Falling in love with Farming

My ode to farming: "Warming the Soil" by Janice Warren (sold)

2012 closed  a little crazy. I serve here locally on the Conservation Commission and the Agricultural Commission and we spent time organizing and setting goals and then, with the help of some local businesses, Planning and Zoning and town leaders threw ourselves fully into an autumn experiment in having a farmers' market here in East Windsor. That led my mother, who serves on multiple land use commissions in South Windsor including the South Windsor Food Alliance, to recruit Broad Brook Art to sell creative stuff at the South Windsor Winter Farmers and Artisans Market for six weeks from November to December 22. We bought the insurance needed and she paid for our space, since it wasn't exactly in our business plan. I already had some stuff scheduled so we spent some weekends being in two or three places at once, with help from Donna and Mom, of course. We introduced some new products and learned quite a bit about what people are buying in this still so cautious economy.

Ornaments for the Winter Market

Well. The people we met and the things we learned...mind boggling. I think I speak for both Donna and I when I say that we came back from events completely energized AND exhausted. We tasted some of the best fresh food of our lives and experienced new foods on top of that. We like flavor and I have always cooked, but Donna has joined me in the kitchen the last few weeks as we have ventured into this new realm.

To prepare for being a Market Master for the East Windsor Farmers Market I dragged Donna to every market we could get to starting last Spring. I pestered organizers and growers alike...what was their experience? Again~ major learning curve. We saw what worked and didn't..which varied from place to place, week to week and even with the weather.

What has impressed me and IMPRESSED UPON ME is people's passion for making life better through buying fresh and local. The other part of the education was with farming, or simply gardening, was the passion all these people have for how they grow or make their wares, how they care for their livestock or experiment with making small bits of land into the most nurturing places you can imagine...all with a laugh or a smile and sarcastic nod to the fact that few of us earns back completely what we put in. We looked at cell phone pictures of well-loved free range chickens, talked coyotes and foxes and ate edible flowers as we worked together. We shared recipes and sampled each others' products...fellow marketers make very good customers, always spending a some of the earnings on each other.

I have to say the whole experience was made better by my cousin Cherie. She and her husband Bob came to Connecticut this summer and rented a place in Coventry. Their summer was full enough of family events that it made sense to venture away from home in Phoenix. I started out the spring with surgery to remove a tumor from my neck/face (happily turned out to be benign) and followed that recovery up with Lyme disease. All these years outside and it was just finally my turn for the wrong tick bite. Not knowing these things were going to happen I started several hundred plants indoors for the summer garden and my father and I made an uneasy bargain to use his long established 100 X 150 foot garden plot. Cher came along at just the right time to keep me going, helping weed and mulch before there was much to harvest. I called it the year of pestilence and vermin...the unnaturally warm winter left us with vast insect populations, well above and beyond just the dynamic ticks. We had crop rotation debates and fungus troubles. New growth of nearby butternut and black walnut tress poisoned part of the asparagus bed and some of the tomatoes.  We took on more than we could handle and in the excessive heat lost the corn to the vigorous weeds. Mice ate my potatoes before I could plant. Seeds failed. Cherie listened to my garden woes and labored away without complaint. We laughed and talked but both slightly deaf laughed as we missed a lot too. The company was heartening and we two couples got together for dinner a couple of times. Cher's presence kept me from completely withdrawing in frustration and set us up to be open to the whole social experience of the farmers markets. I love trading recipes with Bob and I always leave with my skills slightly better informed by his experience. They are lovely people, truly, and it was healing for me to have them about.

It is easier to blog about healing and passion now, and not so much as it is happening. Writing the blog has always been a very personal venture for me, but there is valid viewpoint that it should be more pure marketing...extending exposure and reach. It is clear we have found a new direction and are happily feeding and feasting upon what we have learned from new and old friends. It is impacting my art, but I have a storytelling direction with the Arctic and the Sedna series and two scheduled shows...how to make it all work?

2013 will mean we are living as closely to our values as we have ever been able to. I am so fortunate to have both the experience of being able to live making art and to grow things and be around people who are truly passionate about growing and making a life within their passions, and learning from each other as we all balance the time and money spent and earned. 

I am not just falling in love with farming, and my wife all over and always, but with life overall.