"Walk up"

(week 13 Newsletter:)

One
of the first things that strikes you
while sitting behind the rounded rumps of two amiable horses, in a cart,
traversing an old familiar and common road is the newness of the landscape-and
the unexpected beauty of a place you’ve grown somewhat dull to and over-
accustomed with. Your eye, at that speed, can take in the full measure of the
sky and the light falling into little basins and clearings, settling into nooks
and crannies once un-noticed, now suddenly dear. You cannot ignore the effect
that a horse-paced mode of travel has on you- it brings with it sudden rushes
of delight (oh
rare and wonderful sensation!)
and beaming gratitude for all the richness that is living in a world of corn,
fat in the shock, pastures lush with clover and green, woods with slender birch
trees, leaves shimmy dancing in the breeze. People you pass do not suffer swift
judgment, but lingering and smiling observation accompanied with a grin and a
wave-so very different from the cloud of dust and exhaust that your car would
leave them with.
Pace is an important thing to consider in our lives. It can well mean the
difference between a life well-lived, children well-raised, and a life largely
missed, children abandoned to the ravages of Rush and Go and Hurry-We-Can’t –Be-Late.
A slackened pace can pick up many minutes and bind them into the bouquet of a
memorable and marvelous evening.
Nine years ago
I ran off to UCLA in a car borrowed last minute, with a friend (as eager for
ballet as I was, but unsure of the wisdom of our hell-bent venture toward
heaven), and a pocket filled with not quite enough money for a ticket to see
Suzanne Farrell’s ballet company perform many of the works she had danced in
her day as George Balanchine’s famous muse. I had the youthful, implicit,
slightly arrogant faith that so pure and so passionate a desire as mine for
that performance would not go unrewarded, and in a breathless tizzy I reached
the box office window and proceeded to beg for a deeply discounted ticket…equally
swift came the reply “I’m sorry, we’re sold out.” And as I reeled away from the
window I had absolutely no time to absorb my defeat, for a door-man came up to
me (with a much meandering pace) and mentioned he had the perfect view of my
little drama from the entrance to the lobby, and taking it all in, realize he
could be of some assistance. He held out a ticket to me and told me that woman
had given him the ticket saying her date could not make it, and that he was to
give it to the 1st person who looked like they could really use it….”so
hurry!” he cried as he finished his tale, and I ran into the theater, waving
goodbye to my friend who had pushed away the ticket when I had offered, and who
was content with the gallery….I was ushered to a seat 3 row from the stage next
to the most incredibly beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and as I sat down in the
cloud of her very expensive perfume, I marveled at the date who had not shown
up for her…the dancing was electric, exquisite, the execution flawless, the
dancers’ lines undisturbed, the night, an omage to the great work of
Balanchine, his APPOLO, the great Pas de Trois and Divertimento N. 15.
It was followed
by a rapid-fire Q and A session with the principal dancers and Suzanne Farrell
herself. “One last question” the moderator muttered into her microphone, and
suddenly, quite overcome with the emotion of the evening I found myself waving
my arms wildly, and called on. What followed was a kind of cathartic outpouring
of all my impressions of what was my very 1st ballet, and a back and
forth repartee with the dancers, asking them about particular sequences of
their dances, and their preparation and their motivation. One of my great
idols, Balanchine’s very dear Suzanne Farrell herself sat there speechless and
quiet, smiling as my exuberance exhausted itself and embarrassed the moderator.
I ended my fountainour gushing with: “Is it true that your war out you toe
shoes in a single performance? If so, can I have a pair?” The audacity and
idolatry so evident in this request, the evening was quickly closed by the
interviewer, the dancers ushered off-stage and the audience buried it in
laughter and commotion, the pace, shall we say, so hurried and unheeding was
too quick to bind the momentary passion into something more memorable than an
unusual Q and A.
But Suzanne
Farrell had not moved from her chair. She had whispered something to one of the
other dancers and was fixed on me in my seat, as the audience filed out of the
auditorium. She motioned me over, up to the stage. Needless to say I did a few
double takes and looked behind me many time, wondering if there was some
mistake. But there wasn’t. George Balanchine’s Suzanne Farrell bent down,
crouched at the edge of the stage. “Honey” she said in a slow drawl, “wait
here. We’re going to get you some shoes.”
We are living
in an unfamiliar age. As more and more of our population concentrates itself in
urban stings we lose our ties to the land. The generations that have grown up
on the farm that Mom and Dad built are aging now and rapidly passing away. We are losing touch
with that front porch/Sunday social call/barn dance pace as we lose them to
their graves. As I clutched
my toe shoes in the lobby, pink ribbons wrapped tightly around them, I became
aware of the fact that time had come to a stand still and even re-wound itself…a
crowd of old ladies pressed around me. “Your first ballet!” one of them
exclaimed, eyes twinkling as she pressed my hand and admired the shoes Suzanne
Farrell had given me at the lip of the stage. “I had almost forgotten my 1st
ballet. You reminded me of it tonight. You know, dear, I hardly feel a day over
18 just now.”
There are
things we’ve gotten used to: the can opener. Democrats. Republicans. Travel by
car. Credit cards.
But a slackened pace soon opens up for us a newfound appreciation for all those
wonderful things our prosperity has deprived us of: a landscape enjoyed and
embraced with all 5 senses, and a moment of shared delight with our fellow
human beings. There are
things that strike you while sitting in a cart, behind the rumps of two amiable
horses…like seeing an old spouse in a new dress…chief thing is this: there’s
nothing dull in this fine world….Most of it’s marvelous. “Wait here honey. We’re
going to get you some shoes.”

“Walk Up”.

SauerKraut in a Jar
1.)
Shred enough cabbage
to pack a 1 qt. jar.
2.)
Add to the ar 1 tsp
of salt and ½ tsp honey.
3.)
Fill with boiling
water.
4.)
Screw the lid on
tightly. Store in a cool place upside down and check it every 3 days. As it ferments
the caps will bulge. Tighten lids. It will be ready to eat in 6 weeks. Store it
in the fridge for all those wonderful probiotics. SO DIVINE WITH SAUSAGES!


“The
past few years have levied a strange burden of proof upon our backs, a burden
to account for our hours and days, to prove to all who care to watch from the screens
of their phones and computers that we are doing something worthy with our
lives. In the meantime, we have forgotten how to be content in being present.
We have not been transfixed and emptied since we first believed the lie that
all of our experiences must be shared….Let us all remember, now in the presence
of one another, that our memories are enough. May we live to remind each other
to partake of dinner without pause for a clicking shutter or a scribbling pen.
Stay here, drink more wine, and let the memories of a time exist by themselves
within you, and between you and the others. And may your art be a sincere
reflection of what already exists. Not a post of projection for what we desire.
Keep your hours close, and keep intimacy and trust closer. If we give this a
chance, we will surely realize that being present is powerful enough to burn
and consume our hearts, minds, and memories with fullness unparalleled.”

From Rebecca Parker Payne’s essay “Undocumented
Hours”

The Great Melon Harvest of 2012

As the sun set, over the Western hills and Norwegian pines....the field, painted red in the glow, gleamed like a ravaged battle field.

Sweat trickled down into umentionable crevices, as wrestling with weary bodies and war-torn dreams, the couple lobbed melon after melon to eachother out of the vegetable acreage.

This great exodus, these hundreds of CRIMSON sweet watermelon and sugared cantelope, brought with it the realization of years of hopes and fruit-filled dreams.

"The bees" she muttered, whiping her dirt-stained brow, "It's the bee's and their knees...and their incredible work ethic." She chest-passed a basket-ball sized melon, he, waiting in the back of their rusty chevy, shuttered with the impact of it. He grinned weakly. The harvest was great. The workers few.Earlier that afternoon, shuttling the large globes in a kind of a relay to the edge of the field, their two little ones, ages 6 and 3 became inspired to be....flower growers. "When I grow up..." they mused, pausing between loads "I'm not going to have a vegetable garden. Just flowers. For bouquets." Great chortlings and belly laughs ensued...and than quickly died down again...as abdominal muscles are required for hurling medicine balls across rows of vines and weeds....

2 days later, as she guiltily eyed the library, scene of all her once prolific blogging and BLAHging, Mrs. Farmer felt her ample arm gripped in enthusiastic passion:

"Those melons!" he said "I've never tasted a melon like that. Perfectly ripe, so sweet, so, so....Thank you. Thank you for those." And with that he plastered a smile on her face that has not dimmed as of this writing. More later, folks.

Pigs as Pigs

Wordless Working Days

Pre-Ordered Broilers are READY!

Your pastured broilers are now ready for pickup on the farm!
Delivery to Mississippi Market next Wednesday at 4:30 pm.

Kale Almond Pesto

Embrace Kale.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raw almonds, lightly toasted

1 large garlic clove, smashed

about 3 cups chopped kale (or, a big handful of leaves, torn roughly)

1/4 cup grated Pecorino cheese

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, hefty shakes of salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions:In a food processor, pulse smashed garlic clove until chopped finely (about less than a minute). Add kale, toasted almonds and Pecorino cheese until combined, stopping to push down the kale on the sides a couple times.With the food processor running on low, add olive oil in a steady stream until you get the consistency you want. I went with about a full cup of olive oil.Add salt and pepper; taste; adjust as you like.

Field of Dreams

Our corn is not as tall as our neighbor’s corn.

Our neighbor’s corn stands 9 feet tall and it hasn’t even tasseled
yet. Walking into it is like that scene from “field of dreams” where the ghostly
baseball players disappear into a stand of corn on the edge of the baseball
diamond. Corn is, after all, a tropical grass. Amidst such lush foliage,
standing in between rows of giant stalks gripping the ground with toe-like
roots, it is easy to hide away from all the world.
But when I say “neighbor” and I say “corn” I suppose I may
be equivocating. Our farmer “neighbor” lives miles away, rents this field among
several others, and merely calls up the guys who spray and plant and harvest to
tell them WHEN. He doesn’t have to deal with clouds of his chemicals drifting
onto his pastures, vegetable fields, or into his yard. He doesn’t have to farm
with an eye to local community watersheds, or a yearly increase of organic
matter incorporated into the soil for better tilth. He’s very much removed from
the hundreds of acres of dirt he plants to corn or soybeans each year. His
corn, beautiful as it looks to the unsuspecting eye, is a genetically modified
crop, scientifically engineered to be resistant to the round-up he sprays every
year to keep the weeds down. Never-mind that weeds eventually do adapt, and
become harder each season to eradicate, for the time being his field is pretty
clean…and by that we mean, free of weeds with only corn growing in it. And that’s
a dirty secret.
The secret of those hundreds of acres of corn is a kind of
wholesale soil prostitution. This land was once farmed by three brothers with
horse drawn walking plow and hutzpah. Every year, manure was splayed out onto
it to increase fertility and promote good soil structure. It boasts a rich and
storied past of men and women who worked with an ever fixed eye on the future
generations that would raise their families on the back of it…and now our
absent farmer neighbor treats this dirt as if it’s simply a place holder, a
medium to fill in the holes between the roots…every year the fertility for his
soy beans or his corn comes from a tank on a flatbed truck. Nitrogen.
Potassiam. Phosphorous. Benign words, but dumped onto the land yearly for the
purposes of the year’s crop, and with nary a thought to the soil results in
degraded and denuded dirt, prone to erosion and blowing away.
Every once in a while, in this farming gig, you run smack
into your ideals. Meet them face to face. Sometimes to rekindle an admiration
and longing for them, sometimes to furrow a brow in frustration over them. Trying to talk our absentee farmer-neighbor
into not spraying his crop, or into planting it all to grass instead, as it is
one of many fields he is growing corn and soybeans in, results in one such face
to face confrontation with our ideals. Last spring, when he had hired men to
spray round-up on the hundreds of acres of corn that surrounded our 7 acre CSA
veggie field and newly planted hay-land the day dawned for the task with winds from
the South East at around 15 miles per hour. When chemical drift was noted and
mentioned, he replied with “aw, that stuff’s just sugar, you know.” Which made me wonder about the level of
understanding he had about the chemicals he uses to farm, or whether he
seriously thought we’d be similarly uninterested in the toxin’s use near our
food and our animals’ food.
We walked away with what every skeptic knows running through
our heads: you can’t live out your ideals in a vacuum. There is something about ideals that begs to
be lived together in community with, well, just about everybody else. Like the
cottony catching quality about love, that we all experience at a wedding
between two people crazy about each other. I think that something is truth. To
say that there is a right way to do something is unpopular just at this moment
in our human history, but once upon a time believing in truth, and that it
could be known was not only common, it was laudable. There are a million ways
to farm well….but it isn’t going too far to say there are some ways of farming
badly. Poisoning plants and wildlife, contaminating watersheds, and ignoring
soil tilth. I’d be willing to go farther than saying it’s farming badly. I’d
say it’s not farming at all.
Farming consists in some kind of connection with the soil.
For some that’s spiritual. For other’s it simply means they plan for it,
provide for it, and work with a view to its benefit, in a patient give and take
relationship that is laced with a “for its own sake and for those that come
after me” attitude. Farming consists in being present to the land that gives
back to you, for better or for worse. A kind of “you’ll find me in the field”
mentality that weds itself to the reality of taking good care of a piece of
dirt, milking the animals that graze on it, and planting and watering the seed
that is planted on it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The farming
farms you.
My own version of it entails twilight opera sung at the top
of my lungs to scare away the deer from my 400 foot row of sugar snap
peas. We swallow the calumniations of “crazy”
or “naïve”…appellations that sometimes come at a time when a truck broke down,
or an energizer busted, forcing us to dramatic measures of toting pigs in the
back of our Buick Century, or running the rows like some wild aborigine yelping
and singing siren songs in the dark….Every day we wrestle with our ideals.
Weigh them against the hard realities of life with two small children. Conscious
of the fact that while farming is not a religion, neither is it a mere
occupation. It is should not trump our children or each-other, try as it might
vying for every last inch of our effort and attention…what is farming? It’s a
field of dreams. Against the backdrop of the farm e verything you’ve been, are,and will be materializes and floats in front of you. It’s staying put, putting
up, and riding the roller coaster ride of the four seasons. Flinging you to the
skies even as it wrestles you to the ground…If you build it they will come, the
garden toads, and butterflies, the lady bugs and and bees…and others too…that is the hope, others willing to build it with you.