Coming to a Simmer

Just now we are beginning to take stock of a season of abundance: abundant rain, then abundant drought, and despite that, a rather abundant harvest. We discovered unbelievable resilience in the farm...and in ourselves as we rode the wave, read the signals of the soil and the plants and adapted accordingly. This year we weathered very difficult climatic conditions in the field, but we feel like we also surmounted a hill we have been climbing for the past eight years or so. We have been assembling this soup of a farm for years and years, grinding and building, and now it really feels like it is coming to a simmer.

If someone was to ask me how to start a farm, I would share what Rich believes about creating anything: if you want to do it, you'll find a way to. With the support of our community, we have a farm built to survive a pandemic, increasingly tenuous economic conditions, an autoimmune fiasco, and other unforeseen instability, all while starting our own family. We so badly wanted to make a life for ourselves growing food. Fear of failure loomed large, which lent to a myriad of side hustles on my part. They were all adopted to "help fund the farm". Instead, they spread me thin. And ultimately, it was dedicating myself to my life here on the farm with the kids and Rich, paired with Rich's determination and honing of his craft in the field that really got the fire going. Turns out, to make a jump, you have to do it with both feet.

It's scary as hell, especially when you have a budding family depending on your decisions. But the commitment made a difference because as we all know, you reap what you sow. Little did I know that when May, our first-born, graduated from infancy to toddlerhood, I would become a whole lot less of a farmer than when I did it all with her riding on my chest and then my back. Now she needed to be free, crawling and testing everything she encountered...Is this food? Do I climb on this? Ohhh this looks fun...should I give it a bite or pull it off the table or bang it against the floor? I would be less present in the field, or maybe just less productive. Of course I was being a productive caregiver for May in the meantime. And that was where I was meant to be.

But since inviting our kids into our lives, we have largely maintained our pot of soup at that point where it's just starting to steam, at about one hundred degrees. That was the amount of energy that was manageable for us. But the soup was sitting on the cusp of something more energetic. And with the maturation of our family, and the coming of age of our business (considering our developed market and field savvy), the temperature rose this past season. The simmer snuck up on us. Our stresses were less, both physically and mentally. Yet our yields of vegetables and quality of life were higher. You see, the kids need us in different ways at the ages of five and eight. Generally and also heartbreakingly, they just need us less. Additionally, we have made our work easier and more efficient after years of doing things the harder and cheaper way, which means that we have more time to institute balance here in our lives. And okay, yes, the year is inherently lopsided for a farmer who gives more in the summer and fall. But now we are feeling comfortable enough to take more in the winter to make up for it.

And in this season of "taking more", I have felt simmering within me that I haven't felt in almost a decade. The effervescence of inspiration to do more than simply keep my head above water. I have a collection of metaphorical bottles I keep...various ideas and ambitions, travel plans, projects, languages I would love to learn or improve upon. I felt the need to put the cork in many of them because we had put more on our plate than I felt I could manage well. Most parents would probably say they feel the same way during the early years of parenthood. But a few weeks ago, I woke up in my friend's guest bedroom in Missoula, Montana and I found myself thinking about a new idea for the farm. I tip-toed into the kitchen so as not to wake up their three-month-old baby and put the electric kettle on to boil. As my pour over coffee percolated, I jotted down my train of thought while it was fresh. And when Kira and the little one emerged from their bedroom to start another day in the life of mother and child, my eyes brimmed to see her in the thick of it, to reminisce on my first few months as a mother, and to realize how beautiful it is to experience it again vicariously through them.

Thank you for reading.

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