Westerner Out of Water

Well, I’m officially living and working in the great state of Maine – about as far away from any western state as one could get. How the hell did I get here?! And how does this move have anything to do with my farming-themed blog?

Change: a vital and unavoidable reality of every-day life. Change can be instigated, plotted, pondered, or thrust upon us. Regardless, change in our life circumstances often incites some kind of change, or adjustment, internally. This kind of change can be welcomed or wrestled, ignored or challenged; it requires patience to accept and thoughtfulness to understand.

Aside from changes that occur out of our control, we often create changes in our external lives in order to bring about change within our mind or body. We start a diet or organize the closet; we move to Maine or buy a new outfit. We do these things because we are trying to move from where we are to where we want to be. We are trying to change something within us to make ourselves closer to the “end goal.”

But I often forget something very important about this self-inflicted change: the results take time. I am part of a generation that expects instant gratification in every facet: information, food, money, purchases, services, etc. Everything we could ever want or hope to learn is literally at the tips of our fingers! 24-hour news, Google, fast food, mobile banking and online shopping, Uber cabs, delivery services, Twitter, Netflix and Hulu, and even a high resolution camera. There’s no wonder I get frustrated when the internal change I want in my life doesn’t happen exactly how I want it right now! But that’s not how life works – as I’m learning.

Self-inflicted change does not always produce the desired internal shift the moment it is instigated. I can’t expect to have a rockin’ body two days into a new yoga routine. I can’t expect to be proficient at a new job after my first day. I can’t expect to feel enlightened within the first 15 minutes of meditating. These desired things take time and patience to attain and that is hard to remember. It is challenging to not become frustrated or discouraged when the expectation of instant gratification does not match the reality of the situation. And in realizing this, it is my responsibility to change the expectation.

“What are you getting at?” you ask.

Brian and I moved to Maine as the next step in attaining our farming goals. We created a mess load of change within our lives to get us from where we were to where we want to be – as partners, as farmers, and as individuals. Our time in Montana was more exciting and educational than we ever could have imagined and I am so grateful to have had that experience in my life. As the season was wrapping up at Two Bear Farm, Brian and I were trying to plot our next step. Stay in Montana, work on a different farm, look for land, travel overseas, move somewhere totally random…?

Whilst pondering our options, Brian stumbled upon an ad posted by a lady in Maine who owns a farm and was looking for someone to start a vegetable CSA program on the land. In terms of our future farm vision, it was perfect! We felt that we had the necessary skills to start a vegetable operation so we contacted the lady and interviewed with her over the phone. We were so excited and began to look into the communities and culture of Maine – a land known to me only as lobster-covered rocky coastlines and the home of Eliot Coleman. We invested so much time and emotional energy into this opportunity: finding planting charts for southern Maine, researching the size and scope of nearby markets, and calculating travel times to the closest cities and coastal getaways. Well…the lady ended up choosing a different person to start the CSA program. What were we to do?

In a swirl of emotions, we concluded that regardless of this specific farming position, a move to Maine would be in our best long-term interest. In terms of our “end goal,” Maine is a place we can see ourselves farming and creating the life we wish to create. More specifically, Portland, Maine is a dream: a small big city, close to hubs like Boston and New York, on the coast with access to countless outdoor recreation havens, contains a growing and thriving local food movement while providing opportunities for further outreach and niche markets. It’s wonderful! So the plan was this: move to Portland, become city dwellers, get great and high-paying jobs, experience the excitement and recklessness of our last youthful years, save money to put toward buying land or acquiring farm equipment, write a business plan and familiarize ourselves with the local farmers and markets, and in a few years – when we’re ready – start a farm! This is still the plan…but we’re realizing it may not be as simple and linear as we thought.

Since inflicting all this change on our life situation, and beginning with the expectation that everything would work out exactly as we planned it, we are constantly being reminded that the desired effects of our actions will take time to come to fruition. I can’t expect every desire of my imagined city life to be fulfilled during the first weekend gallivanting the streets of Portland. I can’t expect to land the perfectly paying job and the perfectly priced apartment the first day I set foot in the city. I can’t expect to feel connected to such a complex community after talking with two farmers. I can’t expect “step one” to be easy just because I put this plan into action. But I can remember that I promoted these changes in my life to move my internal and external self closer to where I want to be.

Brian and I moved to Maine to step closer to our long-term goals and we must remember that the adjustment takes time. The fruits of this labor are not immediate – but they will be gratifying and they will create the desired change I long for. Change is hard in any situation; but it is good (and important) to be reminded that self-inflicted change requires patience, an eye on the prize, and an acceptance of the discomfort along the way.

To paint a picture, Brian and I drove to Maine about four weeks ago with all the nerves, anxiety, and excitement of cresting the highest peak on a rollercoaster. Some family friends about an hour north of Portland have graciously opened their home to us until we move into an apartment on January 1^st. Nearly every day, we have made the trek to Portland – rain, snow, or shine – and hit the pavement (and the internet) to search for jobs. It is exhausting to put all your emotional energy and carefully crafted sentences into dozens of cover letters only to hear nothing back. But! This is part of the discomfort of self-inflicted change! These are the challenges that make us lose sight of the end goal and often abandon our dreams! Fortunately, persistence pays off and Brian and I are persistent people. I found a seasonal retail job that I will be able to keep after the holidays until I find a more permanent and predictable occupation. Brian just started as the newest smoke master at the best BBQ restaurant in Portland – and he loves it! Soon we will stop spending precious income on gas and start saving for a future farm. Soon the discomforts of all this change will start to diminish and we will feel forward movement – like starting a new workout routine or learning a musical instrument. I’m confident this move will be worth it and I’m glad we took the plunge!

How To Rock Your Farmers' Market

With summer just around the corner, farmers around the country are busy getting their solanaceous crops in the ground and beginning to harvest for CSAs and farmers’ markets. The third week of CSA deliveries was a success here at Two Bear Farm! Our members received radishes, turnips, green onions, kale, cilantro, mustard greens, bok choi, spinach, and salad mix in their boxes – green green green! The fruits of our hard spring labor are paying off before our eyes ands it’s beyond wonderful to see looks of excitement and gratitude in our customers’ faces!

We have pick-up times almost every day of the week, so we harvest most mornings and pack CSA boxes as lunchtime rolls around. It is truly amazing to think that the radishes I harvest at 8 o’clock this morning could be in someone’s dinner salad by 7 o’clock tonight. That’s some seriously local food! On Fridays, we have a pick-up at the farm along with a social hour. In an effort to continue creating community between the people of the Flathead Valley and our farm, we invite people to take a tour of the beautiful property and brand-new facilities. For the past two weeks, the farmers and I have created small appetizer dishes to share during social hour. We hope the new recipes will inspire our members to get creative in the kitchen with kale pesto and bok choi-turnip salsa! So many of us are strangers to the culinary arts – it can be incredibly valuable to trade your favorite recipes with friends in exchange for their inspired concoctions.

This past week, we planted eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and sweet corn – and squash will go in next week! The cold and unpredictable Montana nights force planting plans to be flexible, honing skills of stress-management, out-of-the-box thinking, and adaptability. The rush to get plants in the ground, coupled with expectant CSA and farmers’ market customers, can make any farmer question their sanity. However, for me, the intimate exchange of food from one hand to another makes all doubt fizzle away and all questioning vanish.

At a farmers’ market, this exchange is high-speed and high-energy, tailored to the needs of each individual. For someone on the producing side of the table at a market stand, these dozens of exchanges create a lot of endorphins along with daunting amounts of physical and emotional exhaustion. Smiling at, greeting, helping, and listening to customers – all while remembering the prices of each item and adding them all up in your head – is extremely fun, but can turn sour if the customer isn’t understanding of your hyper-active, highly-volatile state of being. So: a guide to being the best farmers’ market customer ever! (To be read in a saucy and incredibly humorous voice)

1.     There is a line. And no, I can’t hold that while you discipline your dog who is eating arugula off the table.

Please visit with your friends, laugh at my vegetable jokes, and tell me about your vacation. But please be aware that other people are trying to buy my delicious food, too. I know you learned about forming a line in kindergarten, so please don’t insult your elementary school teachers and wait your turn. The market is a place to build community and support the local economy – not a place to cut your way to the last bunch of kale and make everyone behind you wait as you destroy my display searching for the perfect bag of spinach.

I love your children and your dog. Your kids are being exposed to the oldest form of economy and learning about the people that grown their food – amazing! They also pick their noses and play with worms, so it stresses me out when their hands are touching each basket of strawberries to find the perfect one. I think your dog is beautiful – but dog slobber is not a desirable dressing for salad – so keep that leash tight!

2.     Which kind of kale is best for juicing? Also, will you have sweet corn next week?

Please eat my kale like its food. Kale comes in so many varieties, each with a unique pallet and texture. Before you juice anything, learn about it as a solid food and embrace the fiber. Also, I’m excited you’re learning about vegetables through healthy food fads, but I hope you come back for kale when its not hip anymore.

It’s heartbreaking that we’re so out of touch with seasonality. My self included, we expect all things to be ready at all times of the year (thank you, supermarket culture!) but I have news – corn will not be ready in June! Snap peas will probably not be around in September! You will be eating winter squash and potatoes on Christmas! Please ask me what is available throughout the seasons and be open to eating seasonally, but please don’t assume I’ll be as stocked as the Safeway. What you see in front of you is what we have growing – I am not hiding anything in the back and I don’t know what will be ready next week because it is still trying to grow amongst the intense pest pressure and dramatic weather swings

3.     Is this certified organic?

Try again. And don’t walk away if the first word out of my mouth is “no.” If you’re truly interested in how we grow food, you will be pleased by what I have to say. If you’re looking for a USDA seal, you might have better luck at Whole Foods. (I started writing an entire blog post about this very term, ‘organic,’ but it got too long – so I’ll try to keep this brief.) A lot of organic farms are certified organic. Reasons for this: the same rules apply to everyone – accountability; farms can receive higher revenue for wholesale products; I don’t have to spend five minutes explaining to you our farming methods because you are simply looking for a label. There are a lot of farms using organic methods that are not certified organic. Reasons for this: it is expensive; some farmers don’t believe USDA regulations are strict enough; some farms are in a transition stage and are not yet qualified. Two Bear Farm falls into this last category. Since we are on our current land for the first year and it was not used to grow organic vegetable previously, we are not yet qualified to receive a certification. After three years, Two Bear Farm will be allowed and ready to apply for the label.

Meticulous records and strict practices must be kept to be eligible for certification – for some, this is doable and deemed necessary; but for others, this is too big a burden and not a priority. If you want to know about your food, ask how it’s grown. Food at Two Bear Farm is grown without pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs); and with great consideration for the soil, ecosystem, and nutrient content of each vegetable. So, no, we’re not certified, but yes, we do use organic practices and would love for you to come out to the farm to see for yourself!

4.     How much for this? – - OMG I can get that for half the price at the store!

Then why are you here? It’s true, organic produce is more expensive. Ahh! How will I ever eat healthy??? Some facts according to the USDA: In 1930, Americans spent about 24% of their disposable income on food. In 2009, Americans spent about 9.5% on food. This seems self-explanatory to me – our priorities have changed and we do not value food like we used to. In my opinion, eating is the most habitual and life-sustaining thing you do. So it goes without saying that eating should be of the utmost importance and the food we eat should be of the highest quality. 

Other facts from the Environmental Working Group: from 1995 to 2012, corn subsidies (the government paying farmers to grow corn at a globally competitive price) totaled $84.4 billion in the United States! Whoa! That means that anything with corn in it – most packaged things in the supermarket – is being sold at a false price. Organic practices are not subsidized. Additionally, organic produce requires more labor and more expensive products (i.e. organic fertilizer vs. non-organic fertilizer) to grow.

As we know, money is the silent hand behind each political and personal decision in our world today. Our farmer likes to say, “You vote with your wallet.” If you don’t feel like your ballot vote counts for anything – trust that your dollar does. When you buy packaged, processed, conventionally grown food, you are voting for subsidized practices, ecological disruption, pollution, underpaid labor, under-regulated and unsafe chemicals, genetic modification, non-seasonal expectations, and misleading advertising. When you buy locally grown, organic food, you are voting for a strengthened local economy, environmental responsibility, hard-working and fairly paid labor, safe food, life-long health, and industry-wide integrity. Don’t get me started on food equity and Big Ag corruption – that will be a later blog post. But I will say this – not everyone has the means or wherewithal to buy local, organic food. If you do have the means, it seems to me that it is your responsibility to do so, so that one day everyone may have the opportunity to purchase such things.

Simply put, the food you buy at a farmers’ market is worth every penny. If you are looking for cheap food (financially and qualitatively), you won’t find it here. But you will find health, community, accountable and personable farmers, nutrient density, beauty, vitality, strength, and a booming local movement!

Now go rock your farmers’ market! Brings some friends and learn about your food!

The Farm Body

Farming, while manipulative, is one of the most intimate ways to interact with Mother Nature. When you dig your hands into damp soil, situate a young plant neatly in the fresh divot, nurture the plant with food and water – giving it adequate space and limiting its competition – and then harvest a leaf or a fruit or a root to nourish your own body, there is an oddly spiritual and cyclical connection between your body and Earth. Using organic practices, you are taking care of your Mother and she is taking care of you. A timeless relationship exists that each being – human or otherwise – can take part in and become more in-tune with the intricacies of our home.

Over the course of seasons, your body reflects the state of the farm’s body. Your body will reflect the foods available as well as the activity in the layers of soil. Your energy will mimic the intensity of the work to be done. Your skin will change to match the weathering of the ground, the crops. You will be as enthusiastic as the sun and as tired as the moon. The times you need the most energy, the Mother will provide you with the most food – the times you need to recover, the Mother will go to rest and remain fallow until you are ready to work again.

Spring: The time to prepare.

It was a long winter, as you’ll remember from an earlier blog post. My body was heavy and full of thickness – stagnant. Now that I’m a month into my new apprenticeship, I can feel the thickness moving out. The workload is constantly ramping up each week, the days are becoming longer, and more plants are in the ground at the end of each day. I’m discovering new muscles and the creases in my hands are becoming stained with dirt. The snow melted about a month ago and the soil is becoming more active with every hour; the bugs are awakening from dormancy and the weeds are finding enough sunlight to keep up with the newly planted greens. To reflect this awaking, my body is finding fresh energy each morning. I fall asleep by 10pm each night, exhausted, but wake up rested and eager to work – eager to keep up with the compounding activity on the farm.

To help push out the thickness, Mother Nature will provide greens now, in the early spring. In a week or two, we will have crisp and leafy spinach, salad mix, and radishes ready to be eaten. Strawberries, scallions, and baby Bok Choi will hydrate my body and flush winter’s toxins away. My joints will loosen, my muscles will become lean, and my skin will prepare for summer’s heat.

Summer: The time to work.

Summer is the height of the season. A farmer’s job is to try her best to keep up with the endless list of tasks and surprises. The days will be long, the pests will be ruthless – but the food will be abundant and progressively more energetic. The soil will be a monstrous organism operating at full capacity. Crops and weeds will grow at astonishing rates during the heat of the day and the demand for water will be at an all-time high. My body will reflect this: with the thickness of winter gone, my muscles will have room to grow, strengthened by the long days of labor and the densely nutritious food coming from the ground; my skin will be callused in all the right places and tanned to protect that which the sunscreen can’t; my energy will be as hot as the sun during the day, as dependent on water as the plants, and as quiet as the birds at night.

To keep up with the physical demands of summer on a farm, Mother Nature will not disappoint. Summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, collards, carrots, cabbage, garlic, sweet onions, melons and peaches, and all the greens of spring will be fresh and rapidly available. These foods are dense, full of an array of nutrients, and cook-able in countless ways. The copious proteins and fibers will be the building blocks for my tightening muscles and the fuel for my constantly moving body.

Autumn: The time to celebrate.

While autumn will continue to be busy, the farm will be a well-oiled machine – all bodies will be working in harmony and the soil will be striding after the long haul of summer. The morning will feel slower and the nights will require a heavier jacket. Hardly anything new will be planted and the promises of root vegetables will be realized. All the vegetables of summer will still be available and it is time to celebrate the work of the farmer and her Mother. My body will have more time to rest in the evenings and more food than it could ever consume. The necessity to share and commune with friends and family will become obvious – and there will be time to do so!

My blood will be thick with nutrients and my muscles will welcome the celebratory cushion of fat as it prepares for winter. My skin will shed the heat and hardness of summer as I spend more time inside baking winter squash and beets, roasting corn and shallots, steaming green beans, turnips, and celery root. The remnants of fresh greens will be on the table alongside the root vegetables meant to last through the winter – a true cornucopia. My body will be busy canning and preserving the final fruits of summer so that winter will be more bearable. My body will be stocking up, inviting the thickness of winter to return, preparing for rest and recovery.

Winter: The time to rest.

The cold will creep in and the days will be short. The snow will fall upon the fields and everything will go to sleep. Some kale may survive the brisk nights, but like the body, it will not grow with much energy. My skin will pale and my body will be much more still than the previous months. While the thickness is irritating in the context of my personal body image, it is healing. It will cloak my tendons and joints, soften my muscles, and weigh down my eyelids. It will repair that which needs repairing and remind me that rest is vital to a successful future – like the farm, where rested soil is healthy soil; amended soil is energetic and ready to give life.

Mother Nature provides the densest and fattiest foods for this time of the cycle. Potatoes and squash, storage onions and cabbage, kale, garlic, and nuts – these are the foods with all the energy of summer and autumn wrapped in protective layers to nourish the body through the long nights. These foods will keep the cold from penetrating my bones and will force me to be still. With such a limited food supply, winter will be mentally challenging. Winter will be a time for contemplation and reflection on the abundance of the previous year – it will be a time to make resolutions, detail plans, and gather strength for the coming spring.

My partner, Brian, always says that he truly appreciates the farm body because it is as strong as it needs to be. The farm body is never more than is necessary – to keep a farmer humble and honest – and is never lacking in necessity – to keep a farmer motivated and sustainable. I love my farm body. I love the way it reflects my Mother Nature and directly connects me with the nutrients I put in it. This beautiful, mutually beneficial relationship will last a lifetime and will teach me to love my body, love the Earth, and pay great attention to the never-changing cycle of seasons.

Respecting the Trade

I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that said something like, “When you walk past a construction site and tell your child ‘that’s why you go to college,’ you are not teaching her to value education but rather to devalue the trade worker.” This struck me as a fresh perspective – and a brutally honest one. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “that’s why you go to college” from various people in my life and I, like many people in my socio-economic bracket, have a built-in distain for physical labor and trade work. My self insults me!

The puzzling thing about this perspective is that, despite the social construct we all give into, the trade worker doesn’t inherently have less value. While I like to think that I have always had a high level of respect for tradesmen/women, the deep-rooted hierarchy is still present in my middle class psyche. Coming from a white-collar Suburbia, the blue-collar worker is looked down upon as not having the mental capacity to acquire a higher-paying, less-strenuous job. The truth is, the tradesman/woman probably has more real life skills to sustain him/her through a lifetime and the (highly educated) white-collar worker needs the tradesman to function from day to day – when the opposite might not be true. I realize I’m simplifying the situation (as many white-collar workers, such as my father, are also handy with basic tools, etc.), but I think the reality check is necessary.

This week was my first week working on the new farm in Montana. While I endured my first venture into construction, my fellow apprentices and I had a conversation where we asked ourselves what kind of real skills we have if we suddenly needed to be self-sufficient (i.e. zombie apocalypse or total economic crash). The answers were scary. I CAN: write a decent essay, sing fairly well, run for about 30 minutes before I need a break, operate both a PC and Mac, read news articles, change the oil in my car, make a phone call…you get the picture. I CANNOT: build a weather-resistant structure, do anything under the hood of my car (besides change the oil), operate most tools, complete an electrical circuit, hunt my own food, etc. I rely on other highly-skilled people to do all the things I cannot do for myself – people who are generally seen as less education, and therefore less valuable.

For our farm apprenticeship we were asked to read Joel Salatin’s new book, Fields of Farmers: Interning, Mentoring, Partnering, Germinating. Salatin is a well-known farmer in North Carolina and model for all current and aspiring farmers. The book is about the intern/apprentice-mentor relationship. He begins the book by detailing the importance of trade work and the vital role both apprentices and mentors play in keeping trades alive and skilled. While his view on education is bit more drastic than mine, he points out the absurdity of modern liberal arts education where we sit in class rooms and discuss philosophical writings, debate social constructs, and recite countless facts – but we don’t learn anything “real.” We don’t learn how to reconstruct a burst pipe or fix a blown car radiator or slaughter a rabbit. Salatin argues that true education and learning happens with practical, hands-on activities where the connection between knowledge and skill can be cultivated. For example, he cites a child learning fractions and geometry by helping to build a tool shed. This is valuable education and should be treated about as such – the child who chooses to assume an apprenticeship or go to trade school should be valued and encouraged in the same way as the child who chooses to attend a traditional college.

To put this all in perspective, as I mentioned above, I spent my first week on the farm helping to build a high tunnel. A high tunnel is like a green house that is built over bare ground so crops can be planted directly into the ground while being covered and heated. While it’s not a completely permanent structure, a high tunnel requires basic construction skills and lots of power tools. My very brief encounters tearing down musical sets in high school and college proved useful only in the correct handling of an electric drill. We were cutting metal tubing (bending and breaking metal grinders), using self-tapping screws (thanks a bunch to whoever invented those little devils!), measuring (and re-measuring), leveling (and re-correcting), improvising (and making mistakes), and learning more than I ever could have imagined. To my classical education’s credit, my well-tuned creative problem-solving skills were put to the test when we accidentally cut four pieces of metal tubing too short and had to recalculate the measurements for the rest of the end wall.

All in all, we finished the high tunnel Saturday morning when the weather was nice enough to pull plastic over the entire frame. I felt a sense of accomplishment alongside my fellow apprentices and mentoring farmers as the plastic was fastened into place and I was overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge I had accumulated over the previous four days. Two funny things struck me at the same time. One, our mentoring farmers had already built another high tunnel and the first two-thirds of the one we finished – by themselves. Second, a hired construction crew was (and still is) building a much more permanent structure on the property. As we, the new apprentices, struggled to finish an end wall of a simple high tunnel, a crew of true tradesmen were pouring concrete, structuring the plumbing and electrical networks, and completing a whole list of tasks that I can’t begin to name. What skill! What knowledge! What practice and mastery! These are people who are walked past every day and pointed to as “reasons to go to college.”

One of our mentoring farmers is a former accountant and wildlife biologist and also has a wealth of practical knowledge (in construction and electrical work, mechanical work, etc.). I asked him how he learned all these things and he responded by telling me that it is a slow accumulation over time – gradually gaining familiarity with certain tools and tricks. He also said the difference between a mentor and an apprentice is the level of proficiency (my lack of proficiency this past week made me feel like a child learning to ride a bike). The more you do one thing with an open mind to learning, the better you become at it until you are a master. The crazy thing about farming is that to save on costs, one has to be a proficient utility “tradesmaster” – generally skilled at a variety of trades. While I believe my education makes me a more effective worker and has given me the ability to learn things quickly, the countless things yet to learn astounds me – skills and bits of knowledge that I cannot even dream. If I am hindered by the belief that these skills are below me as an educated person, I can never become more sufficient (or proficient) and would be the first to go in a zombie apocalypse!

After just four days in a world foreign to me, I am humbled by the prospect of one day becoming a utility tradeswoman. There are so many skills to acquire that will take time and patience; they are all necessary in becoming a successful and self-sufficient farmer and I look forward to learning them as I venture forward in this vast trade. I hope to greet every situation with an open mind and a spirit that recognizes the wealth of knowledge behind the hands and minds of every plumber, electrician, farmer, carpenter, mechanic, and so on. As Joel Salatin writes, no job is inherently less valuable than another because all rely on each other to complete the task at hand.