (see page 251).
* * *
Sometimes people ask me why I farm. I tell them different things. To some I say that, biologically, we are meant to be farmers. “We’ve been farming for thousands of years. Why stop now?” I say.
To others (seeing an opportunity to shorten or end the conversation as quickly as possible), I say that I farm because I like good food. “Can’t argue with that,” they say, thankfully.
To a third group of people, usually those most interested in farming, I explain that when I was younger I made a list of jobs I could imagine myself enjoying. I tell them the list included “small-scale organic vegetable farmer” and that I somehow fell into it. I add some esoteric, overly idiosyncratic items to my fictional list of self-actualizing professions in order to make them laugh or to distract them. I say that besides farmer, on my list were rapper, astronaut, lonely graduate student, writer, playwright, lonely history professor, and lonely Civil War reenactor. I explain this maniacally, with eyes wide, until whoever asked the question starts talking about himself or loses interest.
To the fourth group — those with whom I’m most honest — I shrug and sadly mumble something about not knowing what else to do. “I could probably be a good janitor, maybe,” I say, almost inaudibly, “but I don’t know what else I’d be doing. I’m not really good at anything.”
I grew up in somewhat urban New Jersey, about twenty miles outside of Manhattan, and didn’t have a lot of interaction with nature. My dad kept a small vegetable garden in my aunt’s backyard until I was nine or ten and then he stopped. I remember helping him in the garden a few times and liking it.
I ate a lot of processed food. I liked Toaster Strudels and Pop-Tarts. I liked bread. I put ketchup on most things. Most of the time I felt really awful. I wondered why my stomach hurt so much. In high school I went to a digestive specialist, who gave me a cup of high-fructose corn syrup to drink. I got sick almost immediately. He told me I had an HFCS allergy and “probably irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease” or something. It seemed that most of the food I was encouraged to eat was poison to my body. I was frustrated by my stomach and, though I didn’t realize it then, by the food system I was trapped in.
* * *
The best things in life — growing your own food, living and working with your neighbors, being outside in an open space — are being lost.
* * *
Being sick showed me that there’s a lot wrong with the way things are set up and maybe, I thought, if we do things differently, there’s a chance we could get it right. I discovered subculture. I learned that there are alternative ways to eat, which, it turns out, is how most people in history have eaten. Sometimes I wished I’d been born a hundred years earlier.
After college, I left New Jersey to become a farmer. Through WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms), I discovered a farm about six hours northwest in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The farm, where I still live and work, is called East Hill Farm. It’s a project of the Rochester Folk Art Guild, an intentional community of craftspeople and farmers who have lived together in Middlesex, New York, since 1967.
So, I made the odd, difficult transition from a life rooted in urban culture in New Jersey to a rural, agricultural lifestyle in an established intentional community. It’s a transition that I’m still trying to figure out. I’ve learned more practical skills than I ever thought I would: bread baking, logging, vegetable and fruit production, woodworking, operating a tractor, canning and food preservation, beekeeping, raising and slaughtering pigs, raising and slaughtering chickens. I’ve learned how to live by myself in a one-room, “off-the-grid” shed through the winter. I’ve experienced love and heartbreak and made great friends. I’ve been more confused than ever before. I’ve discovered that I have much to learn about human interaction and relationships.
I’m now on the verge of my third season of farming. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, though also one of the most puzzling. Sometimes farming feels simple — like the crops grow themselves, and it’s almost a gift that this work exists for us. I’ve thinned beets while lying on my side in beautiful June weather and thought, “Farming can be lazy and relaxing, I guess.” Other times, farming seems impossible. It feels like there is so much that has to go right — too much — for it ever to work. But despite my inexperience and lack of knowledge and small stature and self-deprecation, so far I’ve somehow made it work.
If you sometimes feel that you’re not good at anything, consider becoming a farmer. (It’s probably what you’re supposed to be doing, anyway.) You’ll discover that you’re actually good at many things. You’ll learn many skills that make you feel fulfilled and proud of yourself and then you’ll realize that these are all the skills that are being forgotten. The best things in life — growing your own food, living and working with your neighbors, being outside in an open space — are being lost.
Know, also, that farming is tough. Some days, maybe most days, you’ll feel overwhelmed. When your crop of onions is failing and your tomatoes have blight and the weed pressure on your winter squash is mounting and you can’t stand the people you work with (or, worse, the people you work with can’t stand you) and your livelihood depends on this food, you’ll feel overwhelmed and even afraid. But you’ll also feel a fullness. Your life will feel different from how it would if you were a young person living in a city, working in an office, going to bars and restaurants. You’ll know what quiet is and you’ll be able to go outside at night and see darkness. Your body, at first weak from the winter or the suburbs, will reject your work. Then, after struggling, it will embrace it. You’ll eat good food. Eventually, you’ll ask: “How do I live well?” And we need you to answer that question. We desperately need you to.
Farming in the Web of Interconnectedness
* * *
BY SARAJANE SNYDER
Although she is currently the farm manager at Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach California, Sarajane Snyder considers central Pennsylvania to be her home. She recently found another list (in addition to the one on page 116): What Does the World Need? Listening, Slow, Less, Breath, Sharing. Free farm stands. More art space. Less consumer space. Reskilling.
* * *
Farmers everywhere:
You are creatures within creation
Do not be afraid to consecrate your farmland
If you have heard the quiet sacred whisper
If you have witnessed the radiatin
g energy
If you have felt the happy exhaustion of
Taking the long way home via the land
Do not be afraid to give a little amen
For what is all around us
Sustain us
Sometimes we hide treasure for ourselves, forget it completely, and then delight in rediscovering it. On a blowing winter night, I read through last season’s farm journal to prepare for the coming season. Amid notes about seeds to try, calculations on pounds of potatoes to order, quotes from books I was reading, notes on planting practices and pick lists, updates on our organic systems plan, reminders on tractor maintenance, I find this all by itself on a page:
a good list
human health
community engagement
cultural knowledge
ecological restoration
political empowerment
economic stability
spiritual enlivening
(dependent on networks of relationships & connections)
This is indeed a good list. It’s a broad list. An idealist’s list. This is a list that lays out the bare bones of why I farm and why I hope every person who has a hair of interest in farming can be supported and encouraged to jump in and explore the many paths that crisscross through the field. I have come to believe that through a lot of rejuvenating and a little reinventing, the art of farming in this country can immediately ameliorate some of our more persistent and idiosyncratic problems (poor health, isolation and loneliness, cultural dead zones, ecological degradation, political hopelessness, economic turmoil, and spiritual impoverishment, to name a few). Many people have written and will continue to write about (and enact!) the role of small farms in creating antidotes to these problems, but I think that the antidote of spiritual enlivenment is perhaps the least often addressed. So I thought I’d give it a few words.