Rhythms

Living out here in the country, you learn there’s a rhythm to be found in the natural world, and maybe, just maybe, a certain amount of balance in everything that goes on. This year, we had a deep winter, as we call it. Heaps of snow that came, and stayed, until even March. And then a heavy spring, nearly two weeks of rain that kept us from our plowing and planting. We were sweating it quite a bit, wondering if we’d get the first veggies in in time. For all the worrying, the sun eventually broke out, and gave us perfect growing weather, and everything’s catching up like the delay never happened. This first week of harvesting, I was washing bunch after bunch of great looking chard, kale, and other leafy things, amazed at how the whole cycle had played itself out, and thankful.

I like the idea because it brings me back to other days, cooped up in an “other” life as a college student. Intuitively, I knew the semesters were out of step with anything natural. “Fall” semester asked me to start in the cold, continue while it got colder, and finish in the deep cold. “Spring” made me start while it was still damn cold, and stay locked in four walls while the rest of the world burst out of its shell. Working on a farm is like holding a stethoscope to nature’s heart, you can feel every slowdown, every acceleration, and if you let yourself fall into its patterns everything just works better. You even work better. Winter means slow down, spring means to start things anew, summer is rush rush rush, and then fall, you wind down. If you get into this, you’ll feel yourself more akin to the rest of the world, its plants, animals and other living things, than akin to your electronic devices, TV shows, artificial work schedules, school schedules, and every other thing out of the rhythm.

I feel it most being here in Washington County, where “corn is king.” It’s almost all for silage for the dairy cows that dot the valleys and hillsides. The only other big “industry” here, not even an industry, is sheep and alpacas. Spring means calves, so fresh and new that their white hair is whiter than the milk they drink, the blacks and browns have not dulled or faded with dust, and they look like they were secretly painted with a new coat the night before. Lambs, with the freshest white and freshest black, actually look like cartoons more than anything. The corn that keeps the county humming has broken the surface, opened its newest set of leaves and looks ready to be “knee high by Fourth of July,” the goal of every farmer who wants a good crop. Something about driving to and from work, knowing you’re in step with a greater cycle, makes it all worth it. It’s time to grow, to change, develop, and produce something useful!

Considering the Future

Andrea has been working hard to secure our tomato harvest for the season since we discovered some disease on the plants in our greenhouse and high tunnel. Removing the infected leaves and spraying the plants with copper were the only way to save the seedlings, and she diligently kept up with the weekly and sometimes daily process. So, when you see tomatoes this season, be sure to thank her for the hard work.

Since the little plants you see here have been put in the ground, they've flourished. We were stringing them up when the hail storm hit, and it's a good thing, too, because we didn't have to be in the nasty weather. (If you ask me, tomato plants are nasty, too. They smell.)

Here are some of the crew planting tomatoes in High Tunnel #3 a couple weeks ago before the weather got so hot, that Ted spared us from sweltering tunnel work.

How to Transplant

STEP ONE

Get a tractor with a transplanter attachment that has two giant water tanks and four seats on the back. Fill the prior with water and the latter with people.
(there's room for plants on the back too.)



STEP TWO

Turn on the water and make sure the hoses are in position to distribute water to the waterwheels.





STEP THREE

Pass the plants and don't miss a beat. At 0.3 kph it's easy to get behind, and I'm not kidding. But the guys you see here are pros.





STEP FOUR

Aim straight ahead. Good driving is important for ones own dignity (and Ted's). It's honor among farmers to have straight rows. It all grows just the same, but doesn't look like anyone put Bailey's in their morning coffee.






STEP FIVE

Plant. Get your hands dirty. Chat. And have fun. The tractor may not fly, but the hours certainly do.

Letters from Australia . . .

I was set to start a tomato picking job on the 17th of May, but it was pushed back to first week of June, so I have spent the last couple weeks in a tourist town on the coast called Airlie Beach. Sleeping under the stars and living simply as a sort of personal Thoreauvian experiment in minimal living. You all know I'm fond of these. I have met some lovely people who have taken me sailing, where I climbed the mast with a rope in my teeth and was caught in a storm that broke one of the sail booms and we had to limp back to the lee of an island to escape an angered Poseidon, (or I am perhaps dramatizing somewhat, but the facts here presented are sound) or hooked me up in great angelic generosities with an ocean rafting trip out to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands and snorkeling on the inner reef of the Great Barrier Reef. Visibility was just OK, saw plenty of fish and coral. Lunched on the beautiful Whitehaven Beach, saw giant lizards and eagles and chased the sun and its sharp but diminishing light on its course West at the end of the day. I hope to get out to the real reef before long, since I'm in the area.

My picking job has been pushed back another couple/few weeks, so I'm starting to look for other work, but am not opposed to playing the hobo these few more weeks and getting a more Thoreau (if you mind the pun) experience out of my current experiment and wait for the fruit picking to begin. I think I will be leaving Australia for NZ sooner than planned. I'd planned on November, but may go in may to work on a dairy there in August, which is calfing season. Would be a good experience to get some dairy work. It is at a farm where my sister is nannying for some months. Also would be nice to get my months of work out of the way at the beginning of the trip and have the rest to travel. Or so the plan is going in. You learn real quick when you travel like this that plans change, and that you ought to change out of planning altogether and see what presents itself in the moment. Be where you are!

Well, I guess that's the quick and fast. I hope everyone is well and living. This newsletter thing seems to have taken on a sort of dramatic narrative voice. I've been reading Dickens, if an explanation is needed.

-Jacob