Taking Stock
A foggy, dense cold surrounds me each morning now when I step out onto the porch and head to the barn to care for the animals. Sometimes the changing seasons come in with a subtle shift, but this transition to fall has almost been like a switch flipped. One minute I was in a t-shirt and now I’m piling on the layers like a hibernating bear.
Regardless of the weather, every week on Tuesday mornings, Brad and I take inventory. This means we walk the farm, clipboard in hand. We go row by row, (and for our storage crops, bag by bag), and assess what is ready to harvest or available to sell, and how much. This seems like a straightforward, simple affair, but the value of these routine assessments goes much deeper.
Our inventory walks are important in that we can evaluate how certain decisions played out in real life. We notice a lot of subtle things that in the heat of the working day, we might easily miss. Sometimes it’s the abundance of lady bugs, or the results of a different crop spacing we tried. How did the semi-determinate tomatoes like that new trellising technique? Did the cucumbers do ok in the shade of the bean vines? Was the buckwheat under sown in the winter squash a help or a hindrance? Each week, we are committed to spending this time together with our farm, walking and talking, seeing instead of doing, being present to what is – an unfiltered look at the present state of our work.
I really value this weekly hour with Brad. It feels good to rise up from the trenches to recognize and acknowledge our progress. Especially enjoyable is celebrating the successes which involved multiple years of trials and travails. To be able to mutually revel in the gorgeous rows of healthy carrots, or the glow of golden Dad’s Sunset tomatoes hung abundantly on lush, thick vines – may seem indulgent. But Brad and I care so immensely about our work that we can't help but take it personally. Thus, it’s critical to celebrate the wins, however small they may be.
Likewise, we find solace when sharing the inevitable losses together. We can console, encourage and lift each other’s spirits up with words of tenderness born from hard earned experience. Sometimes I’m discouraged, sometimes Brad is. Together, we both lament and brainstorm alternative solutions. There’s something about walking in the quiet open of the fields that greatly improves our problem solving abilities. Maybe it’s the sense of perspective- one crop among many, the losses offset by the living abundance, one more lesson learned in the greater framework of this intentionally crafted life.
When Brad and I take our weekly walks, we are writing down quantities – heads, bunches, shares, pounds. We are taking stock of the tangible, yes. But we are also harvesting the intangible – filling our souls with the bounty, the beauty, the meaning of the what we do -- so each week we can fill your hands with nutritious, deeply soulful food. As our CSA comes to a close, Brad and I are grateful for the many, many successes of this season. Beginning the minute your checks hit our bank account in January, we feel a substantial commitment and yes, at times, burden, to fulfill our obligations to you and yours. It is not easy to keep so many moving parts, well, moving, for 23 weeks of harvests.
So each year, at least once during our late season inventory walks, as I move through the crops, my breath catches and my heart presses against my chest. Tears well up in my eyes and I am overcome with gratefulness because nature has once again, shown up. Everything has once again, miraculously come together.
Each year that I farm, I become more, not less, amazed at the generosity, ingenuity, organizational prowess, and unequaled beauty of our farm ecosystem. Nature is astounding; amongst the cultivated crops, there is a wildness constantly at work and at play here. I can only describe it as one unending, powerfully improvisational symphony.
In a few weeks, our schedule will shift quite dramatically. Instead of multiple harvests each week, and the physical work of the field, we’ll be undertaking the work of restoration, of in fact, taking stock- not of row by row, but rather by year: of our business, our land, and the needs of our community.
Nonetheless, I intend to keep walking, to keep taking inventory. I know how meaningfully one short hour can be spent: seeing, not doing, being all in, rather than tuning out. Finding time on a regular basis to take stock of your life, exactly as it is, is supremely beneficial. This awareness of both the easily counted and the intangible gifts, the uncomfortable questions and the joyous successes, the losses and the laughter, will help answer the question all stewards inevitably ask of the coming season.
What seeds shall we plant next?~AJ
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs.”