Tag: farmlife

Humanity

Leaving the farm.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

Is it on? Is this thing on?

I sat down to write about how it felt to climb down off the tractor and to know I won’t be climbing back up. There is so much in this for me. I tried paper and pen but couldn’t bear it. The beauty the beauty. Unbearable.

It was heavy. My whole chest was physically constricted. And I know it has to be done, is being done, but I still have not come to grips. I cannot believe it.

I’ve gotten a job, a grown up job that has benefits and the same hours every day and a salary, and possibly sick days and things like that that i haven’t even considered.

And I’m starting tomorrow. And it precludes/excludes the ‘squeezing in of hours’ that my life before allowed.

And I’m in mourning. For the woman who started there, as a way to fill in the times when the kids were with their dad. It was really like that. They were young, i was always there. Always.

Seeds

I started there probably seven years ago, my eldest would have been 13, and the youngest just six. It felt like a lot of money because it was farmwork and when i did it in high school, i was just paid $7 an hour, under the table. So it was way way more than that, and I would start having references again. It was a step, a little one, an it got me talking to people in the world again.

And I helped people pick out the good veggies and the farmers washed and harvested and put everything out at the beginning and away at the end of every night.

Now i harvest (only a little bit but i do.) and wash, and set up, and break down, and make the board and think about next week’s setup and keep it all stocked and i know so many of the customers intimately. And I seed the baby plants and run the plant sale and I take care of thousands of eggs and chickens per week and I drive the goddamned tractor. I’ve watched the farmer’s kid grow into a really cool girl, and i love my farmers isn’t just a bumper sticker over here.

Sigh. Sky.

And I worry that I’ll lose my connection to the work and the joy and pain of being outside year round. And what if my dad stops being proud of me? Or Grammie, or Joel, or Kate Crowley? Or the goddamned farmer? What if they move on like i was never there? I WAS THERE. (From heaven, three of them, because i have issues and need therapy. Always.)

And then, there is the beauty. I don’t think you know how beautiful it is out there. The dirt in a tractor tire, the lean of a fence post, the water sluicing the dirt off the carrots, the shocking color of the Swiss chard. I don’t think you know the wild variety of egg. Shells and breakage and boxes and delivering the food to people, feeding, knowing that what is happening, the exchange of energy is pure goodness. Pure.

Dirt is the way. The beginning and the end. And I WAS THERE.

What? I was.

Humanity

Life on the farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

This week at my farm, the farmers were on vacation.

So a few of us farmer-adjacent people were in cahoots with nature and the forces of water, and were responsible for the keeping of the land and fowl while they were away. Myself, a chicken wrangler, and a niece and sister to the farmer took over. Ten days they’ve been gone. Said niece went off to college. Three markets I’ve handled, the irrigation of the carrots, a few very long days, and this week? -the covering of the chicken wrangler’s days off. Chicken chores do knock a person off her pedestal, I tell you. A farmfriend (actually, really) named Honey did harvest over the weekend in the middle and I’ve been washing as I find the time. Her name makes me feel like I’ve got on a good robe and Everything is going to work out fine. Zucchini still being the god of all things farm, there have been tractor trips out to the birds to feed them the spoils.

They are lucky birds, except for whatever is getting them in the night. I have walked the fences, not knowing where or how the creature higher-on-the-ladder is getting in. Motherfucker. Did I mention it has been quite warm? I think my sweat levels have been flat-out atrocious. And, this was my celebratory week, now that my school job has come to an end. It’s all just been so much harder than I expected. I can do it all, I can, but hard. its been hard.

I come to realize that I like work for work’s sake, but while it is good to know I can handle big things, I do like to turn it off, walk out and be free of it. I’ve got life at home, and I like to be part of it. This week I’ve had worry of the sorts that have kept me from sleeping well.

What if someone steals the truck? I don’t even know what kind of truck it is. What am I going to tell the cop, its a black truck. black. ? its a chevy. I got at least that far when i got to work the next day. black chevy pickup. Probably from after 2010.

What if I forgot to turn the water off at the house? Will the fucking coop float? Will the whole town run out of water?

How do I stop coyotes and fishers? Literally thought about owning a pistol today. I would have definitely shot, if i had been so armed. But no worries, its not guns that kill animals. Right? (ugh. fuck the gun rights people. keep your damn guns, just get rid of the fucking assault rifles, you dicks.)

sorry. okay. back to farm worries.

Can plants be hurt by too much water in the summer heat? Can i drown a swiss chard plant? What about the tomatoes? Will I know if they start exploding? Should I go in early again? Should I go now?

Sigh. My friends. I just want to sleep when I lie down. Just sleep. That’s it. I have napped this week and raised my children from the sofa in a stupor. That’s all I got this week. Maybe if i just keep saying Honey, and feel the nod to real, hopeful hippies everywhere, everything will work out. Maybe.

O, let us keep the faith, chickens. Let us keep the faith. Everything will work out okay.

Honey Honey Honey.

Love,

me.

young white chick on grass
Photo by Achim Bongard on Pexels.com
Humanity

Hello Zucchini. POW! BANG!!

Lovelovemotherexpletive

HELLO…

Adele and Lionel Ritchie. PeW! PeW! I feel them both, simultaneously.

Me, straddling the eras. eras, eons, you pick. I have been quiet. The house is currently in a lull, a small space in the summer speedby, I am feeling like a hello again is in order. Here are some things:

GEEWHIZ! I feel so young on the inside. Very young, so much younger than the young ones around me. Maybe it’s the humility I carry, or the sparks of joy that I seek and find that I juggle in my heart. So young. 51 years I’ve lived. There’s much more certainty than there used to be, and much more shrug.

DANGIT! I’m doing two jobs this summer, and one of them is in a class of kids that need one-on-one attention from an adult in order to ‘assimiliate’. They are straight up otherworldly, in some cases, and there is so much to say about this, and I’m not done yet, one week left, and I need time to process. BUT BOY, let me tell you, I know a lot more about what my boundaries are in terms of what sorts of classrooms I want to work in. It’s good to know your boundaries, without trauma forcing you into them. so says I. (Although, truth be told, our first day together was a little traumatizing for all of us. An extra adult was sent in for day two, let it suffice to say.)

GOLLY! I feel healthy and strong and most of this is because today the heat has retreated a little bit, and I can breathe and there is life in my limbs. And because I’ve got a whole afternoon and evening off from working anywhere. Six days a week is too much, it does not allow for thinking or writing and even the reading that i can squeeze is just an excuse to dull my brain and strain my eyes into prep for sleep.

FUCKSAKE! My own garden is a disaster, but the work farm is an explosion of produce and there is a lot of juggling going on with the zucchini over there. Cabbages, zucchini and the summer squash. good god. oh my god the eggs. so many thousands of eggs. please let us pray to the gods of quiche for release. temporary though it may be, let the frittatas be done.

i’m listening to the audiobook of 1961’s Stranger in a Strange Land. I think audio is best for this one, the reader has such a lovely monotone for the Man from Mars. Its a science fiction, about a human raised on Mars, who returns to Earth, upsetting many of the norms of the time. quite anti-church, quite free lovin’. I’m enjoying. We’ll see where it ends up.

I’d love to start writing again. Oh boy, would I. I’d also love to see my words above my head, like POW! SHAZAM!! FUCKYOU! but only because my current classroom is too young to read.

you know?

lovelove,

me.

zucchini
Photo by Ellie Burgin on Pexels.com

Humanity

trying to keep my cup small

Lovelovemotherexpletive

its easier to overflow when you start small, fyi.

wish i could teach the value of small things to other people. there has to be a crack somewhere so i can get in, so i can show this. just a sliver.

the value of small things.

realizing that as much as i love people, and i really do, i can’t handle more than two or three at a time. this is a direct reflection of my hearing loss. the insecurity is overwhelming and I feel directly the shrinking, the ways in which i try to make my own self invisible to counter the possibility of embarrassing myself, or just being lost while surrounded by people. so, i left a conference i wanted to be at today, because it was lunchtime and too much small talk. and i don’t exactly know how i feel about leaving, but i am trying to honor my small cup, and i was overwhelmed and starting to feel isolated, and i needed to leave. so i did.

i’d love to grow flowers, but i listened to a flower farmer at this farmer’s conference and I don’t think I want that. I want to make a hundred dollars in a summer from the yard, or maybe double or triple that, but I don’t want to be a farmer. i don’t have the wherewithal for it. (unless you know two or three people who could build it all for me? cuz, man, if i could start with a greenhouse and some long beds? maybe we’d be talking.) but still, just the stand by the road. that’s it. that’s all. little cups.

i’m hoping to switch things up a little this summer, maybe give me some time to grow my own garden. last year i didn’t have the time and it was a shade of sadness.

yesterday i was bemoaning my lack of writing, and lovely bob leaned over and put his arm on my shoulder and said simply, ‘you do not have the time.’ and he was right. and here i am, finding it and forgiving myself for the times when i choose a movie or a nap instead of productivity.

trying to keep it small, folks.

small things have great value.

love you much,

kate

Browsing at a TJMAXX and not buying this, but loving it?: My medicine after leaving the conference.

Humanity

Farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve hit the wall (and climbed it) of apocalyptic thoughts, feelings and mind lapses. I’m mostly happy about it, the theatrical world knows my connection to the fears we all have right now. Which, in itself, is a whole post.

I’m thrilled by all the movies/series which suit me right now. Last of Us. Any Walking Dead. A million more i can’t think of right now.

But man, one of the weirdest things I keep thinking about is farming.

I’m aging out of the work a little bit; the heat is too hot, the baskets too heavy, the monetary payment is too light. (It’s time to get into serious retirement discussions, selling the house cannot be my entire plan. It cannot.)

But I’ve been wafting back and forth in my apocalysm daydreams, while seeding hundreds of baby things, wondering how future generations will know how to get broccoli. I mean, food is the most important thing, right? Food and water. And, will the home gardeners save us all? Really? Better get out those zucchini recipes.

When we finally decide to stop flying produce from country to country, or spraying it with shit to slow down the ripening, or to speed it up, as the case warrants, what then?

Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?

I know, i know, focus on the here and now. Be mindful, be present. And all that is true, and yes, my small world is all that i can control.

When my sons want to eat meat at every meal and I feel such exhaustion that i throw frozen meat patties on a grill again and again, its that whole butterfly wing again, and I’m upset also that its such a recurring thing in my brain and yet millions of millionaires exist and I don’t think they are wrapped up in tinfoil about this.

I suppose they’ll get the last bananas.

Sigh.

Tell me I’m wrong. About the bananas, I mean.

-love love.