A dream life..
Have you ever realized that you’re living your childhood dream? On this perfect August morning, I realized that I am..
Farming is my occupation. I live in an 1800’s restored cape surrounded by sugar maples (and black walnuts!), with sneaky open fields hidden down a long lane-way, and a mostly hardwood forest out back. There is a version of the modern grange in my backyard to host community events. A farm team shows up everyday to grow food. Even the requisite border collie quietly follows us around. As a child, I never imagined this could actually be my adult life.
This week I felt excited while harvesting bunches of cilantro with fresh corriander berries (the kind of out of the box offering that I’m truly the most passionate about). Eating Agretti for the first time. Seeing the cherry tomato plants hit the top of the greenhouse. Never tiring of watching queen anne’s lace sway in the breeze. Seeing our summer mix of cover crops, grown to feed and protect soil not in a “cash crop,” come to their mature size (about to go to seed) at perfect timing to be mowed and worked under before a winter mix is seeded in it’s place.
This isn’t to say that farming is easy, or my life is exactly as I imagined it.
Under these relaxed Sunday sentiments there is literally a stack of papers under my feet that are needing attention, and an unrealistic list for the day. Weather has dictated crop failures. I’m continually trying to find the right balance of labor to sales, for a low margin, very labor intensive, choice of crops. I’m running a business.
Farming is beautiful and relentless.
I think in part, this is why farmers used to all go to church. It was a forced and socially accepted reason to stop. To slow down, be with family, and spirit.
So how do we find that place, that pause, that connection to what is greater than ourselves (be it our own vision, or an energy)? How do we find right alignment between work and values? Space for self care when that also includes holding a vision that is more than all encompassing?
(This focus on a farm business is a choice and a gift. These words are flowing true from me, but while I feel like focusing on the hard is not necessary, workshops and the farm team both remind me that “the hard” is part of the story you want to hear. Spending my Sunday morning updating a website about the romantic nature of farming is not romantic, but it is real, and part of the culture we now live in.)
As always, I come full circle to believing that eating well and being outside is part of that answer to realignment. We are fed by the environment and our community, as it feeds us. I love seeing former neighbors interact when they cross paths at a farmers’ market, and the inter-generational exchanges that easily occur in line.
In the ever striving for balance and community, I’ll continue to try to show up creatively and mindfully, and hope that makes space for the parts of my vision not yet fulfilled. There are ways we hope you can show up, too!
Here are two ways you can help.
The easy ask:
Join us for an event at the farm! Tickets have just gone live for our Harvest Dinner. This year in collaboration with the Alna Store’s amazing talent, we’re having a fire themed meal (think muscles, vegetables, pork, roasted plums.. all beautiful food cooked outside on embers). Buy your ticket here.
Check out other events coming up!
Think about renewing your relationship with a Winter CSA.
Our Winter CSA sign-up’s will be live soon, with a return to a pre-packed box format (and some add-on options). Keep your eyes open!
Hope to see you at market, in the warm barn, or around the dinner fire, very soon!
Beth and the farm team
