The Farm is hard... writing is hard

Let me tell you something folks, the farm is hard.  Writing about it is also hard.  As much as I want to be a sustainable, urban farmer, I even more want to be a writer that people want to read.  I want to learn from my own words and watch the world grow along with me.  I want to expunge all the words that build up, the things I learn each day, things I find fascinating.  Not because I think I'm going to teach you anything, because what in the world can I teach any of you?  How to have a rabbit warren?  A chicken flock?  How about a ten month crop season?  I can’t.  I am so excited to tell you all I have learned something; that I have grown.  Narcissism is a funny characteristic.  Unfortunately it is a thing that I find myself dabbling in.  It is easy to learn something new and then act like it is something I have known all along, something that I can benevolently share to all of you suburbanites who don’t have farms.  What a ruse.  Let me tell you folks, most every blog has come on the tail of a first time discovery, there is no expertise, we are learning and so excited to tell you what is happening.

                Today I looked out on an endless sea of ink wanting to make my words matter.  It is so easy to think that the things you say are important, that the art you produce is unique, that the music you play is special, in the end; it seems to have an air of meaninglessness.  Just like the seeds that never germinate or the fruit that falls on the ground and is never eaten so many good things are left to never sprout, never be consumed, left to fall by the wayside, left to give nutrients to the next season’s crop.

                Sure we have done new things on the farm, we have hatched ducklings, we have pickled our fall harvest, we have planted crops to overwinter, but we don’t have it all together.  Far from it!  We lost three ducklings to predators, we still, STILL, can’t keep our chickens contained and lost our fall crop to their beaks, our yard is a mess, and there is no reason to feign some expertise. 

                Most of our lives we spend time selling everyone else that we are the experts in our field.  The truth is we are just learning, and when we start thinking we are experts and stop learning then all of our creativity starts to grind into oblivion.  It is easy to lie about the things in which we think we are experts but in contrast it is easy for us to be candid about the things we find meaningless.  In the obscure Bob Dylan song, “On the Road Again” he says, “Don’t ask me nothing about nothing and I just might tell you the truth.”  I think this is where we find honesty in most people, when they talk about nothing.  Otherwise we are all in the midst of selling our expertise.  It isn’t wrong; it is just in our nature.  Humility is not a skill that comes naturally to most, but dear God does it make the world bigger and better than living out of our own understanding.  Our lives get bigger when we grow from the lives of others, this is farming.  We can’t fake expertise.

Plants grow and are harvested.  Animals grow and are eaten.  Seasons change.  But the churning of learning and growing does not die in the individual; it is passed through humanity, for growth in community, understanding in nature, and communion with God.  Posterity grows when we have the humility to learn and teach the humility for others to receive. 

Monday

                Most of the house is quiet at Rosefield farm in the morning.  “Most” is a tricky word.  If you brush most of your teeth then you haven’t done a good job.  If you washed most of the dish then the dish is still dirty.  Often the word most is equated to good enough.  This morning most isn’t good enough.  In a childless house there is really no reason to wake up before 7:00.  My alarm is set for 7:15 with the expectation of a push of the snooze button.  I start like a freight train in the morning.  I huff and blow steam, it takes a while for my engine to get going, nine more minutes is typically enough to get the coal in the engine and the fire of my brain starts to roll.  The farmer stereotype of waking at dawn is lost on Rosefield.  If I had my way we would work past dusk every night but wake with the sun high in the sky.  We like the night.  I like that our farm can be worked in the streetlights.  So we stay up late and wake late when we can.  With no kids in the house the early morning bustle that would usually be present is mostly silent.  Mostly.

                My 7:15 alarm had competition before it vibrated on my nightstand.  The obnoxiously angelic strumming of a harp had the opening act of an orange cat.  I could hear her thump up against our hollow core bedroom door. “Ow, Rowr, Ow,” was what she had to say.  My alarm went off and I hit the snooze to steal my nine minutes, to put coal in my fire.  It’s Monday, this train will be slow today.  “Ow, Rowr, Rowr, ROWR,” and thump, thump, thump.  The cat calls like a conductor insisting that I get up, that it’s time to go.  Cursing I toss of my blanket, I remind Carly of my love for her and I open the door to my orange nemesis.  Her eyes are brownish copper in her head like two pennies fixed on me, she walks ahead and then lingers, walks ahead and then lingers.  What once was the call of a conductor is now more the screams of a junkie.  I open the door to the garage where the cats are fed and she yowls and moans.  As I pour her food she purrs.  Her tongue laps up the cat food selfishly and I can hear the moisture in her mouth.  Her teeth crunch the food and clack against the plastic bowl.  I hate her.  My snooze goes off and I’m reminded that my nine minutes have been stolen by this damn cat.

                As I walk into the kitchen I set down my phone so I can let Harvey out of his new kennel.  Unlike his occasional morning pacing he seems at peace behind the closed door.  I swoop up his dish and squeeze the latch on his door.  Opening the fridge I scoop a generous portion for my obedient dog.  His long hair is brushing up against my naked leg and I feel the cold of his nose touch the back of my thigh.  The cool of the refrigerator and the nose to the back of the leg hardly wakes me up.  In his normal ceremony of “sit, go” the dog is fed.  A much more gracious recipient than his cat sister.  Damn cat.  My brain is a little closer to awake and I think of something clever for Facebook.  Where the hell is my phone?  Why didn’t I pee before feeding the stupid cat?  Or the dog?  My phone!  Top of the fridge, no.  On the breadboard, no.  Kitchen counter, no.  I can feel the frantic feeling of needing to pee after not going for about seven hours.  It is intense.  What about the stovetop, no.  Dear God please don’t let me pee my pants!!!  I look on top of the pantry and snatch up my phone.  Dashing to the bathroom I get some time to myself.

                After a shower I am ready to go.  There is no coffee, no paper, and no toast for me.  I don’t want a farmer’s breakfast; there is no reason to linger.  One more kiss for Carly and the other two cats follow me out to the garage where the orange one sits smugly over a food dish that is over halfway consumed.  I’m still disgusted.  The house is no longer mostly silent.  It is fully awake.  The outside animals, probably awake since dawn, have seen the motion of the house.  I can hear the birds before I reach the door.  Our big white duck no longer restrains her “gup, gup, gups,” exploding into a “QUACK ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK!!!”  Scooping a big scoop of poultry feed the selfish orange cat thinks she is being fed again.  She is wrong.  I flip the feed onto the ground and half a dozen birds descend on the ground around me gobbling up the pellet intensely.  Noise is everywhere.   All of the cats having eaten have wandered into the yard; the birds are making the sounds of eating while mixing in squawks and clucks.  To make certain they are not forgotten the definitive thump of a rabbit foot pounds the bottom of the hutch.  Again I return to the garage.  Again the orange cat thinks she is being fed.  A scoop of rabbit feed is distributed amongst hutches and cages.  It is finally done and the farm hums with life.  In a few hours Carly will get up and do this whole process again.  The farm wakes us up.  It makes us move.  It hums.  Silence is a precious commodity.

                People go to work to feed their family.  I feed more animals before I go to work than most people do all week.  It is common vernacular for someone to be known as a breadwinner or someone that brings home the bacon.  Feeding is important, it creates a bond and having dependents creates the appropriate pressure to work hard and provide.  It is humbling to be in charge of feeding the house each morning.  I don’t only buy the feed, but I put it in front of all their mouths.  It gives me something to work for.  The kids aren’t like them.  They are autonomous, partners in the family that take their responsibility when they are home.  I love that about them.  I respect them for that.  It isn’t like that for the animals.  The animals depend on us, on me.  I’ll wake up for their maintenance.  I’ll do it gladly.  Except for the orange cat.  I still hate her.  

Machines

                I’ve recently realized how easy it is to be cynical.  Cynicism has its own coolness; an elite feeling of superiority by remaining uncommitted to the ideas projected by others.  The elitist feeling of not buying in is one that has given me comfort over the years.  Perhaps the opposite of cynicism is gullibility.  The ability for some to believe whatever one tells them might be comforting.  By laying faith in the words of others maybe we abdicate our responsibility.  By not believing in anything anyone says maybe we can more easily blame others.  Taking responsibility is difficult. 

                When we are young it is difficult to take responsibility.  We shift blame.  We point to our parents or siblings.  Our culture has even coined the phrase, “my dog ate my homework” as a silly excuse for a child to not finish their work.   As I grow older I find that I have been cynical for most of my life.  I feel disdain for the gullible and solace in the sarcasm of the skeptic; but maybe it is time to get over some of that.

                I take stubborn pride in the fact that I don’t use machines.  What a lie.  I use machines every day.  Cars, phones, computers, are all machines that simplify my life.  Even though I know I could never do the work I do each day without them I feel slave to them.  I make car payments.  I need to make certain my computer is charged.  My phone is constantly begging for my attention.  I obey their wishes and they reciprocate with more production.  Our garden was going to be different.  Thoreau writes about contemplating his philosophy while raking his bean fields.  To me, if I turned over my garden with a fork and shovel I would have the same time for transcendental contemplation.  So, for the last three years, I have turned the garden each year with a fork and a spade.  Hundreds of square feet of grass have been transformed into garden with nothing but my hands.  A trailer full of rock has been pulled out of the ground by me, each one a fight against geology.

                When my grandfather called me and asked if I would rototill his garden I agreed.  Partly because I like to help anyone garden; partly because he offered to pay.  With smug pleasure I told him that I wouldn’t need to borrow his rototiller for my own garden.  His response was one that projected, “suit your self,” and he carried on to show me how to operate the machine with the familiarity of someone who has had more gardens than I have had lifetimes.  As I struggled to get the machine started he gave me a final pointer and with a pull the machine belched a cloud of disgusting smoke and I was ready to go.  My grandfather’s garden is big.  Much bigger than the farm, and all in one place, unlike ours that is broken off into beds and sections.  I started pushing the machine.  Moments later my grandfather came out and told me to not push, to let the machine do the work for me.  I did.  As I steered the rototiller up and down the garden I brewed up feelings of indignant cynicism.  How can we appreciate our work if it isn’t work?  In my mind I came up with this blog, a sermon about the evil of machines,  how they make us lazy, how we have no time to appreciate things, how we have no time to think.  Then I realized that as I was rototilling, I was thinking.  In the same way I could contemplate with my fork and spade, I was contemplating in spite of the roar of the small engine pushing the rototiller.  I looked over to the grass and saw Ethan, sitting on a lawn chair, watching.  What a weirdo.  I finished the garden in less than an hour.  My grandfather overpaid me and I went upstairs with Ethan to visit with my grandmother and the girls.  What took me weeks to do at home was accomplished before the sun hit the middle of the sky.  We left, and although I was happy to help, jadedness was in full force.

                I’m a hypocrite.  I don’t use machines, right?  The lawn, however, grows to the length of my hair.  The thought of cutting it with anything other than a gas mower is absurd to me.  This week I was finally embarrassed enough of it’s shaggy length, so I cut it.  In his usual ceremony, Ethan followed me out to the yard.  He watched me put gas in the tank, prime the engine, and start the mower with one hard pull.  Ethan has come to love mowing the lawn.  He knows I can’t hear over the roar of the engine and the thoughts inside my head.  In the beginning he follows behind me.  Whenever he thinks I might catch a glance of him from my periphery he darts across the lawn like a young foal.  Gangly and exuberant, he runs away to “hide” behind a bush, the side of the house, or my car.  The game is cute to him.  As I use this machine I see that he is engaged in me.  He is learning that machines are what are used to work.  I cynically hate being the power behind this mower, not being able to hear him or play with him.  Secretly I know that even if I don’t think that I am playing with him, he is playing with me.  Every time I catch his eye he squeals with adrenaline and dashes somewhere else.  Eventually he rolls into the uncut grass and waves his arms like he is making a snow angel.  Dandelion wishes clutter the area above him.  He volunteers to mow but doesn’t have the strength or control to push the mower.  It’s as if he knows that one day he will push a mower.  One day he will be a slave to a machine, but today he is free.  He is more gullible than cynical, but really he is neither.  He is just a kid.  How lucky.

                I love my fork and shovel.  I love my garden companions.  Most often it is Ethan, then Carly, and occasionally the girls.  Sometimes I get help, sometimes I don’t.  The therapy of extracting weeds and rocks while listening to my family is therapy.  We don’t need to make eye contact, we don’t need to be philosophical; we need to be together.  For me machines are impositions, cars drive me away from my house, farm implements are loud and impossible to speak over, and every monitor and screen (including this one) pulls our attention away from each other.  But if I didn’t have the machines I couldn’t tell you all this.  If not for the machines I wouldn’t go to my grandparent’s house and Ethan wouldn’t play his own version of hide and seek.  Maybe it is time to be a little less cynical.  Perhaps if I took the time to appreciate that which is before me rather than criticizing that which could be better I would be happier.  I would find more gratitude.  When I was a kid I wanted nothing more to be cool.  To be above anything was to show that you were cool. Cynicism and sarcasm were the stepping stones to cool.  Machines aren’t cool.  Maybe being happy is better than being cool.  I don’t like my machines, but I’ll use them.  I’ll get over myself.  I won’t blame my machines on my inability to think or connect.  I will think and connect in spite of the machines.  I will master them.  I won’t be their slave.  I’ll be happy.

Farm Pandamonium!

I dislike not documenting life.  Some people take photographs, others scrapbook, saving ticket stubs and memorabilia.  I write.  I write to keep the feelings in brain from spilling over, like releasing a pressure valve to keep from exploding.  I’m a terrible photographer and I throw stuff away.  Writing is remembering.  Writing is history written in the present.

All of the things I will write about truly deserve their own blog with their own further explanations. I’ve read catch up blogs that carry on and on so I won’t do that.  Here is what I will do.  In the last month since I posted about rabbits we have:

#1 Carly created artwork from the bones we salvaged from our rabbit harvest.  The art is called Bonart by Rosefield farm.  Her creative energy in this endeavor has been inspiring and she comes up with new ideas all the time.  But the art should speak for itself: http://www.facebook.com/BonartByRosefieldFarm?fref=ts

A selection of Carly's creativity

Rings from rabbit vertebra

 

#2 Last year we added ducks to our flock.  At one time we had ten – far too many.  We downsized our duck flock at the end of last summer.  As we got our flock down to a more manageable number we realized how much we really enjoy chickens and their eggs.  We adopted three new ones.  A feathery footed Brahma – Princess Ozma, a Russian Orloff – Catherine the Great, and a Black Wyandotte – Sister Naname.  We love our birds.

Dagny tolerating the new baby chicks

#3 Meet Harvey! Carly and I both felt the itch to bring a new dog into the home.  We went to visit one that wasn’t the right fit. After some casual looking, Carly found Harvey.  The thing about Harvey was that he was in Bend.  So after a week-long vetting process we were finally allowed to meet him.  His German Shepherd/Gordon Setter coloring was gorgeous and so was his personality.  Some people go to Bend for a weekend of skiing.  We went to adopt a dog.  Harvey has been in the home for about a month.  He is much different than Grimsby and is curious.  He has found his way into the pantry where he has eaten a few loaves of bread and four bags of flour.  Let’s hope he doesn’t have a gluten allergy!  Harvey is a yard dog and follows me around the farm.  He’s taken a trip to 1000 acres too.  That is where he learned to swim.

Love at first sight!

 Extreme close up!

Sleepy boy

#4 Kits! Kits! Kits! We have seventeen cute, cuddly, and eventually delicious baby bunnies.  Seventeen is a big number.  These rabbits came from three separate mothers and each litter is unique.  Big Gray is our new momma who all has big fat babies.  Mama had her typical mixed litter with Papa of one gray, one brown, and a bunch of spotted ones.  Baby Mama and her husband Emannymilo made some cute little gray ones.  Those ones needed a bath after getting way too dirty in their cage that was somehow exposed to the rain for a day.

 Mel has a fistful of bunnies!

 Mama & Papa's litter

 Big Gray's bunnies

 Ears & Tails

 Stupidly cute

I took a bath!

Father-baby meeting with Emannymilo

#5 Suck it Chickens!  After three years of chickens in the backyard we have finally built a fence to discourage the chickens from the back garden.  When I designed this fence the intent was to keep out the chickens without creating shade in our already sun starved yard.  Because we are always looking to maximize our space I put planters in the rail that are currently sprouting lettuce, radicchio, basil, and baby bok choy.  With the new protection there has also been a planting of lettuce, turnips, radishes, and spinach that will be on our table before the summer heat gets too intense.

Gotta Start somewhere

That looks like a fence!

We grow salads in our fence!

Bobby gets one last romp in the garden

Carly likes the new fence.  Harvey doesn't

I know that blogs like this can be laborious to go through.  I like to take the time to enjoy the small things in life instead of blasting out a bunch of news all at once.  This is the only way we can sufficiently update it all.  The spring season is busy, and there are plenty of other things developing on the farm.  Keep checking back and come visit us soon!