“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

A FATHER IS BORN.

I know who I was before I was a farmer. I know who I was before I was a writer. But I have no idea who I was before I was a father. That person is a stranger to me.And I remember the moment it happened, the moment I changed. All of the time I now spend staring at my son in awe, all of the intense and overwhelming love (for lack of a more piercingly accurate word) that I heap upon his very existence - that didn’t start when I found out I was going to be a father. Not fully. Fatherhood was still too abstract of an idea. It started when, after several days of intense labor in the cabin with my amazing wife, I caught his tiny frame in my hands. I probably hadn’t cried in ten years, but I bawled that morning. Some of the happiest tears in all of Bugtussle.However, something changed that day. Something profound and visceral. Whether it was oxytocin––a contact high from the love hormone that mothers create to bond with their children––or overwhelming relief after a long week, I became a new person, forever leaving behind whoever I was before I was papa.I knew it then, but I’m writing about this now because it still exists in the exact same capacity. Nothing has changed about this change in me. It doesn’t dissipate, it doesn’t go away. When I look at my son running through the sweet corn, or jumping on the couch, or reading a book with his mama, or sleeping––which I spend several minutes a day watching him do––I see him with eyes that are exactly his age. He asked me the other day, “Are you two and a half years old, too, papa?” And I laughed, but I guess I am.I am two and a half, too, baby boy. Same age as you.- Jesse.