Benediction
Friday Harvest Crew | Through heat and smoke and rain and chill, we showed up to feed our community. Brad, Dusty, Mary, Karen (top, l to r). April (bottom left).
Dear readers,
This is my last essay for the 2021 season. I will now pause my weekly writings for a much needed winter break. Until we are “together” again, be good, be kind, be true.
Be a steward.
April
The mornings pinch me on the cheeks now, and I set my boots the night before inside to make my toes happier when it’s dark and cold and yet time for chores.
The pile of to-be-mended work clothes has grown. There are missing buttons, torn denim snagged repeatedly on fencing panels and wire mesh. Frayed flannel cuffs and socks with holes. My sun hat is in tatters after eight long years of service. My pants are deep with stains on the knees from my repeated imprinting on this Earth, just as the Earth has imprinted on my soul.
My stack of farming research publications and wish list of agriculture books in Chelsea Green’s catalog have grown as long as the irrigation lines that are now tightly rolled back up.
Saved seeds, and transplant flats are nestled in their dark, cool winter home.
The dishes are stacked in the sink, and the dust has settled thickly on all the windowsills. My house may be dirty as can be now, but next week, I shall find the pleasure in having time to scrub and sweep and clean and sort out all the corners as a blessing- a benediction to this gift of home. I shall find pleasure in appreciating, however imperfect, this place, this farm that shelters and protects, nourishes and inspires me.
Then, I too will recede. I will turn off the computer and the phone, I will allow my mind to slow, I will hold myself with appreciation for how this body of mine has carried me through thick and thin and done all number of extraordinary and ordinary things on my behalf. Thank you hands, thank you knees, thank you teeth and eyes and belly and back. Thank you lungs and muscles and joints. I honor your service. I am grateful you have stuck with me, giving and giving for the greater good.
Soon, very soon, I will hibernate. I will rest more and do less. I will do less, better and more thoroughly. I will be true to my rhythms. I will tend my spirit. I will laugh and soothe and stretch and yawn and walk slowly on the edges of the fields.
It is time to give this parcel of Earth her privacy, to let her unfold and settle, breathe and move without disturbance, without desire or need or constant taking.
Winter is coming. It’s time to drop an octave lower.
***
There was a time Brad and I both thought it quite likely we would not make it to this finish line. That it was possible there would be no more vegetables for any of us. This year, we survived a February snowstorm that crumpled six greenhouses and cost us a pretty penny and stressful hard work to keep the rest of the structures from damage.
And we kept sowing.
This year we survived the uncertainty and fear of COVID.
And we kept connecting.
This year, we mourned when a late May freeze severely setback our pepper crop.
And we kept hoping.
This year, we weathered 116 F multi-day killing heat.
And we kept watering and shading and loving and working.
This year, we feared drought and wildfire. We feared the ignorance of a neighbor’s careless spark would overtake our hay field, destroy a year’s worth of animal feed, maybe our entire farm, and scar our spirit.
And we kept our vigilance up while fitfully working to let go of all that was out of our control.
No matter what failed or broke or was lost or died or required three times the extra effort, six times doubling back, nine times doing it again, no matter the discouragement, frustration, fear, or grief, no matter the excessive heat, the biting cold, the parched air, no matter the inflated costs of packaging, the scarce supply of materials and labor and time, no matter the seed sourcing challenges that defeated our hopes for a winter rest last year, no matter the physical adversity, no matter the worries of health insurance, no matter no matter no matter...
Without fail, without one hiccup, without one missed week, without any reduction in quality, without one decline of choice,
We harvested.
We harvested.
We harvested.
For you.
This food that we midwife into being? It’s a farmer's perpetual love note.
Even if you are not a member of my CSA program, even if you have never bought anything directly from a farmer, know this: whatever and wherever you are eating, the hands, the animals, the plants that produced your food have surely suffered through adversity, pain, grief, or uncertainty, and kept going.
For you.
Some piece of this Earth, our collective soil, well loved or abused, fed you.
And fed you.
And fed you.
***
Before we slumber into rest, before Brad and I read away afternoons, before we turn our thoughts to how we will ever navigate all that may unfold in the uncertainty that is tomorrow, we have one more task.
We will acknowledge this point of victory. We will revel in this outcome. We will take time, ample time, to pause and exhale and hug and cry and lift arms in celebration, in honor of what has transpired, and what it has meant to pull through. What it has meant to pull through together. To my April Joy Farm team: we have done it, together.
Before we can move forward, we must reckon with what has been. We must honor and see clear as day, what is. We must give thanks for the possibilities our work together has sustained.
A clean home, dry clothes, a singing fire in the wood stove. The joy of accomplishment. The grief of loss. The comfort of community. The awesomeness of Nature’s never-say-die resiliency.
All this goes in the soup pot.
All this we must savor and swallow.
All this is what we have and what we are and what we will become. ~AJ
A Farmer’s Love Note | Love the soil, love the food, love the community.