Labors and Fruits
Sunday, June 7, 2009
I have been visiting farms that will be selling at the CB Farmers Market. Not everyone is cut out to be an accountant or a doctor or a personnel manager or a mechanic, but many of these farmers are all of those in addition to rising at 4 am to pick crops, driving to markets three to fours days a week, setting up, selling and driving home to their families. At the mercy of Mother Nature's minions--coyotes, bugs, floods, et al---experience teaches them to start some plants in greenhouses, not to plant before the first week of June, place sun-warmed jugs of water along the rows at night, keep large dogs with the herds and surround the fields with dikes.
Farming seems like the long means to an end, but there is a sense of pride in all of them as they lead the way into greenhouses and barns and planted fields. Where does the satisfaction lie? Is it the fresh air? Owning a business? Working from home? A family history? A cheese maker commutes three hours to Seattle four days a week to his other job at a non-profit agency. He muses, "The first year's goal was to keep the sheep alive. The second year's goal was to make cheese. The third year's goal is to keep the sheep alive AND make cheese." Another farmer's father told me that his mother's family arrived in their part of the upper Willamette Valley in the 1850's--by covered wagon from Virginia. They lived on boiled wheat until they could get the crops in. He built his house in 1961 within view of his grandparents' farmhouse.
Maybe it is in our genetic code, our bodies being full of minerals found in the earth and drawn to fresh, pure food. And, really, who wouldn't rather wake regularly to a distant cow bell and the sweet smell of dew instead of bus exhaust and garbage trucks lifting dumpsters? With these visit connections I've developed a greater appreciation for and interest in not farming, but farmers. In their tanned faces and dusty jeans I see my grandfather popping a green bean into his mouth as he paced the rows, his dog, Spot, shuffling along behind him.
I have been visiting farms that will be selling at the CB Farmers Market. Not everyone is cut out to be an accountant or a doctor or a personnel manager or a mechanic, but many of these farmers are all of those in addition to rising at 4 am to pick crops, driving to markets three to fours days a week, setting up, selling and driving home to their families. At the mercy of Mother Nature's minions--coyotes, bugs, floods, et al---experience teaches them to start some plants in greenhouses, not to plant before the first week of June, place sun-warmed jugs of water along the rows at night, keep large dogs with the herds and surround the fields with dikes.
Farming seems like the long means to an end, but there is a sense of pride in all of them as they lead the way into greenhouses and barns and planted fields. Where does the satisfaction lie? Is it the fresh air? Owning a business? Working from home? A family history? A cheese maker commutes three hours to Seattle four days a week to his other job at a non-profit agency. He muses, "The first year's goal was to keep the sheep alive. The second year's goal was to make cheese. The third year's goal is to keep the sheep alive AND make cheese." Another farmer's father told me that his mother's family arrived in their part of the upper Willamette Valley in the 1850's--by covered wagon from Virginia. They lived on boiled wheat until they could get the crops in. He built his house in 1961 within view of his grandparents' farmhouse.
Maybe it is in our genetic code, our bodies being full of minerals found in the earth and drawn to fresh, pure food. And, really, who wouldn't rather wake regularly to a distant cow bell and the sweet smell of dew instead of bus exhaust and garbage trucks lifting dumpsters? With these visit connections I've developed a greater appreciation for and interest in not farming, but farmers. In their tanned faces and dusty jeans I see my grandfather popping a green bean into his mouth as he paced the rows, his dog, Spot, shuffling along behind him.
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