FARMING IN A PANDEMIC

In many ways, it feels like we have been preparing for this from the beginning, right? Those early yearnings towards farming were built on a desire for self-sufficiency, for living simply and having everything we needed right outside our door. We have spent years trying, failing, trying again - learning skills and gathering knowledge to ready us for such a time as this.

We have acres of land to roam, bountiful food and gardens surrounding us, animals providing for us. We feel incredibly fortunate and blessed, rich in our health and stability.

And yet! Though our family is safe and not lacking in food, our farm business has been cut off at the knees. We chose 2020 (of course!) to be the year we ended our CSA, focusing solely on farmers market sales and restaurants. And while the market is still open, we are now operating with a “what will tomorrow bring”sort of anxiety. Every news cycle seems to have us rewriting our entire business plan, reevaluating our marketing strategy, pivoting and beginning again.

So, we return to the CSA model. We are so thankful for our loyal little community of customers and past farm members we were able to turn to, finding them ready and waiting for us.

We will still be at the market, beginning this weekend, for as long as the market can be open. There will be spinach, lettuce, arugula, and LOTS of Further’s chicken eggs! We will be encouraging pre-orders and online payments as much as possible.

We are staying open and flexible, knowing that everything might have to change again. And that is OK! We are going to make this work.

We are also wrestling a bit with a paradox, or conundrum, or difficulty of sorts: we are blessed to have plentiful resources in a time when resources are scarce (food!) and we want to share that with as many people as possible. Health is wealth and food is medicine, and we want everyone to have access to that. So how can we be generous and connect food with people who need it and can distribute it, while also remembering that our family needs to survive this financially as well?

So please come see us at the market (briefly, and from a distance)! Join our CSA and tell your neighbors about us. Help us connect our food with people who are hungry. Share your thoughts, your worries, your ideas with us. We are going to keep planting, going to continue expecting this to be our biggest growing season to date. Just like every year, we will bury our seeds in the soil in faith, in hope.

- Hannah.

“CAN I HELP YOU, PAPA?”

Further on compost.

There is nothing I want more for my child than to grow up around food, in the garden, outside, alongside us. But when trying to run a farm business, that dream gets complicated.Like any business, though this is especially true of farming, the success and longevity of our operation hinges on efficiency. It hinges, for us, on being able to spend as little time on our knees, or bent over, or out in the sun as possible while still accomplishing what we need. But then, in the middle of the workday, your son wants to help you and you know two things: 1) this is exactly what you had dreamed of when you started farming, and 2) it’s going to make the workday that much longer, slower, harder.Do I hate having that second thought? Of course I do. But this is the bizarre reality of farm life—your family and business are always occupying the same space even when their needs conflict. Whatever you do for work, just imagine trying to do it with an ever-present 3.5 year old.However, I have decided as of late to ignore that second point about my workday and just say yes, “Of course, baby boy, you can help your papa.”And you know what? Not only has he been helpful, but I’ve realized how little he actually slows me down. For a minute, maybe, but then he does his little bit of work and goes back to playing by himself. Or he continues to help me—handing me soil blocks, or grabbing a tool I need from the shed—genuinely making what I do easier. Part of this is his age and maturity. He’s grown up a lot this year.The other part of it is my age and maturity. I, too, have grown.I have always been a very serious employee. I have always dedicated myself to work in a way that is myopic, even unhealthy. This is the kitchen culture in which I learned to work and it is only work culture I know. So it so no surprise then that I would copy/paste this approach onto my own business—that I would struggle to integrate someone I love into something I actively make impersonal, prosaic, and painfully serious.But when I really step back and think about what I got into this farming thing for in the first place, I realize something jarring and profound: I never started farming to start a business. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. What I wanted was a family farm that fed a community, and a diverse, healthy life for my children. So when I don’t let them help me when they ask, all I have is what I never wanted.Luckily, I have come to find that all it takes to circumvent that fate is a few simple words.“Yeah, baby boy, let’s plant.” And together, we grow.

-Farmer Jesse

FARMING ISN’T HARD.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that farming is generally considered some of the hardest work one can do. That said, I likewise do not feel I am exaggerating when I say it should also be in the running for some of the easiest.Obviously, farming is physical. It’s sweaty. Hot. Cold. Bloody. Farming can be—and mostly is—all of those things. But whether or not it is hard is a different question because difficulty is, as all things, relative. Any job can be harder than farming. To be sure, any job you don’t love can be the hardest job in the world.When you don’t love what you do for work—work being what Americans spend 20-30% of our lives doing—then it cannot possibly ever be easy. It doesn’t matter what the work even is, it matters that it taps into some amount of the things you are passionate about.Forgive this analogy, but it helps for me to think of it in terms of wells. We all have these proverbial wells filled with our enthusiasms and idealisms. Some of our wells are deeper than our others, and some can be tapped more readily. But if you cannot tap your wells at all in what you do then you’re going to suffer, dry up. Just check your soil in a severe drought—everything is harder when it receives no water.That said, no matter how hard the work, or how stressful, if you have a deep well filled with your interests and dreams that can all be tapped for the job you do, then your stresses can be allayed. Your exhaustion can be cured. Droughts are a part of life, these wells are how we weather them.For myself, on long hot days I am buoyed by my love of food, by my passion for building soil, for microbial life, and for the homestead. I think of my child (soon children) and how amazing it is to watch him growing up in the dirt—that keeps me going. Nay, it keeps me excited to be exhausted. At this point, the irrigation from my wells flows when I need it to, and I am forever grateful for that. I am also grateful to have chosen a life symbiotic with my particular wells where, even when tired, I can take a break and access them—do a project, ferment, build, plant, grow, cook, brew. I didn’t have this same feeling when I worked in the city making better money than I do now, even in a job I liked. I couldn’t irrigate as easily then, and ultimately it began to hurt. I suffered from depression and exhaustion. Indeed, I had the wells and could see them overflowing, I just couldn’t tap them.Now, I want to be clear that this doesn’t mean farming is for everyone, or that everyone’s wells are a fit for farm life (or, with special emphasis, that depression can always be remedied by a simple change in lifestyle). No doubt, your wells are different from mine, as mine are different even from my wife’s. The life that your wells are fit to water is unique to the individual, and he or she must think hard about what is in those wells—i,e, what makes you happy? To live a life that allows me to tap into my wells of enthusiasm is requisite for sanity. I have survived without access to wells before, but whether or not I was alive is debatable.Maybe it’s a hobby. Maybe it’s a whole new job, a new life, but with acceptance of sounding a little new-agey with all this, one can not let these wells go to waste or run dry. Find a way to always take advantage of your wells and you will find they are governed by an elegant brand of physics—that is, the more you use them, the faster they replenish.- Jesse.

WORKING MORE TO WORK LESS (WITH VIDEO).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KRU80oeeC4We’ve been working really hard this year—the whole crew has. Okay, technically this is the story every year, but it’s different this year because the work we are putting in now to implement a no-till gardening program has a specific goal: to reduce the work for years to come.This, truthfully, should always be the case. The work you do this year should always help the future you. At least, it shouldn’t add to the work. You can add projects without adding more requisite time, or that’s what you should strive for.Anyway, that is just one of the many things I go on about in today’s VLOG. So check it out and don’t forget to subscribe!-Jesse