LESSONS OF A YOUNG FARMER: HUMILTY.

A couple years ago when I was a second-year intern at Bugtussle, my mentor Eric and I were cultivating in the garden, but that's not where my brain was. My brain was on my own farm (which didn't exist yet). I was daydreaming about what said farm might look like, what things I would do differently, and I was barreling through my cultivation as I did so––barreling through my cultivation as I imagined I would on my own farm to save a little time."I think you're the only intern we've ever had that can actually cultivate faster than me," Eric said that day.A foreign cockiness welled inside me, and out came the words, "Well, I've got ten years on you," which, as you will realize, is not how you use that phrase if you're actually less experienced. Eric was about to turn forty (and had been farming for well-over ten years). I was about to turn 29... and apparently ignorant. I immediately knew I'd said something stupid.In an unsurprising move after such an arrogant statement, Eric started to go back over where I had been running my hoe and inspecting my work. "Jesse," he called to me, "come look at this."His hand swept through the soil to reveal untouched crust. That is to say, when you cultivate, your goal is to break all the soil––or "crust"–– around the plant to literally nip the germinating weeds in the bud––and it turned out I was not doing that very effectively.Although it was fast, my technique had gotten lazy, and Eric pointed it out. He then took a few minutes to show me his rows, then his technique (for the tenth time and second year in a row), and asked me to return to cultivating the old way––between the plants first, above them, then below them. It's slow, but it's effective.Soon, I noticed Eric was decidedly faster at cultivating this way than I was and, already starting to feel stupid, I decided to tell him so."Well," he responded in an inspired moment, "don't worry, you'll get faster––I've just got ten years on you."I deserved that, and needed it. I needed to be reminded that I still had things to learn; reminded I still had more to learn about what I thought I knew; and reminded I still had a great mentor at my disposal—something that should never be wasted. With six months still left in that internship, I didn't know it, but I (obviously) needed some humbling. And today, I cultivate slowly and deliberately because I learned that day there is simply no point in doing something fast if you're not going to do it right––that goes for internships as well.

LESSONS OF A YOUNG FARMER: 24/7.

There is a unique component to farming that makes it unlike almost any career I've ever been a part of: it's a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week job. Sure, I've "taken jobs home" with me before I was a farmer. I've lost sleep over the stress caused by previous jobs, but I've definitely never had to get out of bed in the middle of the night for one––to work.Take Sunday night for example. Or the previous Friday. Or that night last winter when our rooster Ellen was attacked. Or any of the many times we've been awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a predator with its jaws on a chicken, or the sound of pounding rain smashing all the young transplants we've had sitting in the shade house. These moments send you stumbling blindly into the darkness wearing little more than your muck boots and boxer shorts to take care of your farm. But this is farming. If it were a regular job, you might not get out of bed "off the clock." You will, however, when it's your own, and when you love what you do.And that brings me to the other quality which makes farming such a unique career, that––as cliché as it might sound––it's not a career or job at all, it's a lifestyle. You don't farm because you want to get rich (well, I hope you don't farm to get rich). You farm because you love it. You get out of bed not because you have to, but because you're compelled to. You work hard and don't take days off because you're part of a natural system that likewise works hard, and doesn't know what a weekend is: nature. To farm is to run a business that never sleeps.I didn't catch the predator Sunday night, but I saw it. A small possum failed to get away with a chicken but managed to get away with its life. And I'm sure it will be back... at 3 a.m.... every night... until we catch it. And we'll be ready because as farmers, we know no other way to be.- Jesse.