In Memory…9/11/2001

I know that I am just one of many who will be posting their thoughts and feelings on this day of remembrance of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001.  I have read blogs and articles, seen photos and read captions, and each one has brought some new understanding and perspective to my life.  I hope that my words of remembrance can do the same.  This is one of the stories from my book “Walking My Father’s Fields: Love Letters from a Daughter of the Land” which will be available later this year.  I realized as I read this again today that so much in my personal world has changed and yet so much of what is most important is still the same and will never change.  For that I am profoundly grateful.

The Love of Family

It would seem that the title of this love letter is self-explanatory and universal.  It’s generally expected that most people love their families, either the one they come from or the one they create or are welcomed or adopted into.  It’s a fundamental, foundational belief across generations, cultures, languages, religions, political parties, and creeds…love your family.  I think I’ve been very obvious throughout this work so far about how I feel towards my own family and the intensity of the love I have for them.

The idea of familial affection speaks to the best that is within us because (let’s be perfectly honest) sometimes it is a struggle to love your closest relatives.  It’s nearly impossible to live near and have a relationship with your parents and siblings, in-laws and cousins, grandmas and grandpas without friction developing from time to time.  Tempers can flare over something as inconsequential as dirty socks or as seemingly insurmountable as adultery.  Those who love one another deeply can jump to choose sides, misconstrue motivations, misinterpret words, judge harshly, or withhold affection, support, and any outward sign of kindness in an attempt to remain uninvolved in personal differences of opinion and perceived slights.

It can be a rough road to travel at times, especially since we all drag along our collective baggage with us.  And sometimes when one member of the family finally lets go of his own baggage, there are others who, not as ready to let it go, feel compelled to go through that dirty laundry and stuff it in with their own bags and bring it along on family vacations, to reunions, and on cross-country road trips.

As family members we can support one another better, defend longer, wound deeper, and disappoint more than anyone else on Earth.  No one else’s studied disregard or casual indifference can hurt so deeply, and no other gentle hug and whispered, “Good job!” means so much.  We are often privy to the best and worst in each other and are by turns both less and more forgiving than the rest of the world as well.

We may love or loathe one another; we may distrust or admire or envy or pity one another because so many emotions are tied up with family relationships, but at the core of it is one basic idea; we belong to one another.  “Warts and all,” as my mother says.

This belonging requires a conscious effort on the part of all family members to look well beyond their own comfort, their own well-being, and their own satisfaction to seek out the needs of each other and help to fill them.  I don’t know how old I was when this notion really took a hold of me, but I’m guessing it was sometime around the summer I turned eight.  Up until then I had derived great pleasure in being the evil tormentor of two of my older brothers, Aaron and Jared.

We would sit in the back seat of our old green Cadillac as it cruised down the narrow two lane highways, Aaron and Jared by the windows, me in the middle, and I would worm my hand down by their legs and pinch them.  There was a reason for pinching their legs and not their arms; Mom and Dad couldn’t see me do it.  My brothers, not being as sly and devious as I was, would respond with a good honest punch on my arm, which mom and dad could see.  I would proceed to bawl and carry on with a wonderful dramatic flair after which mom and dad would launch into the “Don’t hit your sister” talk.  I’d smirk or stick out my tongue at my brothers, and they’d frown and silently threaten to pulverize me later.  I never felt sorry about this until my eighth summer when I did it for the last time to Jared.  I pinched, he punched, mom and dad lectured, and Jared gave me such a look of utter distaste for my behavior that I actually felt bad.  I was shocked.  The punch was nothing, that was just a couple of kids playing around, but that look?  It really knocked me for a loop and my mind started working.

It made him feel bad when I teased him?  He felt bad when we played nice one minute and I was mean the next?  It was hard to shed my little narcissistic cocoon; it was painful to find myself experiencing emotions outside of myself.  It would be nice to say that I never went back to teasing my brothers, but remember I was eight and it was a relatively habitual behavior.  But I gradually learned not to as I began to understand remorse and empathy the older I got.  Although I should clarify that I only felt guilty for pinching Jared, Aaron liked to flip my ears and I figured he deserved it.  Actually he still flips my ears by way of greeting, but since we live about 2,500 miles apart it has now become more nostalgic than annoying.

I understood sympathy as it related to my own pain.  I didn’t want to make Jared feel bad because then I’d feel bad.  It was still a kind of self-serving niceness, an avoidance of pain rather than a conscious seeking to do good in spite of it.  I spent the better part of my teenage years trying to understand that principle better, the wanting to perform good works out of a sincere desire.  Sometimes I got it right, more often than not I didn’t.  The blessing of a family is that you get the opportunity to keep trying.  Each new day you have the opportunity to try again to serve with love, to develop compassion, and to better understand mercy.

Becoming a mother in 1998 intensified my feeling of selfless love.  The first time I held my eldest son in my arms I began to realign my thinking, the way all mothers must, into recognizing that he wasn’t “me” anymore.  Not my body, as he had been, not just an extension of myself as I thought of him at first.  He was Ezekiel; he was unique, himself, totally new and undiscovered.  I couldn’t wait to hear his thoughts and know his feelings; and I was certain as I held onto him that I would do anything I could to protect him.  It was a strange and terrifying emotion to love that deeply and recognize in the same instant that it was my job to raise him in such a way as to ensure that he could survive without me.

When I found myself pregnant with my second child I was worried.  I honestly couldn’t comprehend loving another child as much as I loved Ezekiel; he was just such a wonderful little boy.  How could anyone else come close to touching that depth of love I felt for him?  I didn’t think my heart had room for any more love and I worried about whether I could be a good mother to both of them.

But then Ephraim was born and it was as if my heart had grown inside me just as surely as he had.  When I held his tiny little body to my breast, stroked his cheek as soft as a butterfly’s wing, and felt his little fingers hold tightly to mine, I could feel it swelling into new life, beating stronger than it had before.  I hadn’t realized until then that there was more love to be had, that it is not a finite commodity.  With the birth of Ephraim I found more love for Ezekiel and William as well, more love and gratitude for my parents and grandparents, more appreciation for my brothers and sisters, and a greater tenderness towards other children that were not mine.

Zeke was three and Eph was one in the late summer of 2001, and life was exciting.  William had worked for Doc Windom for over five years as a veterinary assistant.  He loved the work, loved working alongside Doc, who was a wealth of knowledge when it came to animals and the progress of agriculture in the Midwest over the past 40 years.  William learned so much more than husbandry on those trips with Doc.  He learned the impact of subsidies on farm families, the real cost of CRP and he saw firsthand the gradual dismantling of the greatness that was mid-America.  A desire was born in William as he and Doc drove those once thriving back roads, a desire to teach people what farming used to be about, that it was more than profit and loss statements, more than insurance claims and government handouts.  He wanted to show people that it has the capacity to be the foundation, the role it has always played, in a civilization.  He read, studied, and listened, and the more he learned, the more determined he was to be a voice for what farming could be, what we’ve always felt it should be.

He decided that summer to attend Northwest Missouri State University.  It was only 50 miles away; he would learn everything he could in their agricultural education department and then he would teach.  Little did we know then that it was not the answer he was looking for, that the education system was not geared to support and sustain independent land-owners or teach them relevant information.  We hadn’t heard of Joel Salatin then.  We didn’t know anything about groups like Local Harvest.  We didn’t know any of this yet and so we made plans to attend.  We looked for housing in Maryville, and William still worked with Doc, treasuring the last few months he had to learn from him.

It was a beautiful Indian summer day in northwest Missouri that September when I drove William into town to Doc and his wife Joan’s office.  Doc did the vet work, and Joan took care of the books and customers.  I drove over to my Mom’s house with Ezekiel and Ephraim to visit.  We sat at her kitchen table while the early morning sun filtered in through white Battenberg lace curtains and cobalt blue glass figurines and talked about my sister-in-law Joy’s harvest party coming up in October.  The boys were playing with building blocks in Grandma’s play room; it was a simple, pleasant morning.

Then Aaron called.  He knew Mom and Dad didn’t have cable or satellite TV, so he said, “Mom, you need to turn on your radio.  A plane just flew into the World Trade Center.”  She handed me the phone and raced over to her kitchen counter to flip on the old radio.  Every network was talking about it.

I asked Aaron to repeat again what was happening and he said, “They don’t know who it was but someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center in New York.”  My mind couldn’t wrap around it.  I think I asked, “On purpose?  It wasn’t just some horrible, freak accident?”

“No,” he scoffed grimly, “It wasn’t an accident.”

“How did they get an empty plane into New York airspace, right into the city like that?” I asked.

“It wasn’t empty.  They hijacked it.”

I think I handed the phone back to mom then.  Not empty?  I shuddered.  How many people? I wondered.  How many survivors?  We didn’t know about the second plane yet, we didn’t know about the collapse of the towers.  All I could think of was the plane.

William finished work early that day; I told him what I knew while I drove him up to his parents’ farm, eight miles from our little house in Denver, Missouri.  We watched videos on the TV of New York City.  We saw the planes hit the towers again and again and again and again.  Each time it was like a new wound.  We saw the towers collapse and the gray dust and rubble cloud cover the city streets.  As videos from amateur photographers emerged, we watched the same horror with new eyes.

William drove himself to work the next day while I sat, safe and warm on my couch, watching the war zone that New York had become.  I watched as images of the Pentagon emerged, as a field in Pennsylvania appeared with a giant black scar on the farm fields marking where flight 93 had crashed.

And again all I could think of were the planes.

I imagined myself on those planes.  The networks showed pictures of the passengers and I wondered what would I have done if I had been one of them?  If my child was sitting beside me and I knew we were flying to our death, what would I say?  How would I comfort my child?

And suddenly, as I sat there contemplating the unimaginable and the terribly real, I was seized by an emotion I had never really felt before…hate.  I had never known before that moment what it was to really hate another human being.

I hated, with an almost perfect passion, the men who had calmly looked into the eyes of their fellow passengers and then willingly murdered them.  The hate was so huge it burgeoned up inside me like a bomb.  It made my skin sensitive to touch, my ears attuned to more sound, and my heart cold.  It wasn’t enough that their bodies were disintegrated in the fire and buried beneath thousands of pounds of concrete and rebar.  I wanted them to suffer more than death; I wanted them to know a greater torment.  Hell was not even enough for me.  I wanted them to be cast down past even the burn of the fires of brimstone to where they could rot in the cold and empty silence of nothingness, where they could exist in nothing but the horror of their own barbarism, cruelty, and damnation.

For hours and hours I could feel nothing but that all consuming hatred.  I fed my children, I changed diapers, I started dinner, but I couldn’t move my heart past the cold of my emotions.  Finally I sat, with my children spread at my feet, watching it again and again and again.  I don’t think I realized I was weeping until Ezekiel put his little hands on my face and said, “Mommy, why are you crying?”  I told him, as simply as I could that some very bad men had flown some planes into the buildings and that I was crying because so many people had died.

“Why did they do it Mommy?” he asked.

I had no answer for him and none for myself so I just pulled him to me and hugged him until he squirmed away to go play with his blocks again.  His tender, baby boy hug calmed the hate inside, but I could still feel it threatening to overcome me.  It drove me to my knees, and I pleaded with God to take it away, to remove the hate from my heart.

I believe in God.  I believe in His active participation in my life.  There have been too many miracles and moments of transcendent beauty and strength in my life to deny Him.  This was one of them.

As I knelt there on the floor of my living room, my two sons playing beside me, pleading with the God of the universe to take the hate from my heart, I felt something shift inside my soul.  I have discovered over a lifetime of praying, seeking, listening, and receiving answers that God doesn’t just take things away.  He replaces with something else.  He doesn’t exist in or create vacuums and voids in our lives.  He replaces, fills, compensates, and redeems.

I didn’t know it but that is what I was pleading for: redemption.  And it came, as surely as sunrise and seasons, and was as painful as birth.  Because in removing the hate from my heart, He replaced it with something else.  Something I had felt twice before, only now it was deeper, richer, and more encompassing than I thought possible.  It was painful to grow and to accept what He wanted to give me—to accept a parent’s love.

At once, unbidden and clear the images of those planes filled my mind only now they were sharper and a terrible love filled me with joy and an aching sorrow.  In the clarity of that moment a thought, both beautiful and agonizing entered my heart.  It spoke to my mind words that changed me forever.  “All of the people on that plane were my children.  All are my sons and daughters.  All have need of my love and mercy.  Forgive, for your sake.  How much more need of forgiveness have my children who wound their brothers and sisters willingly?  Whom would you have me deny?”

All I could think in response was “None.” Somewhere in the Middle East there was another mother kneeling in prayer, seeking comfort in her loss; in England, New York, Japan, Australia, California, Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, China, and all over the world mothers were seeking comfort and peace in a world overrun with enough hate to fill an ocean.  I couldn’t bear to add one more drop.  There were already enough hearts given over to the cold nothingness of hate, revenge, and terror.  I didn’t need to be another one.

Love, compassion, sorrow, and forgiveness swamped me.  I trembled with the intensity and pulled myself up to the couch where I wept out my broken and newly bandaged heart.  Ephraim crawled over and I picked him up to rock and feed him.  Ezekiel climbed next to me and patted me on the shoulder.

I wept and wondered at the easy love between my sons, two brothers who had been friends all their short lives.  From his first view of him in the hospital bassinet Ezekiel had cried out “It’s Ephy!” as if he had just been waiting for his best friend to arrive.  I thought of the troubled relationships of adult siblings, marred by anxiety, loneliness, resentment, and envy.  I thought of parents who, no matter how old or young, worried over their children and choices they knew would lead to unhappiness and heartbreak, knowing every child must make their own decisions regardless.

My definition of family changed that day, and I was no longer just the youngest of twelve, or the last of the big parade.  I was a daughter of the divine, a sister to the noble, a mother of heroes.  I was also the daughter of transgression, the sister of fear, the mother of want and need.  I was no more and no less than one part of a tremendous whole, and I had a role to play on this stage of my existence.

I had to choose.

In the end that was the answer to my prayer.  God forced nothing upon me, because he never does.  He simply allowed me to see the two paths before me and let me choose.  Anger, hate, and a frozen heart or love, forgiveness, and a broken heart.  There was no easy choice, there never is, but there was for me a correct one.  I chose to love my family.

All of them.

Not just the ones that think like me, or look like me, or believe all the same things.  I had been well taught after all, by my own parents that we are a family because we choose to be.

Everyday we live we are given the opportunity again to love our brothers and our sisters, to look past perceived differences to what makes us the same in our hearts.  We all hope for a better world for our children, we all search for love and comfort, we all strive to find meaning in our day to day labors.  Each new day we are again shown our two paths—love and life or hate and death.  We walk in the paths our parents have shown us.  We forge new ones that lead us to greater understanding and peace.  We seek to know our legacy and either live up to or overcome it.  We do the work required to ensure that our name is synonymous with generosity of spirit.  We choose our place; and when we have chosen, we reach out to our neighbors, to those we come in contact with to build our family, our community, our world.

There is a need in the world for family.  There is enough and to spare of violence, bitterness, and condemnation.  It can be hard to stand in an angry mob and be a voice of courtesy, charity, and conviction.  Hard because it is difficult for some to understand that peace is not passivity and that humility is not weakness.   It is hard for some to understand that standing up for your personal truth does not equal a lack of consideration for theirs.  It takes many voices to make a choir, each member singing their own part.  An orchestra is richer for its diversity of sound—the melody, harmony, major, and minor notes all blending into a magnificent work of art.

The God that filled my heart with mercy on a beautiful late summer day in the middle of America made a world full of differences—mountains  and valleys, deserts and seas, farmlands and forests.  Opposites and opposition exist in the world, and all we can do is choose for ourselves.

I look at my brothers and my sisters, some that share no common blood with me, and I see only hearts that love as I love and hands that labor to do good.  The differences are lost in the depth of feeling we share with one another.  We draw no lines in the sand that separate us.  We have our differences and disputes but we draw a circle of love that welcomes everyone in to the warmth of family.

I look around me at the people I do not know, at the family I haven’t met yet, and I feel the yearning to draw them in, to know them better, to welcome them home to my heart so they will know they are loved, they will know that they belong.  Because in the end we all belong to one another.  Warts and all.

Just Keep Growing

As many of our farm members know, William and I were away from the farm last week.  We finally sold our house down in the four corners region of Utah and went down to empty out our storage shed at the house.  It coincided nicely with a sisters wedding which we were able to attend and allowed us the opportunity to visit family and friends.  William and I also celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary and after having just attended a beautiful wedding the week before I was struck by just how much I love my farmer.  I would have told you 16 years ago that there was no possible way that I could love my husband any more than I did then…who knew that my heart could grow so much?

I didn’t know 16 years ago that we would have so many ups and downs, so many heartaches and so many blessings.  It’s nice to have a day or two of clarity, to see just how far we’ve come, to see just how much we mean to each other, and to be reminded that all of our blessings have been richer because we’ve been able to hold on to each other and our belief in better days as we’ve waded through the rough times.

Our anniversary was on April 22nd, and on Saturday morning as I was heading to the market to get some spinach for my green smoothie my phone beeped to let me know I had a message.  We were staying with my brother-in-law and his family who live in a beautiful rural town that is unfortunately a black hole for cell phones so I pulled over to the shoulder of their little country road to listen to my messages while I had service.  There were a few messages from family for my anniversary, and one from my mom asking me to call her back right away.  I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong so I tried to call her back right then but her phone was busy.  I listened to my messages again and heard the message I had missed the first time and it nearly stopped my heart.

One of my cousins had committed suicide two days earlier.

Mom had been trying to reach me but hadn’t been able to with our spotty cell service.  I couldn’t believe it.  ”Why?”  Was the foremost question in my mind.  Why quit now?  Why when things were going so well for him?  We still don’t know.  He left notes but the police won’t let the family see them yet, they wouldn’t even let his wife view his body without paying $400 first.  They told his wife and parents that it will be at least 3 weeks before they will release anything to them.

I sat in the front seat of my car, crying as William held me, and couldn’t imagine the despair that must have driven him to that extremity.  And I couldn’t bear thinking of the pain my aunt and uncle were going through.  They were unable to physically have children of their own and had adopted a son and daughter and had loved them as much as any parent could love a child.

He’d been one of my heroes when I was a little girl.  I remember visiting them once when I was about 9 years old.  I had hit that unfortunate, gangly and goofy stage of youth where your teeth are too big, your arms too long, and no matter how hard you try you’re tripping over everything in sight with feet that suddenly can’t seem to figure out where they’re going.

I was avoiding injury and potential damage to the house by sitting alone out on the back patio and breathing in the smell of flower blooms and freshly mowed grass.  All of a sudden my handsome, teenage cousin came out with two glasses of lemonade one for me and one for himself.  Randy sat visiting with me, asking me about what I was currently interested in, about my friends, just about me.  It was a sweet moment for a young girl and I loved him for it.  I loved him for caring enough about me to take the time to visit with me and make me feel interesting when I was convinced that I was a hopeless geek.  I never forgot it, and even though life kept us busy and out of touch except for an occasional remark on facebook, I still loved my cousin.

As we drove home from our trip and I crossed mountains, deserts, rivers, and valleys all in the space of hours the trials, joys, sorrows, and regrets of years ran through my mind.  As I easily passed over rivers that had claimed the lives of early Oregon pioneers I measured my ease against their toil, my commitment to principles against their absolute determination to keep going to the end of the trail.  I thought of our garden waiting for us at home on Kirk Rd. and of the high desert garden I had just seen at my father-in-law’s house.  Those beautiful tender blooms hang on year after year in some of the most adverse conditions.   I drove past an apple orchard in full-bloom clinging to a tiny, steep-sloped hillside in the Columbia River Gorge and marveled at its persistence.

When we arrived home William opened up his sprouting chest and found to his amazement that his tomato seedlings, which he had given up for dead, were still alive and groping for the light.  In his absence, with no water, no light, and no hope of surviving without either of those things they still kept growing.  Their stems were a little leggy and they were drooping but a little bit of water and an afternoon in the sunshine refreshed them and they are now growing happily in the greenhouse, stronger than some of their other siblings who had no stress to overcome.

And then it struck me, as I watched William tending to those little seedlings, that humans are the only creatures on the earth who willingly give up the chance to live.  After years of tending crops, raising animals, and watching the cycle of life and death inherent to farming I have never seen a tomato plant die because it just stopped wanting to live.  Even with disease, mildew, pest damage, and broken stems and branches they still keep fighting onward and upward.  We’ve had animals that have suffered from injury and disease that have fought against their own damaged bodies to try to stand, to move, to just keep going for one more day.  We’ve done all in our power to help them and sometimes are rewarded with a miracle of healing and sometimes with the eventual death of a well-loved farm friend.  But no matter the outcome we are able to walk away knowing that we did everything that could have been done to save their life…because every life is precious.

It broke my heart, to think that maybe there was something I could have done or said to help my cousin, but now I have no way of knowing, and no way to fix it.  I can’t tell him now how precious his life was to me and I wish he had known.  How often do we consider our lives unimportant to others?  How often do we believe the lie that our life doesn’t make a difference to anyone else?  Far too often I’m afraid, but unlike the animals we work with and the plants we tend, the people we come in contact with have the power to choose  despair or hope.

Many of our farm members have shared their personal stories with us, their journeys that have led them in search of the healthiest food they can find in order to save their health, the discouragement they have felt from time to time when they felt they had no control over something as seemingly insignificant as what they could eat.  Many of them have been at that decision point that asks “Can I keep going?”

You can.  You can keep going and more importantly you can keep growing.  This is my message from the farm today…please, please, please just keep growing.  Don’t give up when you think you can’t keep going one more step.  There are people you can’t remember, people you may not even know, who need you.  Your life matters.  Not one plant on our farm goes to waste, not one.  All of the systems of our farm are interrelated and intertwined and a loss in one represents a loss in all of the others.  So it is with our community of friends, and in the larger family of man.

Your life is precious and you are the only one who can live it.

So take heart, and take the next step.

Just Keep Growing.

The “right” time

One of the benefits of working with people who farm is showing up at the farmhouse at the “right” time.  One the “right times” was last night, when Farmer William was about to slice into a huge bacon slab while their gigantic cast iron pan was heating on the stove next to him.  I was there just to pick up my 10 year old son who had helped with evening chores, but the lure of fresh bacon was too much for me.  As we chatted about the garden and cows and milk and chickens, I invited myself to stay so I could taste some of that deliciousness in front of me. (There was a time in my life when I would have recoiled at the thought of standing in front of so much raw meat. but here I was salivating!  You see, now I knew how important and nourishing real food can and should be, and I also knew how good it can taste!)

Not only did I get a piece of warm, fresh cooked bacon in my mouth, I was sent home with a sample of it so I could share with my husband.   Which is sizzling on the stove as I write this post.   Which inspired me to share on the farm blog.  Because it would be selfish of me to keep this experience of deliciousness all to myself.   That deep smokey flavor derived from : smoking!  Imagine that?  I saw the damp hickory and apple wood smoke spiraling up and around the meat only a few days ago.  Nothing else but smoke?  No extras?  Nope!  I even get to add my own salt, good salt at that.

I saw this pig, I spoke to this pig, my son helped feed this pig.  I knew what conditions in which this animal was raised.   A few years ago, had I met the ‘now’ me, I would have thought myself on the nutty side for even valuing and expressing gratitude for such things.  But I do!  And I guess I am nutty!

Books, Bradbury, and Knowing Beans

My mom called me this morning at around 6 am.  She lives in rural Missouri and tries to wait until a “decent” hour before she calls in the morning.  I am usually awake, but not always out of bed when she rings.  We’ve kept in touch this way for years.  She calls to tell me about all kinds of things: the worshipers at church, births and deaths of anyone I might know, marriages, the latest recipe she found, the last book she’s been reading.

This morning she called me about an article she read in her little hometown paper, Bethany’s Republican Clipper.  The author was lamenting what he had discovered at a university bookstore during a recent trip to the Mizzou campus in Columbia.  “Where are the books?” he asked.  In their place he had found cosmetics, movies, toys, candy, and gift cards.  He pondered what was becoming of our society when we have become so dependent on digital knowledge.  He argued for the continuing necessity of physical books, those glorious works of art upon whose pages is recorded the best and worst of human thought.

It’s a good question…where are the books?

I see many of them on thrift store shelves.  I come home with a stack of them almost every week from Goodwill.  Their prices range from $0.10 to $2.00 each.  I don’t often check books out from the Library.  I’m incredibly grateful for the library, my children adore it, but I never remember to bring the books back on time.  I’m forever paying late fees and I’ve found it’s just cheaper to buy my own copy.  Besides that I’m a compulsive re-reader.  I seldom read a book just once…unless it was drivel the first time around, in which case I don’t waste my time.  I love words, the sound of them as they move through my mind, the texture of them on my tongue when I say them aloud.  I love the combination of words that lead to meaning, to thought, and to action.  There are passages in the books I’ve read that have the flow and cadence of poetry.  I like to reread it just for the depth of feeling and soul resonating power they engender.

I have often set down a book that has just filled my heart and mind up and been appalled to see the $0.25 price tag.  How could those thoughts be worth only twenty-five cents?  Grateful as I am that I could afford to purchase it, I am still appalled.  It comes too close for comfort to Guy Montag’s initial belief that books had no value in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  And just how close to the hedonistic society described by Bradbury have we become when a box of Trojans has replaced a copy of Tolstoy on the shelf?

The act of bookmaking used to be an art form.  The illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, the beloved and well-tended scrolls of the ancients, even the carved clay tablets of the early Mesopotamians were all created, cared for, and preserved because they were beautiful both in being and in content.  They were valued not only for the words on their pages, but for the time it took to create them, the joy that went into every stroke of the pen or brush.

It reminds me of farming.  “Vernie,” you say “Everything reminds you of farming.”  It’s true.  I’m a farmer…what else can I say?

We’ve had the most fascinating experiences over the last 10 months as we have been busily building a successful farm here in the Willamette Valley.  We have done our best to marry the joy of our ancestors farming methods with the modern technology of marketing.  We’ve tried to make it easier for our customers to order our farm goods while maintaining our commitment to raise our produce naturally.

What does that have to do with books or more specifically the value of books?  Just about everything.

We have become accustomed to the digital information age.  With our Kindle’s, Nook’s, and iPad’s we have access to 1000’s of books right at our fingertips.  Not only that, but we can search our books by keyword and idea, thereby chunking our texts into little tidbits, tiny bite size pieces that don’t take too long to consume.  We see this paradigm shift in our farming business as well.  We’ve made it so easy to order products on line that sometimes potential customers are unaware that we actually do raise the food they are purchasing; an effort which takes time.  I recently had several customers experience some difficulty with ordering a product in our web store.  I received multiple emails informing me that the system was not working because they couldn’t order what they wanted.  I had to explain, in a couple of instances several times, that it wasn’t the system…there simply weren’t any more (eggs, milk, kale, etc.).  “What?” is the response I heard “But I want to order some.”  It’s a producer’s nightmare, people want your product but you don’t have enough.  All I could do was explain that the chickens, cows, and garden can only produce so much.  We don’t force feed them, or put them in cages to make them lay, or sprinkle the ground with chemical fertilizers that would make them bigger.  We grow in harmony with the seasons and with the needs of the animals.

And it takes time.

Time.  That is the crux of the common dilemma between books, farming, raising children, cooking a healthy meal, or creating a work of art.

We can gain enough information in 15 minutes of skimming a book on the hand-held gadgetry of our choice to hold our own in a college class or coffee shop discussion.  We can walk or drive to the closest restaurant and have a fully cooked, ready-to-go meal in the same amount of time.  We can get on YouTube and pick up child rearing helps in little 3 minute bites.  We can bring home a well-balanced, supposedly nutritious pre-made meal that can be served up piping hot in less than 20 minutes.  We can take a mediocre digital snap-shot, run it through Photoshop to make it brighter, clearer, more colorful and voila! we have an instant work of art.

We can do all these things that save us time… but has it really saved us?  What have we done with all this extra time we are saving?  Is this kind of internet style book, food, and art surfing enough to change our heart, nourish our bodies or to move us to action?  When I have to explain that it takes time for the chickens to lay eggs, much the same as Aesop’s fable “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs”, I’m inclined to think that something is grievously wrong.  I often get off the phone or finish answering an email and I think “Don’t they know that it takes time to raise and grow good food?”  Many of our farm members do, I hear quite often from our amazing customers how glad they are that we persist in a farming method that costs more, pays less, but provides a superior crop.  They value the work that we do because they recognize the time it takes to do it.

Value is in direct relationship to effort.  We value what we work for, what we expend our resources for, what we sacrifice for.  We value what we take time to pursue.  That which comes too easily I’m afraid we discard just as quickly.

Farms, families, literature and art are not created overnight.  They take effort, commitment, and an intense dedication to whichever principles drive the creators.  Like Thoreau we must be “determined to know beans.”  To know the value of a book we must read it, hold it, ponder it, and discuss it.  To know the value of a work of art (be it painted, sung, played, or acted) we must spend time in observance, contemplation, and discovery of it.  To “know beans” we must plow the field, plant the seed, pull the weeds, and labor against mice (woodchucks for Thoreau), grasshoppers, and mold.

We must put the time in to reading, listening, seeing, and doing.  So that the next time someone asks the question “Where are the books?” we will be able to say with a surety, not unlike Bradbury’s Granger, that the books are in us.

The Agricultural Art of Revision

There are many things I love about being a farmer:  the sound of the cows lowing, the happy cackle of chickens, the feel of warm dirt in my hands, the smell of coriander and fennel seeds before planting, and the list goes on forever.  But probably the thing I love the most, all nostalgia put aside, is the absolute necessity of Agricultural Revision.

I read a great article this morning in the New York  Times about the effects of digital stimulation on the brain.  How the more we speed up the rate at which information becomes available the less ability we have to focus on the task at hand or the information right in front of us.  We are caught in an endless cycle of becoming smarter, quicker, wittier, and having bigger, better, faster things fill our time.  As I read it the thought struck me that what this digital overload has done for us is to undermine our understanding of and appreciation for revision.

Revision literally mean “to see again”.  If you look it up in the dictionary it seems to apply almost exclusively to writing and the process of correcting.  I revise quite a bit as I write, seldom doing rough drafts.  I write and edit as I go.   Word processing software has made it easy to do this, but as I’ve been contemplating the New York  Times article (which you can find here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?_r=1&th&emc=th) I’ve been wondering if perhaps this isn’t a mistake.  Is there a process in the art of revising that is worth remembering?  Is the journey that leads us to our beliefs just as important as the belief itself?  I rather think that it is.

I believe revision is an art form.  I love to look at artistic “studies” created by master artists.  The drawings that Leonardo DaVinci made in preparation to paint a masterpiece are a fascinating look into the mind of  a creator.  The care taken to ensure proper veining along an arm or a leg in a sculpture or painting by Michelangelo is profound.  Were these studies mistakes?  Was the act of studying all in error until the finished work of art could be pronounced “perfect”?  I don’t believe that they were, in fact I believe that the studies themselves are valuable creations.  They are a look inside the act of creation, not simply the result.

I love to look at art, not just in a casual glance sort of way, but really LOOK at it.  The brush strokes, the blending of the colors, the texture of the paint.  There is beauty in the whole of the work because there is beauty in all of its parts.  One of Leonardo DaVinci’s mottoes was “Saper Vedere”  which translates to “knowing how to see” or “to see is to know”.  How much do we miss when we don’t know how to see?  How much beauty passes by us every day because we don’t have eyes to see it, or ears to hear it?  The great artists of the Renaissance saw beauty in the tiniest elements of their work.  They studied, revised, looked, practiced, created, and re-created until their ability to perform was equal to their ability to see.   Hence “re-vision”  is not just seeing again it is seeing, touching, thinking, and creating again.

This intense effort to create and re-create is an undeniable part of the process of farming.  Not all who look see, and therefore not all who farm see themselves as revisionists, but they are.  As Amos Bronson Alcott put it “He who loves a garden, still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvest reaps.”  Farmers by their very act of tilling the soil to bring forth life are artists and creators, taking their plot in Eden and recreating what they will in it.  It is living art, with nothing of their work left behind but harvests stored on pantry shelves.  So many people today have never seen a “fruit room” like my husband, William, grew up with; a cool place in the basement where jars upon jars of canned peaches, beans, tomatoes, and apricots (along with a host of other crops) were kept for use in the coming year.  Just like a renaissance artist studied the musculature of the human body or the layers of petaled flowers the farmer/artists that influenced William studied the weather, the soil, the mountains where the needed water would come from, the remains of last years work, and then throughout the cooler months, when the soil rested from its labors they studied.  They drew garden plans, they plotted how to glean the best harvest from the soil, they noted down where the garden needed more work, where the manure should be placed to be most effective, where the beans were located last year so that this year they could be moved to a new place.

No, they wouldn’t have called themselves artists.  To them is was simply a way of life.  And isn’t that a testament to the goodness of living close to the land?  It wasn’t going out of their way to recycle waste to improve the earth; it wasn’t going out of their way to conserve water to ensure there would be enough for the summer crops, it wasn’t going out of their way to not waste one bit of usable food to feed themselves, their families, their friends, and several complete strangers:  it very simply was their way.  Each and every year they planned which crops to plant to improve the soil.  With each harvest they preserved the seeds from the very best fruits from the field so that they could plant again next season.  Each and every year they re-created abundance without robbing the soil of it’s life.

That is what I love best about farming.  Each year, each season, with each harvested crop we have the opportunity to look for a new vision for our farm.  We have the chance to look at what we’ve done with a critical eye and find what works, what doesn’t, and improve where we can.  There is no finished and perfect work of art at the end of farming because there is no end to farming.  A crop may be harvested, but the garden goes on.  That is Agricultural Revision:  to know how to see the world around you, your place in it, and accept your responsibility to it.

It is a beautiful place to live, here in the middle of a work of art.  I’d like to pass it on.  I’d love to see a renaissance in agriculture, a Georgic Reformation in our communities.  Perhaps I can start here with a request:  find something in the natural world to touch, see, or hear today.  Spend time studying it, open your eyes and ears to it.  See it the way an artist would see it, as if you needed to recreate it in someway.  And then, when it really feels beautiful to you, pass it on.  Every bit of beauty we see and share is like a mark on an artists canvas, each part makes up the majesty of the whole.  Together I believe we have the ability to create a lasting and moving work of art.

Family Movie Night on the Farm

We had the most amazing turn out to our showing of  ”Fresh” the movie hosted by the Friends of Family Farmers organization.  There were over 30 people here and a gaggle of children that played on the swing and with an amazing LED hula hoop that one of our farm members invented.  We watched the movie which high-lights the differences in family farming, city farming, and corporate farming in America today.  We ate delicious home grown and homemade treats during our brief intermission.  Jenny “The Seed Lady” Selberg brought micro-greens down from our greenhouses in Oregon City and we ate them with several different kinds of  cream cheese spreads.

I love micro-greens, I got addicted when we were in Paradox, CO buried under 4 feet of icy-cold snow.  William grew them in the windows and it was enough of the taste of Spring and new life to keep us going .

We had a guest farm from up in Carus,  Family 2 Family Farm, come and tell us about their farm, what led them to farming, and what it is providing for themselves, their families, and for their community.  Here’s their link, you should really check them out http://family2familyfarm.com/farm.html.  They offer a beautiful selection of greens from their garden, wonderful pasture-fed poultry, and a very holistic farm experience.  It makes you happy just to visit their farm and feel their love for the land and their families.

It was a fantastic evening…and I didn’t get one single picture.

I suppose it’s a testament to the fact that I was visiting and enjoying the evening rather than taking pictures of it, but now I’m wishing I had, especially that hula hoop!  It really was cool, the lights flashed faster when the little girls really got it spinning, and they changed colors with the speed of the rotation as well.  I don’t know how Seth did it, but I swear that guy is a genius.

We all sat in an old Army surplus type tent that Wade and Kristie Olsen (aka Apprentice Farmers, Genius Handy-Man, and the Healthy Treat Queen) and watched the movie on a homemade screen that Wade (Genius Handy-Man really doesn’t do him justice!) had created from old sheets and Two-by-Four’s.  It was a great screen and the movie looked fantastic.  Everyone asked when we were doing another movie night so we decided to make it a part of the farm’s monthly line up.  We already do our farm tours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month.  We decided we’ll do Family Movie Night on the Farm every 3rd Friday evening at 6:30 p.m.  and show a variety of agriculture related films.

Does anyone know any local film makers out there who may be interested in sharing their work?  We’d love to share some of the great things that are happening in our local agriculture community.  And so much is happening.  Have you had a chance to drive on some back roads around Portland this month?  The berry brambles are covered in Marion berries and raspberries.  The Strawberry plants are loaded with big, juicy fruits that are so full of Summer goodness they burst in your mouth at the first bite.  Our neighboring farms here in the Molalla and Mulino areas are planting corn, cabbage, and broccoli.  Everyone is so happy to see the sunshine.

We made use of the sunshine ourselves and planted the rest of the garden space that we couldn’t get into when it was so wet.  It was over  2 acres worth of crops.  My legs are really feeling the burn of what I dubbed “The squash squats”.

I’m  thinking  that form of exercise will really catch on, at least in gardening circles.

The Fine Role of Farm Wife

My husband William and I have a set of books entitled “Farm Knowledge” published by Sears and Roebuck in 1918. There are four volumes, each dealing with a different part of farm life. We’re really grateful to have them, they are quite rare these days and expensive to purchase and I’m the kind of person who would much rather own a book and be able to touch the pages than to simply read it online. I’m a very tactile reader.

The volumes make for fascinating reading. It’s interesting to me that though we are now a full decade into the 21st century, the messages from the first two decades of the 20th century are so familiar in content. How often have we heard from poets, authors, and politicians the urging to return to “simpler values, simpler times” and hearken America back to a more bucolic day of peace and plenty? I know I’ve read it, and written it many times. I think there must be some kind of human hard-wiring that makes us see a green field and breathe deeply and say “aah, how peaceful.” And yet as we peruse the pages of these antique volumes of farm methods, tips, and suggestions I keep reading the same thing. What??? An editor in 1918 was pleading with his readers to return to a more peaceful, prosperous time?

Actually, yes. The books, while presented as an encyclopedia of farm knowledge were as much a plea for what they wanted to exist in American communities as they were a repository of what did exist. They didn’t request that the farm families live like they did 100 years ago (well, let’s face it, life in 1818 was not a walk in the park, and no one would buy that bridge if they tried to sell it.) Mostly they tried to paint a picture of the American farm life that we romanticize now; hard working families, communities knit together in a common goal of success, peaceful neighborhoods, clean yards, and happy children. Each volume has suggestions of ways to improve farm income, to further education in rural settings, to inspire youth to not only work the fields but to cultivate their minds as well. It sounds like a chapter meeting for the modern FFA.

I love reading these books. I love knowing that the world wasn’t perfect and we’ve since misplaced perfection somewhere along our path to technological advancement. I love knowing that progress is an ever-changing thing; that society has the ability to choose, to grow, to discard and change whatever isn’t working. And I love that the basic elements of what makes a family and a community successful haven’t changed. In fact I can go back even further to Virgil’s “Georgic” poems and Hesiod’s “Works and Days” and find bits of wisdom that haven’t changed in the nearly three-thousand years since they were penned. Who can argue with sage advice like “Build barns; it will not be Summer forever”?

I think that my favorite part of the “Farm Knowledge” books is the section on the farm house and yard. They actually spend quite a bit of time expounding on the importance of a neat and well-kept farmhouse, where the farm wife, who keeps everything running, can work effectively and efficiently towards the goal of a happy, healthy, farm family. Now there’s a bit of romanticizing that I can get behind. There are tips on decorating, adjusting the height of the kitchen work tables so you don’t injure your back, using a vacuum, finding clever storage areas for all of the “things” you need on a farm but might not have extra room for. It’s great, it reads almost like a modern copy of Good Housekeeping or the latest Martha Stewart book.

I like knowing that I am not alone in the drama of keeping a farm-house clean. Keeping any house clean requires skills of organization and good habits, but have you ever considered what keeping a farm-house clean entails? Do you know what comes in on the bottom of a farmer’s shoes? I have an intimate knowledge of what gets tracked into the farmhouse; it’s not pretty, and it doesn’t smell good. But after reading about the struggles with dirty boots and wash day of the early 20th century farm-wife, I feel decidedly blessed to be her counterpart in the 21st century. I get to look out at my green fields and sigh over how peaceful they are, call Jezebel in from that field, milk her and send her on her way again, cluck at my sweet little biddies, gather their eggs with my daughter Marilla and head back in to the house to begin the daily house chores. Often as I am wiping off the bottoms of my own boots I pause and look around at the farm I enjoy. I can see why poets and politicians tell everyone we should get back to this, it’s hard to beat.

Afton Field Farm

Yesterday was fantastic! We drove down to Corvallis and visited Afton Field Farm. What a delightful farm, and what a great family! Tyler and Alicia are amazing, both of them work the farm using their respective strengths to make it thrive, with friends and extended family pitching in. Alicia’s blog sold us on wanting to visit their farm for the monthly guided tour, it’s great to get online and be able to share a little bit of their farm experience with them and it got us salivating to see it in person. If you have the chance to visit you really should.

The combination of the tree lined driveway, the historic house, and sustainable farm make for a memorable and inspiring afternoon. Tyler shared with us the in’s and out’s of his farm model. He interned with Joel Salatin (if you are not familiar with this name you need to do an internet search, buy his books, listen to what the man is saying, and get inspired about local agriculture) at Polyface Farms for a year and is implementing his methods here in Oregon. The food they are raising is wonderful (we were able to get some pasture-raised pork to bring home for dinner – yum!) and just as inspiring is their dedication to helping small-farming make a comeback. They are sharing their knowledge, their inspiration, and their dedication with whomever will listen. I have great hopes for their farm; I think with such great young farmers at the helm it will stand for another 100 years, serving their community with excellent food; raised for flavor, efficiency, and responsibility to the future.

What an asset they are to their community and others who are wanting to really make small family farming successful. They offer guided tours once a month, with question and answer time with them, but you are welcome to go by anytime and say “hi”.

Our New 1955 Chevy

Well, we’ve done it now. We bought the coolest truck EVER from George Gisler last night down in Stayton, Oregon. We were introduced to George by Orval Silbernager of Stayton, Oregon from whom we bought a fantastic old manure spreader. Orval raises beautiful sheep (which he does sell, so if anyone out there is looking for high-quality lamb drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with him!) up on the edge of the Cascades. I think he has the most beautiful farm spot I have ever seen in my entire life. William told him “This place is so beautiful I’m afraid I wouldn’t get any farming done, I’d just stand around looking at the scenery all day!” I know that I enthuse about a lot of things, and so my appreciation might seem watered down, but really, I mean REALLY, this place was phenomenal. His farm runs right up to the edge of a huge bluff and then drops down a hillside that he uses goats to mow (it’s like looking down the edge of the Alps, I had to keep hollering at my own kids “Don’t fall, you won’t quit rolling till you reach the river!”) The valley he looks out on is dotted with small farms and towns, and since it was just a little rainy while we were there the clouds were dripping down over the edge of the mountains, tangling themselves up with the tree-tops in gorgeous swirls. Amazing.

But back to George. Orval called up George when he heard we were looking for an easier way to move feed around than our little trailer. It’s important to point out right here that talking with a farmer is one of the most delightful events. They actually listen to what you are saying because they are not in a big hurry to move on to the next sale, or the next job, or the next whatever. We just visited about this, that and the other until finally he told William “Well, I have a neighbor up here who is selling an old truck that might work for what you need. Let me go call him and if he’s home we can go see his truck.” The next few minutes were the perfect example of why agriculture is at the heart of a good society. Here ‘s what he did: Orval dialed up George and for the first few minutes of the phone call he didn’t say anything about his truck, he asked him how he was feeling, he asked how things were going on the farm, he asked about his family, he asked if there was anything he could do to help him out. He was a good neighbor, how many of those are left? He really cared about his neighbor’s welfare and was willing to take some of his own time (which believe me is a precious commodity when you are a farmer) to help him out if he needed it. I love farmers.

Apparently George was doing well so Orval told him he had someone here who needed a way to move feed and other supplies, and asked if we could come see the truck he’d been thinking of selling. He agreed and we followed Orval down some more beautiful back roads out to George’s place. This is another thing I love; Orval didn’t just give us directions and send us on our way, he stopped what he was doing, and really helped, how many people do that anymore? It’s probably a really good thing he did too, or we might have gotten lost. So we pulled up to this lovely farm that looked out over the Willamette Valley and there, parked in one of the farm sheds was a 1955 Chevrolet truck. “Beastie” is the best descriptor I can think of, the thing was humongous! George and his brother had bought it used way back in 1959 from a woman who hauled hay with it. His brother wanted to haul lime (for fertilizing) in it so they took off the original bed and added a hydraulic system and the wooden bed of an old Garbage Truck that came out of Portland in the 1950′s. They had driven all over the Willamette Valley with it. He got in and showed William the knobs and how they worked. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in a vehicle, it had controls like a tractor and only two wires in the whole block, and I’m not even sure what they went to! And the best part? It actually runs! He started it up with a roar, then it quieted down to a nice rumble. We’re going to bring it home on Monday. We’ve got an 80 year old manure spreader now, and a 1955 Chevy. Man, life is just so sweet.

Catching Chickens

I spent last night catching chickens in Portland. I am continually amazed at the number of backyard chickens up here, it’s fantastic! I bought 10 layers from a family that just has too many, so I’m up to over 50 chickens now, over two dozen actually laying. What an adventure it has been to traverse this whole area, meet urban farmers, visit their city homesteads, and come away with some feathered treasures. I think we’ve finally got it down to a science. We get them at night, after they have already gone to roost (thank you Allegra for the tip!) and it makes it so much easier. Although my children have had fun chasing down chickens during the day. I finally got home about 10:30 at night and into bed after 11:00. Of course I had to check emails and then made the mistake of looking at Craigslist one more time before I nodded off. I thought William was asleep, but from the depths of where he was burrowed in the blanket I heard “See if there are any rabbits for sale”. Well that did it, we were up looking at rabbits for another hour. Apparently he’s got a hutch all ready for them so we’ll have those too.

The Cosmic Chicken and Zen and the Art of Bicycle Riding

It was a big day for Ephraim yesterday, he ran the gamut from contemplating the cosmos to catching chickens right along side me with the accomplishment of a long-held personal goal thrown in. We were making breakfast yesterday morning when the girls came running in with eggs they had found in the hen house. I was looking at them and said just off the top of my head “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Zeke just looked at me and cocked his eyebrow the way he does, but Eph questioningly said “Huh?” So I replied “You know the age old question: Which came first the chicken or the egg? God created us, who created God? It’s a never ending cycle.” His face puckered up (he does that when he’s thinking hard) and he finally said “You mean there is no beginning and no end? It just is?” To which I replied “Yes” He thought about it for a second then put his hands on his forehead and said in true Ephy style “Oh man, that just makes my head hurt.” I love my kids, they sure know how to make me laugh!

Ephraim also learned to ride a bike yesterday. I know that doesn’t seem very earth shattering, but here at Real Food Farming it was a BIG deal. That kid has been working at it for months, literally, and finally yesterday that boy really flew. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so proud of himself. Ezekiel has yet to master it, I asked him why he doesn’t want to ride a bike when he’s so good on a horse and he just said “I don’t want to ride on anything that doesn’t have a brain.” I guess it’s a good reason.

The chickens are all on pasture now, and we are continuing to get ready for their June finish date. We are looking forward to visiting Afton Field Farm this Friday afternoon. They follow Joel Salatin’s methods as well and they have a great blog if you are interested in seeing their farm. Visit www.aftonfieldfarm.com and click on the blog link. It makes my heart happy to see a successful small family farm, we need lots more of them.

We are going to buy a manure spreader today (see the entry for April 22) and I’m feeling very nostalgic. Maybe we can get it running and I can plan a date night with William to try it out!

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