This was the final week of my unexpected summer vacation, and thus the last opportunity of the year to work on the farm. I’ve been volunteering one day per week since June, alternating between Henry’s and Teresa’s farms. Henry grows vegetables, and his sister Teresa grows fruit and herbs.
Henry was having a particularly challenging week; his only experienced farm hand, Matt, had to go in for knee surgery and will have to miss work for the next couple of months. And besides that serious loss of help, all three of Henry's superstar farm kids, now mostly adult, had left the nest for their various schools for the winter. That left Henry with a bleak staff of only three capable apprentices, one part-time intern from a previous year who had come to help out in Matt’s absence, and Henry’s retired parents. And me.
On top of all that, Henry had to go in for root canal surgery on Monday, so his own body was in recovery mode. I never would have guessed that, though, judging from the super-human energy Henry was tackling the work at hand.
Since it was my last week and I couldn't bring myself to miss out on Teresa's farm one last time, I decided to work an extra half day, spending Wednesday afternoon with Teresa, then all day Thursday with Henry. But the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became about Henry's predicament, so I decided to take down enough clothes for Friday morning too, just in case he could use me for a few extra hours. I was not sure I would have enough stamina to work yet another morning after a full day and a half. Usually one day is enough to exhaust me and the day after farm day each week has typically been one where my muscles are completely useless, aching as they heal from the activity they are so unused to. But, my muscles are actually getting stronger, and "Hey, I can give it a shot," I thought.
Ground Cherries
So Wednesday afternoon I helped Teresa and Michael harvest ground cherries. Michael despises the job, and I actually like it. Since the cherries grow on vine-like bushes on the ground, the technique is to carefully lift the vines a few inches, and pick up the ripe cherries underneath that have fallen to the ground. The ones left on the vine are not yet ripe. To me it's like searching for hidden Easter eggs, or secret treasures. Each and every berry needs to be carefully checked for cracks, which must be done by feel, since the cherries are wrapped in beautiful dry flower-like petals. Each cherry must be groped through the petals for hidden flaws. This time-consuming task is most likely why you just don't see ground cherries at the grocery store. Teresa likes growing as much variety of fruit as she can in this climate, even though it may require extra work. This diversity is good for the land, good for health, and good for business. And it also reduces the risk of disaster. This year, for example, the ground cherries have helped to offset Teresa's loss from the frost early on that killed all of her apples and pears. The ground cherries grew like gang-busters this season, so the harvest has been going on nearly every day for a few weeks.
Raccoon Sadness
The sad event on Thursday was the raccoon. Teresa and Michael keep a trap for small predators who might enjoy feasting on their chickens or tasting their fruit. Normally they take the trapped animals several miles down the road and release them into the forest. This time, however, the poor raccoon died while trying to get out of the trap. I felt it was important for me to experience both the good and the sad things on the farm, so decided to help Michael with the task of disposing of the little body.
The cage is about the size of a good-sized bathroom hamper. Michael and I each lifted one end; the cage was surprisingly heavy. The raccoon had struggled so much for freedom that the bottom of the cage had become buried in the dirt by a couple of inches, and the dirt remained packed tightly between the wires. We carried the cage to a dense grove of trees and dumped the body, now stiff, onto several old branches on the ground. We carefully hoisted the branches and swung the body into the thicket as far as we could get it. "Goodbye, sweet little raccoon," I said in my heart, and I tried not to shed tears in front of Michael.
By the time we got back to the house, Teresa had dinner on the stove. Dinner was a delicious soup with beans and vegetables. She also served gluten-free English muffins with her home-made pesto, topped with Greek cheese and broiled. Food tastes unbelievably good on the farm after a day of hard work.
Home Is Where Your Heart Is
I went straight to bed after supper, knowing that I needed to be up at four the next day. The past couple of weeks Teresa has let me stay in the apartment she has in the basement for her interns, since her last intern is now gone. The bedroom has a bunk bed that is just long enough for me if I put my head in the book cubby of the headboard. The bedroom has one large window that overlooks the back yard and beyond that, the chickens. The window is left open most of the summer; air conditioning is used only for the hottest days of the summer. The cicadas and crickets were chirping and I relaxed into a blissful, restful sleep in one of the most peaceful places on earth.
I was up and dressed before the rooster crowed, already eating the breakfast I had packed. "Rrr-Rrr-Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," it crowed, and I checked my watch. Exactly 5:00. "Rrr-Rrr-Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr," it coaxed the sun, still lingering well out of sight beyond the horizon, its rays perceived only by the rooster - certainly not me. It seemed just as dark to me as at midnight; were it not for my watch or the rooster, I would have no idea it was morning. I wonder how roosters know when it is time to get up? Why do roosters crow, anyway? It's one of those wonderful mysteries that I hope to understand someday. Teresa tells me this rooster is the best she's ever had. He takes good care of all the chickens. When she brings a treat out to them, he goes and rounds them all up, and doesn't start to eat the treat himself until all of the chickens have had a chance to get there, too.
Henry’s Farm
Henry's farm is about a fifteen minute drive from Teresa's, but this year Henry is letting his land rest and is using property of "The Land Connection", an organization founded and operated by his sister Terra. Driving past that land, I checked for Henry's trucks, but they had not yet arrived, so I continued on to Henry's house.
The day usually starts for the interns at 6 AM and goes to 6 PM, with a two-hour break for lunch. Henry starts before that and typically works with his family on into the evening. When I turned into Henry's drive, their dog Koko greeted me with a huge, toothy dog-smile, and a bark or two, and chased after my car until I parked. Koko is the dog that planted herself in my face one day several weeks ago. Surprisingly, I had no allergic reaction, whatsoever. At first I thought maybe Koko was special, but curious, I later tested my allergies against my neighbor's dogs that have given me horrible rashes and sinus congestion in the past. Nothing happened, and I realized my allergies were gone. Because of this, Koko will always occupy a special place in my heart; she is the first dog I've had an opportunity to really enjoy.
Potato Joy
Henry does most of the harvesting on Friday, the day before Market, so that the produce will be as fresh as possible. But this week, because of the shortage of hands, we started on Thursday with items that are less perishable than others.
Like potatoes. POTATOES! What a blast it is to harvest potatoes!! Get down on your hands and knees and grope around in the black, rich, fragrant, soft soil for hidden treasures, buried several inches below. The soil is covered with a few inches of straw. Move that aside and dig with your fingers. Now at last I can say I know how wonderful it is to be a pig, except that instead of using my nose to dig, I nuzzled the ground with my fingers. The dirt is truly magic. At first there was a city-girl urge to protect my fingernails, but clawing with the flat of my fingers didn't work well, so my reluctance quickly gave way to complete abandon as I clawed with my nails. It reminded me of playing in the sandbox as a child. And the delight that happened when my fingers would close around a firm round potato is not easily surpassed.
The Zipper
...But surpassed it was, because soon I discovered the delight of riding Henry's garlic zipper! That's my word, not his - I don't actually know what Henry calls the implement that he designed himself. For some reason it makes me think of "unzipping" the garlic, so that's what I call it. It's actually more like a cheese slicer. Dragged behind Henry's tractor, the zipper slices the earth underneath the garlic to loosen it for picking. But today, we were not using the zipper for garlic, but for carrots. My task was to ride on top as a weight, so that the zipper would slice deep enough to get underneath the longest carrots. Val showed me how to hang onto this hole here with my left hand and that bolt there with my right. Like a ride in the amusement park, the zipper lowered into the ground and Val and I hung on as we were dragged backwards for the ride of my life, stretching our legs out in front of us to clear the tops of the carrots and earth passing underneath our butts. Unlike an amusement park ride, there were no seatbelts or safety rails. One slip might not have been a serious tragedy, but would certainly not have been pretty.
At the end of the row, Henry stopped and the implement started to rise, and Val and I rode it up and up until it came free of the jaws of the earth.
This is the first year Henry has used his zipper for carrots, and it turned out that one pass was not enough to loosen the carrots sufficiently. So - I got two rides for the price of one!! This time the zipper cut through the earth easier, and Henry was able to drag it much faster while Val and I hung on, this time with the ground passing by so fast underneath that if we caught our foot on it we would surely have been dragged right off the zipper. But, with that motivation to keep our feet up, they stayed up, and no tragedy occurred. Pulling the carrots up after that was a fairly simple task. We tore the leaves off the carrots, leaving them behind to feed the soil.
Scallions
My scallion job was a comparatively cushy job, and I relished the opportunity to be able to sit. Two of us sat in the shade of the truck cleaning armloads of scallions that Henry would drop at our feet. "Peel off the layers until there's no deep 'V'," Sydney demonstrated. Then lop off the tops of any leaves that are bent, and lay the scallions in a neat pile, just so. Henry then bundled the scallions into handfuls of four or five, depending on their size, and packed them carefully into crates for market. Scallion after scallion went into bundle after bundle, filling crate after crate.
The rich aroma of fresh scallions tantalized my nose and teased my tear-ducts, but no tears came because of the fresh breeze that was just soft enough to ease the sting of the onions, yet strong enough to cool us from the hot sun.
Irrigation
The sun grew hotter and my tired aching body started telling me it was lunchtime, the needle slipping dangerously near empty. But on Henry's Farm, you just keep going until he announces that it's time for a break. And his idea of lunchtime is usually well beyond what my own body's schedule is prompting. The little hand on my watch was solidly on the 12, and as the scallion piles got smaller I started to think about food. But Henry had other ideas. "We need to block off more irrigation tapes," he announced.
"Ahh no -- it's going to rain, Henry Brockman," Val groaned. But Henry was firm. The drought is not over.
This harsh, hot, dry season has been especially challenging on Henry's Farm. Without rain from the sky, each plant on the acres of Henry's fields needs to receive water some other way; otherwise the delicate plants would shrivel up and there would be nothing to take to market. So Henry has a system of hoses and irrigation drip tapes that connect ultimately to a life-giving well on the property.
I was already familiar with the irrigation tapes, as they have played such a vital role on the farm this summer. The farm is made up of tractor-width beds about the length of a football field, with aisles in between that we used when weeding, thinning, and harvesting. Each bed has three rows of plants running the length of the bed. We would lay the irrigation tapes right on the tops of the plants on one row, and let the water drip down giving life to the thirsty plants. Every two to three hours the tapes would need to be moved from the first row to the next. One tape per bed, three rows of plants per bed waiting their turn for the tape they shared, many beds per field, several fields in the farm.
Since this summer has been so dry, moving the tapes from one row to the next has been an ongoing chore needing to be done every two to three hours, during the day AND throughout the night. Henry has taken on the night responsibility himself, being too considerate to ask it of his paid help or even his children. Night after night this season Henry has pulled himself out of bed one to two times to move the tapes all by himself in the darkness of the night. Morning after morning he still had to get himself up for a full day of back-breaking farming.
Because of the hours spent in irrigation, less time was available for fighting the endless attack of villain weeds. The weeds were also thirsty and would steal the precious water intended for Henry's vegetables. Last week, in fact, while weeding young tender lettuces, I came to a section of the bed that, because of the size of the plants, I judged to be a different variety of vegetables. But no. "Look again", Sydney said. The tiny lettuces were still there; they were simply overcome by gigantic Morning Glory weeds that were thriving at the expense of the lettuce. Unfortunately, hard choices must be made on the farm, and this summer the choice has been to get the water to the plants first, and weed later with any remaining time.
About a week ago, the farm finally received its first real rain of the season, and Henry exuberantly announced he had received 8/10 of an inch, enough for him to get a full night's uninterrupted rest. But today, after several days in a row with temperatures in the high 80's and 90's, it was time to regroup and set things up again for irrigation. Henry had a new field that had just been planted the day before, and the field needed new tapes to be set up. That meant we had to dismantle the system of hoses and tapes in one field recently harvested, and move everything to the new field. The day was hot and the newly planted seeds badly needed water. Lunch would have to wait.
Lunchtime!
When Henry was satisfied and the gift of water was bestowed on the new field, Henry announced lunchtime. Henry's wife, Hiroko, is a wonderful cook, and although the apprentices go back to their own quarters for their break, Henry and Hiroko have always kindly invited me to share lunch with them. Today the faire consisted of a delicious "veggie pie" that contained a mix of veggies with cheese, nuts, and raisins. I could literally have eaten the whole pie by myself, it was so delicious and I was so hungry. But besides the pie there was also a wonderful corn and rice dish, fresh tomatoes, and cucumbers. Both Hiroko and Teresa have taken great pains all summer to provide food that would fit in with my challenging gluten-free diet. Henry's father Herman also has a gluten sensitivity, so they were already familiar with the challenge. Even so, their gracious consideration for my diet really touched me.
After lunch was nap time. Hiroko had prepared a futon in the next room for me to rest on. Each time I've worked with Henry I've worried about getting the futon dirty with my heavily soiled farm clothes. But Hiroko doesn't seem to mind and I've gratefully been able to relax for an hour of blissful rest.
Tomatoes
With my tank filled and my muscles rested, I felt like a new woman, ready to tackle the last few hours of the day. We spent the rest of the afternoon harvesting cherry tomatoes, and later the hybrid tomatoes. The exquisite heirloom tomatoes would be harvested on Friday at the last possible moment before market. Before I knew it, Henry was asking Val to take my place so I could go home. Shocked, I looked at my watch, and it was indeed 6 PM. I realized that Val would be putting in extra time that evening, and I offered to stay a couple of hours longer. "Nope," Henry replied. "I need you fresh and strong tomorrow; it's going to be a big day."
So gratefully I returned to Teresa's house for the night. Teresa had supper on the stove. I was so exhausted I laid down on her floor while she finished up her blog for the market news. Every bone in my body ached, each muscle felt like rubber. This was no different than any other day I've had on the farm this summer. The difference this time was that I was not in the car driving home. I would not be sleeping in my own bed. I would not be sleeping in the next morning. I would be facing what Henry and Teresa and Val and the rest face every single day - heavy, hot, sweaty communion with the earth.
Harvest Struggles
Friday morning things were different and the urgency of the task ahead was readily apparent to me. This was my first ever real harvest day. Today every minute, every second had to count. The day before market day is one huge race. Harvesting of most items on Henry's farm can't be done in advance because of the extremely short shelf lives of his vegetables. Sure, Henry could use seeds that are bred to last longer; it would make his life a lot easier. But Henry respects and values the superior quality of crops that are bred for nutrition and flavor instead. So the day before market is the one and only chance Henry has to harvest those crops, and anything that doesn't get done that day simply doesn't get to market, and Henry doesn't get paid. So it is essential to harvest quickly and efficiently.
The Dreaded Twistie
I felt like a beginner flute player trying to play with the symphony. The pace was intense. My first task was to help Johnekie (forgive the spelling?) with the parsley. Johnekie showed me how to cut the parsley, clean the dead leaves away, arrange it like a flower bouquet, tie a twistie around it, and finally cut the stems neatly at the bottom. She made it look so easy! She helped my clumsy fingers with my first awkward bundle, but then she was off working swiftly and deftly as she worked steadily to a solid and graceful rhythm: cut, clean, arrange, tie, slice. Cut, clean, arrange, tie, slice. My own rhythm felt more like the unpredictable cadence of Stravinsky. My cut bundles came out in varying sizes. My clumsy fingers struggled to achieve the beautiful orb-shaped bouquets that were required, but when I pulled one erring stem down, the next one would come down with it. I poked and pulled and pushed and coaxed until I finally judged my impossible bouquet to be good enough. Next came the twistie. I tried to remember the intricate sequence Johnekie had shown me, but finally had to ask her for one more demonstration. Slicing the stems neatly was another challenge. I took aim and whacked just like I’d seen Johnekie do, but for me, only one or two ends flew off, leaving the rest of the bundle intact. I yearned for a cutting board but that's hardly workable on the field. Discouraged, I reminded myself that, although I was slow and could not hope to keep up with the experienced staff, each bundle of parsley I could manage meant one less bundle the others would have to prepare. I thought that, if I could help Henry and the others get to bed 15 minutes sooner at the end of the day, I would be happy with my efforts.
Lettuce Is For Love
Cleaning the lettuce came next, and I found it quite a bit easier than the parsley. This time I worked with Hiroko. Henry was selecting the heads of lettuce he wanted for market, cutting them off and leaving them in the aisles between the beds. Hiroko showed me how to remove the wilted outer leaves and make a clean slice at the bottom, and place the head in a crate. We had to work fast because the sun was hot and threatening to wilt any lettuce left unprotected in the aisles. The soft lettuce was a lot more cooperative than the parsley and no twisties were involved, so I really enjoyed working with it.
Kale Is For ‘K’antankerous!
The lettuce task came to an end far too quickly, and the twistie nightmare returned. How hard can it be to secure something with a silly twistie? I just could not get the hang of it. This time Mustard showed me his technique, which was completely backwards from the technique I had learned from Johnekie. We were harvesting kale now, and the new method seemed even more awkward than the first. Mustard then showed me how to find an imaginary line about midway up the plant which divided the good leaves from the old tough leaves. “Here’s a good leaf,” he said, showing me a leaf near the top. “And here’s an old tough one.” I looked twice, but to me they looked identical. What seemed obvious to him was another elusive mystery to me. The color was the same, the texture, the curl of the leaves, the space between the veins, the size. I have two eyes, but was completely blind to whatever it was he was seeing. “Ok,” he said. “Just clean off the leaves up to about here on each plant and take the ones at the top.” He showed me how to make a triangle with my hands around the stem of the plant, and push down hard to the bottom to remove all of the leaves in one fell swoop. “Act like you mean business,” he said. When I tried it, I got three or four leaves off, but the rest of the stubborn gang remained hanging intact from the stem, seeming to mock my efforts.
We had to make nice bouquets with the kale, as I had done earlier with the parsley. “If the leaves are all sticking out like bad hair,” Mustard explained, “they break off or become easily damaged in the truck.”
We moved from green kale to red kale and from black kale to curly kale. We made piles of three and counted up to our assigned quotas for each variety. Throughout the effort I struggled to maintain a delicate balance between asking enough questions to be able to be productive, yet not so many questions that the others couldn’t do their own jobs.
Henry sauntered over to me and I asked him to inspect the bundle of kale I had just finished. “It looks pretty good,” he said. But then he took a closer look. “Hmm. Maybe this leaf is too damaged. We’ll just pull it out.” Then he looked a little further, and pulled out another leaf, and then another. And another. Finally he handed me back my bundle, now half the size it was before. I thought of all the other bundles I had already prepared in much the same way. I’m sure he was thinking of the same thing.
The sad thing was, that particular variety of kale had so much heat damage from the drought that it had taken two full plants to come up with that single lonely bundle of leaves, damaged as it was. Henry has high standards though, and was willing to discard the 95% of the plant that was damaged, keeping only the scant best of the leaves. Val explained that leaving those damaged leaves behind was no waste; they served two purposes. First, they would become nourishing compost for the soil. Second, they would serve as a mulch around the remaining plant, which would soon grow new fresh leaves for a later harvest. The leaf-mulch would protect the plant from weeds.
Beautiful Basil
Basil was next, and by now I was starting to get the hang of the twisties, twirling the basil around the twistie like a baton. The basil was fragrant and the stems were soft and easier to cut. Since basil is naturally gorgeous, it was easy to arrange the bundles into beautiful bouquets. These were the same basil plants I had hand-picked beetles from two months ago. Since then, Henry’s crew had cut back the beetle-damaged tops and new, beautifully clean, blemish-free basil was now ready for Henry’s lucky customers. We needed 150 bundles, and when we got to the last ten, we started a countdown, each person calling the next number as we finished our last bundle.
When we got back to the barn at lunchtime, Henry was already busy washing all the greens we had prepared. He has two large basins of water, into which he dunked one to two crates of greens at a time, crates and all. Fresh water continuously ran into the basins. When sufficiently clean, Henry put the wet crates onto roller tables and we pushed them to the cooling room where they would be chilled. Henry’s father Herman was stacking the crates neatly in the room. Henry’s mother Marlene was also bustling about, and the others were racing to complete tasks like a well-trained team, stacking things here and moving things there. Henry asked me to help Hiroko unload lunch, which she had just brought over from the house. As this was harvest day, there was no time for everyone to return to their respective quarters for a break, so Hiroko served everyone food that she had prepared the day before.
Sadly, this was the end of my farm day and farm experience for the summer; school will start this Monday. I left the others to continue with their marathon effort. Henry had already returned to the fields before I had even finished my lunch. As I said goodbye to the farm I had grown to love, I felt a lump growing in my throat.
“Thank you for being our friend this summer,” Marlene called after me. Friends, indeed. They are friendships to cherish.
