dear little farm,
i am trying to take in all these moments. picking the last of the cherry tomatoes, getting squash out of the field, canning salsa and pasta sauce, herbs and flowers going to seed, cottonwoods dropping their leaves, cool autumn air with piercing sunlight, kohlrabi broccoli arugula lettuces and radishes growing like crazy. there is so much to love here.
my heart is breaking about moving away and i am trying to pay attention to what it says. this morning i woke up from a dream about mira being born here. the most profound moment among so many that came to pass here was mira's birth in our kitchen. beyond that there were fires, birthday parties, solstice gatherings, 8-hour days out in the field, 200 - 300lb arugula harvests, barn dances and field dances, fights and reconciliations, pie contests, photo shoots, banjos and fiddles, every kind of emotion shared under the starry sky, family, friends, friends who are our family, and strangers gathered here, stayed here sometimes for weeks or months. our new visitors were cyclists, film-makers, families who were moving to land projects and individuals who were interested in organic farming. we learned about plants as they taught us, we rode bikes on gravel roads outside town, stuck our legs in the dirty river. we saw racoons with their babies, 30-40 deer at a time in the pasture, possums, owls singing every night in the oaks and lindens right outside the window, and hosted chickens in the winter which proved to be a horrible idea. one child and then two explored this place in and out, built a fairy house, wandered and got covered in dirt almost every time they were outside. catalpa had a garden all their own. we harvested in the rain, we watched wild storms pass through that brought tornados only miles down the road, hail, floods, and hordes of mosquitos. we harvested honey and lost our colonies over the winter. we watched dozens of spiders spin webs from start to finish. we spoke in whispers about new things, scary things, and over the phone to those near and far away. we mended the most difficult things. we watched films on the barn and smashed trucks and cooled down in the walk-in-cooler on the hottest days. we climbed on top of roofs, built a curing shed out of pallets, and explored the intricacies of weird and wild rural living. we drove the john deere mower down the street pulling catalpa's wooden wagon. we went to the local bar and were met by strange stares.
when we first moved here it felt empty but full of possibility, teeming with life. we left for guatemala and six weeks later started to make a home. the first time we worked on the farm we tilled and built a space to plant asparagus we were given from a farmer friend. we were surrounded by our closest friends and family that day, and it felt like this move was a step for not only us but our community and what we were trying to start as far as relating to land and growing food. we felt supported taking this step.
we sold plants and food we grew to a handful of restaurants, two of which supported us whole-heartedly. we provided food throughout the growing season to CSA members some of whom were our friends before we started this farm and others became new friends. our members included adults we knew growing up, our pediatrician, folks who heard about us at events or met us in the neighborhood when we lived in omaha. we learned about farming, about food, about production, about cover crops, about soil, about pest damage, about deer pressure, about rotation, about harvesting efficiencies, about seed saving, about native plants, about wet feet and cold hands and carrying 10 or 20 or 30 pounds of produce out of the field at a time. crops were lost and crops were bountiful. there were days where we loved the work and others where we were angry and sad and exhausted and knew that there was work washing and packing waiting for us, and we knew we had to fill the orders.
there are so many other memories to share and recollect, but this is what comes to me know in a stream, and these pictures are what the farm looks like at this very moment, on this day in september, three years later.
i am trying to believe that some kind of dreamy situation lies ahead :: that somehow i will still get to listen to, care for, admire, and stay connected to this little burrow in southwest iowa. do you think it is possible? i am trying to be open to it.
