What Concerns Everyone (Cory)

Last time I saw Eddie, he told me to look out for Benson cows in Germany. They're here, though he says even he wouldn't know how to find them. I haven't run across one yet, but this summer's experience on the farms continues to resonate with me in many ways even all the way across the pond.

When I walk down the produce aisle in the German grocery stores I frequent, in Netto or Lidl or Aldi, I am very aware of the Ursprung of the potatoes and the tomatoes, the peaches, the onions. Germany? Italy? New Zealand? It doesn't mean that I stick with only German products, but when I do buy nectarines from Spain, that's a choice of which I am conscious. It's clear that the local/organic fad is here, too, and it's similarly complicated (people tell me, for instance, that you can't necessarily trust a food item marked "BioBio" or "Ökologische" to be organic, due to wide disparity in controlling and evaluating organic farming). I've had a surprising, to me, number of conversations in Berlin about eating locally and eating organically -- are people here more aware of some of the food-related issues the OFAF team started to consider this summer? Or is it just that I'm more aware? It's hard to tell. But I am definitely more aware. And I feel that my perspective on food, the way I think about it, purchase it, and prepare it, has changed. Permanently, if not massively. As someone who as of six months ago saw nothing but price tags in the grocery store, I feel excited about this change in myself because it seems to me an indication that just opening the dialogue is a big step. I mean, really all that did it was getting to know some farmers and hanging out on some farms for a while.

From two months' distance, these themes and surprises rise to the top for me:

• Farming is a job. A farm is a business. (Small farms have to find their niche to survive.)
• For a small farmer, farming must also be a lifestyle. (No vacation, or not REALLY.)
• Tradition is significant, as is the breaking of tradition. Farmers are not stuck in the past, but they are certainly in dialogue with it.
• Working extensively on or owning a farm gives you a close and unique relationship with the life cycle.
• There is no set definition of "farmer." (Pride.)
• Farming is a rollercoaster of emotion.
• Each generation on a farm has a tough decision to make.
• Farming is about family. Growing up on a farm is something special.
• There is no easy solution to the difficulties these farmers face. It's all complicated.

And these images: Bright vegetables and faded clothing. Early morning mist and dew so that everything looks old or like a dream. A July afternoon when everything sticks to you -- straw, your clothing, sawdust, cat fur, the smell of dung -- and small blisters pop out on the palm of your hand under the hoe. When it's too hot to talk. White shirts showing scrubbed-in dirt. Picking a lemon cucumber and eating it, in the field, with its prickles and its cool watery insides that quench thirst. (Cool as a cucumber. How is it that cucumbers really are still cool on a ninety-degree day?) A sick cow, the way her eyes turn glassy, the way the fight comes back into them after an IV. Or the deep sleep of cows -- a cow passed out with her tongue lolling from her mouth, Ryan pulling on it, the cow sleeping on. Tali in his hooded sweatshirt and thin plastic gloves. Huge sudden welts from afternoon mosquitos layered over a rash of tiny bites from early morning invisibugs. Stout geese running, wings spread. The absence of the barn as strong as its presence. Clothes that people wear every day or almost every day, like Penny's polka dot boots or John's feminine straw hat or Trey's orange rubber apron or the Crocs that abound in Broadturn in the morning -- like costumes or uniforms. Flora's porcelain-doll face smeared with homemade cheese spread, white and peppered with fresh herbs. A field full of weeds bigger than the fragile salad greens sprouting underneath.

For me, theatre, indeed art in general, is about asking questions -- not providing the answers to them. Artists alone don't have the solutions for the things farmers are facing. Neither do the farmers, alone. Neither do the scholars who study agriculture, alone. Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote 21 "points" to accompany his play The Physicists which I find to be absolutely lovely, and a few are very pertinent, I think, for us:

15. [A drama about physics] cannot have as its goal the content of physics, but its effect.

16. The content of physics is the concern of physicists, its effect the concern of all men.

17. What concerns everyone can only be resolved by everyone.

18. Each attempt of an individual to resolve for himself what is the concern of everyone is doomed to fail.

Strongly worded for sure, but what I like about it/take from it is that it's our job to identify important questions, and to start helping to ask them. So, some questions that I've thought of:

• What role does farming play in our world? What role should it play?
• What role does it play in Maine?
• What is going to happen to farms like our three farms in the future? What should happen?
• What are the sacrifices and rewards that farmers make/receive? At what point do the sacrifices outweigh the rewards?
• Why should non-farmers care about farmers/farming?
• What is the role of tradition in farming?
• What is a farmer? (SURPRISE!)

The question for us, then, is not how to answer the questions we come up with, but how to dramatize them. And, also, how to craft a story out of farm life that will be dramatic and at the same time not seem to the farmers played up, overblown, unreal.

By Intelligent Experiment (Jennie)

Describing the role of agricultural organizations and fairs in 1870, Grange Master Daniel H. Thing had this to write in his annual report to the Board of Agriculture (Reznick, T.):

When a large number of individuals combine together for the purpose of accomplishing a certain object, there are just as many minds at work and just as many intellects laboring for the same object as there are individuals in the association, and among persevering, progressive men, there is always a noble contention or rather emulation to excel, which is continually spurring them on to greater exertions. Again, it is essential in order to make the greatest improvement, that these associations come together and compare notes and products, that they may know who excels in any calling or department, or in regard to any particular animal or article, and how they do it; whether by chance or by intelligent experiment.

For most of us, the succession of county fairs that mark the passage of mid-summer to deep autumn recall sticky hands filled with fried dough and the nausea of one-too-many trips aboard the almighty Gravitron. We might remember blueberry pie contests and big trucks smashing smaller trucks; we may even look forward to the ox-pulling. But with the distractions of the midway, it can be difficult for the average fair-goer to remember the original purpose of the county fair: agricultural education.

I recently attended the Northeastern Giant of ag fairs, FRYEBURG, with my family. I insisted that we travel to the fair on Thursday, not Saturday, so that we could see some part of the Open Dairy Show. Shows of this kind have been an annual tradition in Maine since the Somerset Agricultural Society held their first fair in 1819. At that time, the animal deemed best cow was awarded a premium of $5. (Reznick, T.) I don’t know what the premiums are these days, but Eddie could tell you. Eddie could tell you because the Bensons’ prize milk cow, Dolly, was named Grand Champion in the Holstein show at Fryeburg this year.

The Of Farms and Fables artistic team attended a smaller fair, the Ossipee Valley Fair, in July. At Ossipee, I developed a bit of an addiction for watching the Bensons compete in dairy shows. This addiction was in no way mitigated by my attendance at Fryeburg. First of all, the cows look gorgeous. They are carefully clipped and brushed and primped and pampered before each appearance, and the result is stunning. Second, the entire Benson family is on hand to do their part – prepping animals, showing in the arena, texting results back to Ryan at the farm. I have never seen Eben show, but Erica and Kati exhibit the utmost professionalism in their work; neat and trim in bleach white pants and bright blue Benson Farm shirts, they are graceful, poised, and attentive. And then, it doesn’t hurt that the Bensons tend to do really well. It’s kind of like I’m a Benson groupie; I know the stars of the show, and I get to hear praise lavished upon them (“the best udder in the show”!) and then sit in suspense as the judge walks down the line, trophy in hand . . . and then this cow – this cow that calved in my first week on the farm – wins Grand Champ!

Dolly (with Kati) wins her class at the Fryeburg Open Dairy Show.

Eddie and Becky both have described to us the role that the fairs play in the vitality of their farm. Doing well in competition helps them market the herd, and participating in the events helps them improve the genetics of their animals. Just like at the first fairs, it keeps them informed. And it is not without contemporary relevance that my opening quotation refers to "intelligent experiment"; science is a discipline increasingly embedded in a dairy farmer's lexicon of required knowledge. From individualized feed blends to embryonic transfer, experimentation and awareness of the latest trends keeps small dairy farms afloat in an industrialized agricultural world. The Bensons' herd of 60 cows in milk is average in Maine, but compared to some state averages of 1,000+ it is small. (National Agriculture Statistics Service) The Bensons remain competitive because of the quality of their animals. I’ve heard multiple stories about the friendly (and sometimes not-so friendly!) competition between Benson Farm and other area competitors, and I know that it means a lot when their animals are selected as the best of the breed. It is abundantly clear upon one’s first visit to Kay-Ben that the Benson family are experts in their field and that they are constantly working to improve their knowledge and approaches. Despite the fact that for many who attend them the fairs are all about rides and cotton candy, it is heartening to witness the core of their original purpose in full and thriving good health.

The Process of Gratitude (Jennie)

“What’s the matter, Jennie, you lost?” Pee Wee calls to me from across the rows of green beans. It is just after lunch. I am standing with an empty 5 Gallon bucket in one hand and a vague expression of doubt displayed across my face. I am looking for the last plant I picked clean during the morning. I check one plant and move forward in the row; I check another and move back again.

“I’m lost.” I say with a sigh. “I don’t think these have been picked.”

“What do you mean, not picked?” he asks me.

“There are still beans on them.” I say doubtfully.

“Nah.”

Pee Wee brushes past me and strides down the row; he is merely glancing at the plants below him as he moves. Stopping suddenly about twenty feet along, he bends to part the leaves of a plant at his knees.

“Here.” He says.

I shake my head. “How do you do that?”

In my final rotation on Jordan’s Farm, Penny has deliberately assigned me to work with The Guys as much as possible. I have tagged along in the fields, nervously wielded a hoe, and bumped about on the tailgate of the truck like Winnie-ther-Pooh on the stairs. I have harvested beets, cucumbers, the first of the season’s peppers and cherry tomatoes, and I have harvested beans. Lots of beans. Flat beans, amarillo, and green, green beans.

In the cucumber patch on Wednesday, in the heat, I find myself comparing this work with four jovial Puerto Rican men to the work I have done with the women at Broadturn. Here, I am generally just trying to keep up. Here, I am always trying to understand. And here, I am gently absorbing the wisdom of Pee Wee.

“What’s next, Pee Wee?”

“Cucumbers.”

“Same as yesterday?”

“No, the new ones. Have to be careful.”

Making our way through the rows, I can see what he means. We stomp straight across the rows of yesterday’s harvest – picked multiple times and succumbing now to weeds and rot. After six or eight rows we come to an expanse of vibrant and virile cucumber plants; these have broad, fresh leaves spilling across the rows and a look of being untouched. Pee Wee instructs me further that this time, the ripe fruit will be in the center of the plants, because the plants are young. “Take only the biggest ones.”

And this sets me to thinking, once again, about an awareness of life’s process. Somehow, never having gardened and knowing very little about plants, I always picture the strong, beautiful, and actively producing version of the plant. (Is this influenced in some way by our culture’s preoccupation with the “youth and beauty” phase of our own life process?) It affected me to fully realize that the cucumber does not go directly from strong and virile to dead. It continues to produce, only not as much and not as well. It begins to rot at one end while stubbornly creating new fruit at the other. And from the farmer’s perspective – less care is given once those plants have reached a certain point. One needn’t be so careful of accidentally treading upon the leaves; weeds are allowed to stake their claim upon shared ground. Fruit is harvested, but quickly. No time is wasted searching among the sub-par for the perfect fruit that likely is not there. The plant is no longer worth the extra work, but this transition is a gradual process.

On so many occasions this summer, I have felt a subtle expansion in my awareness of life cycles; in portions of conversation, in certain striking visions of bolted lettuces, in the endless repetition of particular physical actions I have noticed again and again – aha! This is life at work. In our Story Circle with the work share members at Broadturn last Tuesday, we asked what they see of the farm that the average CSA member does not. To clarify: work share members help to harvest once per week in exchange for their vegetables; most CSA members simply pay for a share and visit the farm each week to pick it up. The predominant answer we received: the dark side. The completeness and the complexity of the cycle. A paying CSA member won’t see the vegetables rotting in the fields, the eggplants destroyed by potato beetles, or the chicks that die in the night. Bea and Megan broadened this observation to say: without these experiences, one’s knowledge of the food is incomplete. Because of this, the perception of value attached to the food is different.

Work Share Story Circle at Broadturn Farm

Beyond simply expanding my recognition of life processes at work, the summer has taught me about the truth in cultivation: a practice of growing food for human consumption. A miniature example: I was harvesting cherry tomatoes at Broadturn Farm last week. Despite all efforts to the contrary, I discovered a large tomato hornworm munching his or her way across a vulnerable leaf. The protocol here is to snip the caterpillar in half with a pair of scissors. Shockingly green guzzles of hornworm innards can then be expected to erupt forth from the offending pest, bubbling their way toward earth as the worm’s legs wriggle through the throes of death. I asked Sam about the hornworm. A moth, she said. The moth lays her eggs in the tomato house; the soft green caterpillars are born, and they are poised for a delightful feast (they really like tomatoes). Caught between revulsion toward the hornworm’s insides and a sad appreciation for the beauty of the life it aspires to, I was momentarily immobilized. As I stood there with my open scissors arrested inches from the worm, my thoughts were something like: “Here is a life that I am choosing to end for the good of my own kind. Hornworms must be destroyed if I am to enjoy the fruit of the tomato plant; the interests of the hornworm are directly in conflict with mine.” It was the diminutive nature of this event that had the most profound effect on me. For I suddenly realized: every time I put anything in my mouth, every time I seek to sustain myself, I have at the very least killed a hornworm. The fact that I buy my tomatoes at the farm stand or the supermarket and never see the hornworm does not change the fact that legions of hornworms have been destroyed for my benefit. What was most striking was the realization that so many exchanges of this kind are part of my own sustenance, and for the most part I know nothing of them.

We can intellectually grasp the idea that our lives are built in relationship to others, and that we must kill and eat what was once alive in order to survive. To understand those relationships as a whole being, physically and mentally conscious, is another matter. There has been so much writing and reading in recent years about the divorce our society has created between the consumer and the sources of our food. Many people feel that if they had to kill a cow, they wouldn’t be able to eat it. But what John, and Stacy, and Bea had to say is that it is the Knowing that makes the whole process okay. By knowing the animal or the plant, by taking part in the process of choosing that life for mine, you take responsibility for yourself and for your natural place in the order of things. By adding your own labor to the equation, by working to protect the eggplant you will later eat, you are more likely to highly value that eggplant when you eat it.

Called up from vacant grasslands in the back of my mind, I glimpse the watered-down teachings of various Native American peoples as they were presented to me in early grade school. There is a picture here of a barefoot man kneeling by the deer he has just felled. Some words pass between the man and the deer in the final moments before all light passes from her visage. I don’t know the details, but I know that the man has said: “thank you”. As this image fades through my mind, I find another in its place: a family around a table with heads bowed at their plates. And so I wonder, in a culture divorced from knowledge of our food, what has happened to the mechanics and the rituals whereby we place our thanks? When we do take the time to say thank you, do we know what to be grateful for? Have we successfully abstracted our “thanks” to fit a weak understanding of the gift? Where now do we find the lesson: In knowing the sacrifice of our nourishment, may we aptly express our gratitude. In being truly grateful, may we humbly fulfill our purpose here on Earth?

Tradition, Tradition (Cory)

Speaking of a pair of mutual acquaintances at Thursday's lunchtime workshop with the Benson family, Eddie and Becky's oldest daughter Kati said to Jennie, "Oh, they're wonderful. I'd have loved to have them at my wedding -- if only my family weren't so big..."

Our lunch meeting (Eddie: "It's a good thing you girls are pretty and bring lunch. I've never had so many meetings in my life!") involved only the very tip of that family iceberg, but with three generations of Bensons represented, the dining room felt quite full. The conversation took on a life of its own, with Eddie's mother's opinionated quips, Kati's high-spirited curiosity, and, of course, Eddie's bottomless supply of stories, advice, convictions, facts, and jokes. Even Allison, one of the 4H-ers we got to see compete last month at the Ossipee Valley Fair, got a couple of words in edgewise.

We heard the tale of Kati letting the cows back out one night in the hopes she'd be allowed to help the second time around (a natural desire for a little girl growing up in an environment where the most talked-about -- if most loathed -- job is "gettin' in cows"). We heard from Kati and her brother Eben about playing Search and Rescue with their dad in the sand pit ("Ever hear the expression 'land rich, money poor'?") and spinning around in the middle of a cornfield to get lost. Eddie's mom explained old methods used during haymaking and hay storage. Naturally, the tension between old and new was a topic that surfaced and resurfaced. It's on everyone's mind, anyway, since the collapse of the barn.

The Benson Farm Barn, about a month ago.

"What's something you hope you'll be able to pass on to your children?" we asked.

"Well, the barn was something," Eben joked, and everyone laughed but shot him a look. You could feel that one hit a bit hard. The barn had been a symbol, a presence, a physical reminder of the farm's and the family's proud and intertwining histories. Kati said that when the barn collapsed a flood of emails circulated among family members carrying memories of the old building. A mad rush ensued to get us a copy of The Benson Farm Barn Retrospective that Eddie's sister, Mary Benson Emerson, wrote for the Gorham Times in the wake of the collapse. The loss is something that the family feels deeply.

But the barn was also a real, functioning part of Benson Farm. It held hay and cows and Whistle, the pig, on top of all those memories. Its presence and its function influenced day-to-day farm operation immensely. I remember at our first Kay-Ben story circle, we asked Erica what had stayed the same on the farm over her lifetime. "Nothing," she answered. And yet, the barn was still there. Maybe the way it was being used had changed, but not completely. The factors of size and location, of the building's age and architecture, were limiting ones. Now the family has to figure out how best to replace that barn and the functions it served. Just watching Becky spread a map of the farm out on the table and shift a piece of paper cut to show the size and shape of the barn in the correct scale (a method I can't help noting that designers use in creating theatre sets) reveals the endless array of possibilities opened up by the collapse.

A commercial being shot on Tuesday, right where the barn used to be.

Tradition is a powerful thing, especially in a profession as historically generational as farming. Taking over a farm means inheriting the results of all the wise and unwise decisions made by its past owners; inheriting a relationship with consumers, community, and land; inheriting any debt, stigmas, and quarrels; inheriting the farm's limitations (in space, architecture, resources) as well as its potential; inheriting "the way it's been done." And if you're taking it over from family, you're that much more likely to be influenced by the ideology of the preceding farmers (likely your own mother and father!) about farming and, heck, life.

At 18, Phil Jordan, Bib's son, already knows he wants to eventually take over from his dad. The main concern he shared with us: not being sure of the right times to plant and harvest everything. He's got to gradually learn the Jordan's Farm cycle from Bib, over time. And one very strong tradition on the farm: Corn harvesting. Phil and Bib are almost solely responsible for harvesting corn, with a little help from Miguel when there's really a lot to pick. Bib did it himself until Phil got old enough, and Bib's father did it before him. The Guys harvest everything else on the farm, but for some reason, Jordan's corn is harvested by the farmer and it's been that way for a good long while.

In contrast to the other farms, John and Stacy, on Broadturn, have a greater share in helping to create tradition -- in more ways than one -- than they do in continuing it. They're first-generation farmers and their farm was little more than a run-down building amidst some fields and trees before they took it over. They've gotten to build a farm largely from scratch. They are also participants in a very young food/farming movement (Community Supported Agriculture), so they, along with other CSA farmers, are working to define this new tradition rather than figuring out how to continue an old one. But the ultimate success of the CSA movement will have a lot to do with its longevity -- its ability to be passed on to a next generation of farmers, and then a next...and that's all about tradition.

Tradition sustains. It also confines. It's a comfort, and that means it can be hard to recognize the benefit of change or re-evaluation. "Why do we do it that way?" "Because that's the way it's always been done." Hold onto something too long, and you run the risk of turning your life into the box stalls in Doc's barn we were clearing out last week to store Benson hay: full of crumbling legal-paper-stuffed boxes, dusty disassembled spiral staircases, metal typewriters, cracked claw-foot bathtubs, drawer-less chests of drawers -- once-useful things now meaningless.

The loss of the barn has forced the Bensons to re-evaluate in ways it's otherwise unlikely they would be doing right now, opening up options for change, and the creation of new traditions -- which will also, sooner or later, be broken and replaced. Because that's the way it goes: respect and learn from generations past, take what you can from them, and figure out the rest yourself until it's your kids' turn to try. Working on Kay-Ben last week, I noticed plenty of reminiscing; the mourning process certainly isn't complete; but there is also a sense of potential, of curiosity about the new and what's to come. Tradition's a powerful thing, and without it change wouldn't be nearly the thrill it is.

sun gold, sun hot, sun killer (Keith)

Back on Jordan's, it is amazing how much things have grown.  This summer has been a farmer's dream (so long as they can keep irrigating).  Long days of bright, hot sun have all the crops ready to harvest several weeks before normal.  Today, I was in the field picking tomaotes.

Here, as on Broadturn, there is a wide variety of veggie products.  For instance, today I harvested 7 different types of tomato, 4 cherry varieties and 3 slicers.  First up on the cherry list were the bright yellow sun gold tomatoes.  These sweet little beauties turn a lovely golden yellow-orange when fully ripe.  And they ripen FAST!  Gabe and Peter swear that they picked all the ripe ones yesterday, yet today we have no trouble filling three more buckets. 

I remember Stacey from Broadturn talking about the high points of the growing season for her.  It went something like this, "Peas, strawberries, sun gold cherries. . . candy, candy, candy".  I found a few choice sun golds to test Stacey's theory, and I have to agree.  They sure are sweet as candy.  My guilty confession is that to confirm this I had several more, you know, just to make sure the first few weren't abnormalities.  Everything you read on the internet is true, so I had to make sure.

After the cherries, we moved onto the slicing tomatoes.  By then, the morning sun was beating down on us severely.  I had great respect for these plants.  The dirt in the rows was as dry as desert sand and as dusty as the Great Plains in an earlier era.  I knew that if it wasn't for the drip hoses running between the roots of these fruit bearing plants, they wouldn't last more than two or three days without water.  I felt myself starting to wilt.

We discovered something disturbing as we starting to pick the slicing tomatoes.  No, I don't mean tomato horn worms, though I admit, those are disturbing.  What was disturbing was that the bottoms of 90% of the ripe tomatoes were rotten at the bottom.  It was sorta sad to see what looked like a beautiful, ripe tomato, only to have your fingers sink into a mushy, rotten bottom upon picking.  Penny said it's because when those tomatoes set on the vines, it was an incredibly hot day.  It was more than sorta sad to have to throw so many tomatoes to the ground.  The paths in between the tomato rows were littered with bright red and yellow half rotted fruit. 

So, what I took from my day back on Jordan's was that even in the best circumstances, even when you do your best to control the environment as Jordan's does, when you fertilize, irrigate, remove pests, you still can't control the weather.  I suppose with irrigation you can make it rain, but the temperature is the temperature and the sun is the sun.  If it's bright and hot, there's nothing you can do about it except put on your shades and bear it.

On the bright side, there's a pretty good chance that there will be snow in the mountains in less than 90 days from now. . . 

You Say Goodbye, I say Hello Part 2 (Keith)

Kay Ben farm sure does look different without the hay barn. When I arrived at 5am for morning milking, the first thing I noticed was the light from pre-dawn. On previous trips to the farm, that pre-dawn light back light the old hay barn, creating a large, dark shadow with a halo of purple, blue and pink around it.

Without the barn there, the light just spills over the entire farm. It was quite breathtaking in an odd, natural disaster sort of way. The old hay barn got blown down in the big storm we had last month. It was a terrible thing, but like Eddie says, these things happen on a farm. Everyday it's something new. So, they pick up and move on.

Now what? Well, they aren't sure at the moment. They are conflicted about what to do and how to rebuild. There are several options on the table, and they all have their pros and cons. We discussed them last week while watching a giant pneumatic hammer attached to the end of an equally giant excavator pound the remaining foundation walls of the old hay barn into rubble.

They are thinking of extending the barn that was connected to the hay barn to hold more dry cows in the winter. Then they could build a separate, smaller hay barn for feed, hay and machinery. They have also considered building a completely new milking parlor. But that would cost a lot more than what they are likely to get from their insurance settlement. Eddie sometimes jokes about selling the herd and converting the farm into a golf course. The footprint of the old hat barn would make a swell starting place for a clubhouse.

I had another suggestion that I thought was really good. Since cows produce the most milk when they are happy, I thought, what better way to make cows happy than with a spa. They are hard working ladies, right? What hard working woman wouldn't like a regular spa day built into their weekly schedule. There could be a cow sized jacuzzi/sauna. Perhaps Erica and Becky could run a pedicure station? Seems like a wonderful idea to me.

Eddie said he'd think about it. He hasn't ruled anything out yet.

What I took from my last 2 weeks on Kay Ben was how they picked up and moved on and adjusted after the terrible results of the storm. Sometimes it's hard to let things go and move on, especially when they effect you on a personal level. But you have to. If you dwell in the past, you will never be able to see that sunrise for it's present day beauty. You'll just be thinking about how beautiful it used to be.

Alone, Together (Claire)

I have always been a deeply devoted beet lover, so as you can imagine, I was extremely enthusiastic about picking them. Jennie, “the guys” (Peewee, Tully, Miguel and Orlando) and I had just started our day. The first order of business: scanning the ground for promising looking beet tops poking up out of the dusty soil.

I’ve tried to grow beets in the past- once in my little pocket sized garden when I was in high school and once when I was tending a kitchen garden for an inn. However, I tend to fall on the neurotic/ greedy end of the scale and couldn’t resist “checking on” my little beet-letts. This is not the sort of behavior that leads to good hearty full-sized beets and as a result I have eaten my fare share of gum-drop sized beets. This was going to be my first time experiencing a full grown beet “in the wild”.

What I didn’t expect was that they would stick together like they did. Beets tend to grow close together- we found that many of the bigger beets had little hangers-on that grew alongside them, carving out little nooks and crannies as they grew together. It was wonderfully satisfying to pull up these dark masses, shake the dirt off the roots and pile them into your arms until you can’t hold anymore. They made a certain sort of ripping pop as they came out of the ground- announcing their presence in this new, bright world.

We brought them over to crates, sliced the greens off and tossed them in, trading notes on which are too little to make the cut, the thunderstorm we all expect this afternoon- all the things you talk about when you’ve got a day of picking veggies ahead of you and bright beet juice staining your fingers. Then we head out again, each going a different way to load up: search, pull, rip, pop!, repeat.

Harvesting creates a funny conversational dynamic. There I was in the field with five other people, but I may as well have been alone for most of it. This was even true when we moved on to picking green beans- conversation lasts only as long as your pace matches up in a row with another harvester. As soon as you hit an already picked spot- you jump ahead. If a plant has a particularly heavy crop, you pick all you can and fall behind.

Mostly, you listen to your internal monologue: thinking through those friends who have not called you back, the things you forgot to do this weekend, etc. In the green bean field, I found myself making my usual mental lists, but also finding myself surprised to be in a different sort of dialogue with the plants I was handing: apologizing every time I ripped off a leaf or two- responding to the wit of a hidden clump of beans down by the root. This is another form of conversation entirely; the back and forth between our attention spans the the plant’s yield. In Jennie’s farmers almanac, we found a warning about always “keeping up with beans”. It seems that if you don’t pick all they have to offer, they’ll stop producing. For vegetables, they seem like quite the needy conversationalists. Before I realize it, its almost time for lunch and I’ve started to map out how to make a plant puppet that can fight back. (Remember those punching nun puppets? I was thinking they would be sort of like that.)

In the midst of all this picking, I remembered something Pete (another Jordan’s employee) said during one of our first story circles there. “People who think farming is really simple are dead wrong. The simpler the work, the more you have to have going on in your head to keep yourself sane.”

Oh, I totally agree.

At the farmers’ market on Saturday, Jennie and I spent some time talking to the lovely Jamie Berhanu of Lalibela Farm. She has been selling tempeh (if you haven’t tried it yet, I suggest jumping out of whatever chair you are sitting in and running out to go get some.) and veggies there for several years and says that one of the best things about it is getting to get out of the rhythms of her farm and meeting up with other farmers and people who don’t live their lives in those some patterns. “Its wonderful to be out in the fields and concentrating and weeding, buts its also really nice to take a break,” she told us.

In my life, the closest thing I’ve experienced to this phenomenon is not agricultural, but culinary. There is a wonderful story by Laurie Colwin called “Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant” that sums up most of my reasons why cooking alone is one of my favorite things in life. Her fascination with eggplants nearly equals my passion for beets- their universal usefulness, the many different ways both veggies can become almost anything without costing you much at all, not to mention the voluptuous nature of each vegetable... the list goes on. What really gets both of us excited about a night in the kitchen is the opportunity to retreat into that internal monologue and simply cook. Laurie says:

Certainly cooking for one’s self reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they’re alone. “A salad,” they’ll tell you, but when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce or spaghetti with butter and grape jam.

The only difference between this and my meditative harvesting experiences is that somehow cooking translates that monologue into an awfully revealing dinner choice rather than a crate of beets. Its a nice thought to cary around when you are stretching in the field and notice the other people picking around you, totally concentrated on their work. Maybe their thoughts are as normal and composed as a salad, but more likely their daydreams are more spaghetti and grape jam flavored.

Its not that I’m in favor of all solitude all the time. I’m with Jamie- Its wonderful to retreat, but its also great to end your day with full buckets and buddies to ride in the back of the truck with you.

PS: The whole time I was harvesting I had this song stuck in my head: The Beat Beat Stuff by Hannah Geogas. I invite you to substitute (as I did all day) the word “beat” with the word “beet”. I think you’ll find it turns the song into an anthem for love and root vegetables that is hard to “beet”. Get it? (sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)

Oh yeah! and PSS: I invited the group to try that Haymaker’s Switchel I wrote about last time. Here’s what Jennie thought of it:

She said that the taste of it stayed with her for at least three hours after trying it. I don’t think its going to be coming back into style anytime soon. Oh well- you win some, you loose some!

-C