Tag Archives: growing

Not Necessarily Pretty

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Morning Inspiration, Writing

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Skunk Cabbage, by Mary Oliver

And now as the iron rinds over
the ponds start dissolving,
you come, dreaming of ferns and flowers
and new leaves unfolding,
upon the brash
turnip-hearted skunk cabbage
slinging its bunched leaves up
through the chilly mud.
You kneel beside it.  The smell
is lurid and flows out in the most
unabashed way, attracting
into itself, a continual spattering
of protein.  Appalling its rough
green caves, and the thought
of the thick root nested below, stubborn
and powerful as instinct!
But these are the woods you love,
where the secret name
of every death is life again–a miracle
wrote surely not of mere turning
but of dense and scalding reenactment.  Not
tenderness, not longing, but daring and brawn
pull down the frozen waterfall, the past.
Ferns, leaves, flowers, the last subtle
refinements, elegant and easeful, wait
to rise and flourish.
What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.
 

Not necessarily pretty.  What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.

I opened to this poem this morning, after a dream filled with skunks, and knew it was not by accident.  I’ve been revisiting this feeling of living in between, caught between knowing where I want to be and being where I want to be, unsure of how to get there, but walking nonetheless.  The other day in conversation with Edge, I said aloud, “We didn’t choose this life because it is easy,” more as a reminder to myself than to him, and he smiled and agreed.

And now this morning I open to this poem, one I have never read before though it has sat on my shelves for years, and I know there is a reason I am only discovering it now.

What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.  I have visions of a house, of ponds and perennial gardens, of finished buildings and hoop houses, of established gardens and lush pastures, of ease and profit in our business. 

We did not choose this life because it is easy.  For every moment spent dreaming, there are two spent planning, five spent doing, maybe one spent stressing.  I am doing my best to stop stressing.  When the pipe bringing water to the yurt freezes, when the driveway slicks over with ice, when the chickens stop laying, and the woodpile diminishes too soon, and I wish for an indoor toilet, I get to a point of breaking down or breathing in.  I prefer to breathe in.  Sometimes I forget.  But eventually I remember my own words: if I am a seed, all I have to do is know every possibility is inside me.  The life that is easy is not necessarily the one that brings me alive.

If I had an indoor toilet, how many sunrises kissing the ridge line would I miss?

What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty, but like a pond lily beauty grows out of the muck.  Any good farmer knows that compost started out as shit, and so I move forward today, remembering the work of turning the compost pile, the work that must come before the seed, the work that nourishes and transforms the seed into the flower.

Emerging, by Katie Spring

Eat, Farm and Be Dirty: a review of The Dirty Life

05 Saturday Feb 2011

Posted by in Farming, Sustainable Agriculture, Writing

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In 2003, Kristen Kimball drove to State College, PA from New York City to interview a young farmer for a story she was writing.  That farmer, Mark, would eventually become her husband, and the story would be just the first string of words that led to her new book, The Dirty Life. In the book’s prologue, Kimball sets up the scene for city-girl-turned-farmer, writing:

“I’ve slept in this bed for seven winters, and still, sometimes I wonder how I came to be here, someone’s wife, in an old farmhouse in the North Country.  There are still moments when I feel like an actor in a play.  The real me stays out until four, wears heels, and carries a handbag, but this character I’m playing gets up at four, wears Carhartts, and carries a Leatherman, and the other day, doing laundry, a pair of .22 long shells fell out of her pocket, and she was supposed to act like she wasn’t surprised.”

During her transition from Manhattan’s East Side to a 500-acre farm in Essex, New York, there are many surprises Kimball faces, and she shares the trials of the first year with Mark and their farm in four sections: Leaving, Winter, Spring, and Summer.  As much as this book is about farming, it is also about love—finding romance and a relationship with a man and with the land, for it is not just Mark that draws Kimball into the dirty life, but also the small act of hoeing broccoli, the emotional demands of butchering a pig, and the deep rewards of eating a meal she began preparing long before it reached the kitchen.

Each experience Kimball shares is told with fearless honesty and deep love.  She allows the reader to feel the push and pull of dreams and reality as she tells of the quick courtship between her and Mark, and their plunge into a new life.  In the Winter section, she describes returning to Essex Farm for the second time, ready to move in and begin their operation: “During the weeks we were away from it, and in the excitement of moving, the farm had gotten better in our imaginations.  In theory, it was an adventure.  Up close, it was frightening.”  Every step toward their goal of a full-diet CSA that would include meat, grains and maple syrup was a new step for Kimball, who had never even grown a garden before, but her feet moved just as fast as the pages turn in this book, which compels the reader to keep going past each page break and new section.

Despite the hardships, or more rightly because of them, Kimball discovers the peace that comes with working the land, and she offers this bit of insight early on: “Farming takes root in you and crowds out other endeavors, makes them seem paltry.  Your acres become a world.  And maybe you realized that it is beyond those acres or in your distant past, back in the realm of TiVo and cubicles, of take-out food and central heat and air, in the country where discomfort has nearly disappeared, that you were deprived.”  When you read this book, you will see why Kimball is right, and you’ll be waiting for the spring thaw when you can reach your hand into the soil and get dirty.

Money or No Money

07 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Family, Travel, Writing

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Farming and traveling.  For the last two years this is what I have done, and now I am doing neither.  Shortly after returning to Vermont from Alaska, I decided to work as a ski instructor with my brother, Jeff, at a nearby resort.  I am happy that I have a job, but I miss the rhythm of growing food.  Working at the resort, I find myself constantly asking, “Why am I doing this?”  There is something about this job that keeps me stressed–a multitude of things perhaps–like the constant shuffling of the schedule and the uncertainty of getting a lesson on slow weeks; the pulling of rank that happens among instructors and supervisors; the feeling of working at a place where a guest may spend more money in one week than I will make fore the entire season.

For the first time in my life I am noticing the inequities of money close-up, enhanced by the fact that I am also paying rent, which I have never done until now.  My first week of living here, between rent, food and car repair costs, left $5 in my bank account–a number that sent an empty shock to my stomach.  Now, after a month of work and weekly paychecks I am comfortable again, though the number for comfort has lowered.

I am not angry that some people have money when others don’t; in fact, with less money I am understanding what I have always known: happiness comes from the love arising out of each moment and taking the time to see it.  Instead I am frustrated at the hold money takes over life, and the value our society adds to the people who do have it.  I notice myself get more wrapped up in money than I ever have before, worrying and stressing to the point of tears, feeling under-appreciated if I don’t get a tip, and allowing money to blind me to the joy of working outside and teaching everyday.  I am allowing myself to forget what happiness is.  Perhaps what I need more than anything right now is an allowance of quiet moments.

On New Year’s Eve day I came home worn out and crying.  Edge held me an listened, and when Jeff came home he sat with me at the kitchen counter, offering insight.

He told me, “I’m doing this job because skiing has played such a huge role in my life.  If I can get kids excited about skiing and let that be a conduit for their relationship with nature, or even just a way to get them outside, then that’s great.”

He talked about his experience getting to know the mountain last year, and how special it is.

“When you get off the trail and into the woods, it’s so quiet, and it can feel like you’re the only one on the mountain.”

Jeff’s goal is not to make money, but to open up a whole world to kids and show them a way to be in it.  And that was my mistake.  I came into this job viewing it as a temporary way to make money until I could do what I really wanted.  Of course, I’ve always loved teaching so that was a plus, but now I see that this job is not as limiting as my view of it.  Ski instructing allows me to teach and share the small victories of improvement–balance, stopping, turning–and watch kids move through the winter in a new way; it allows me to live in a beautiful house and spend time with my brother, who is the reason I moved to Cambridge and the reason for so much joy in my life.

So last Monday I started fresh, and am seeing again the opportunities that each day brings.

I wake up.  I drink tea with Edge.  I write.

At work I laugh and encourage.  Yesterday I even had time to ski over to the larger mountain for a personal run, and for the first time saw Mt. Mansfield rising up to the right, lit up by the afternoon sun, and felt the wonder Jeff talked about finally come over me.

In the evenings I come home and bring Nobee outside.  At night Jeff and Edge play music, and I sing with them.  I do have time to sit quietly and reflect, to do the things I want to do, and to spend time with the people I love, and for this I am thankful.  Money or no money, I am living, and the joy that comes from simply being is the joy that I cherish the most.

In the Middle

07 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Farming

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I just passed the halfway mark of my six-month contract. One part of me is thinking, “I only have three months left?” and the other part says with relief, “I still have three months left!” The garden filled in so fast, from tiny transplants to strong vegetables ready to harvest, that I still feel like I just started. Really, though, the third and last session of student gardeners starts next Monday, and then August will be here, school will start again, and September will come and happen and end my time as a School Garden Supervisor for Calypso. But, I still have three months left, and here I am already getting ahead of myself.

The pace of gardening in Alaska is faster than in Vermont. Even though it may take a little longer for the ground to thaw in the spring, and the winter sets in sooner in October, once the temperature creeps up, the garden is off to a sprint. The farmers at Calypso often do late night planting, starting at 11:00 or midnight, and sometimes going until 2:00 a.m. because the weather is perfect and the light stretches out. At the school gardens it’s different, as we do most of the planting with the students who work from 3:00-6:00 p.m. My garden, at Hunter Elementary School, is hot. Surrounded by pavement and pebble-filled playgrounds and with no trees for shade, the heat radiates all around the garden and encourages the plants to grow fast, as if there was an individual sun over each vegetable. Some veggies want to bolt because of this, and part of everyday is just walking around the garden observing, snapping off flowers from the tatsoi and the beets, and deciding whether or not the broccoli can hold on for another day.

The students only work Monday-Thursday, so the rest of the week is my time to be at the garden alone. I am thankful to have a volunteer come on Sundays, so I do have one full day off, and lately the rains have set in on the weekends, giving me a break from watering, but I still like to spend time on Saturdays when the streets are a bit quieter, doing some work. Last weekend, a man walked up to the fence to compliment the garden and asked, “What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

“Oh, I’m just checking on everything—doing some weeding,” I replied. The garden doesn’t take a break on weekends like the students do; it grows through the constant sun, unfailing and steady. Even in the shock of transplant, which causes the outer squash leaves to yellow and wilt, the center continues to expand out and up, offering new green into the world.  I respond to the light, too, gaining energy by just being outside.  Unlike being at home in Vermont, I don’t know it’s late by looking at the sky, and instead I’ve learned to pay more attention to my body and stay in tune with how I’m feeling so I don’t overrun myself too much.  There have been weeks when I wake up early each day to run, then bike the ten miles to the garden and work before the students arrive, then spend three hours with them before biking home.  I always think it will be sustainable, but my energy wears out after four days of this schedule, and I remember there is a reason the plants go to seed so quickly here: even though the light gives energy, it can also stress and it signals the need to flower, reproduce, and cycle back into the soil, just as I crash and need to catch up on sleep once all my energy reserves have been spent.  When I think of home, what I miss most are the cool evenings fading into nights spent around campfires that light up the darkness.

This first half of my job has gone by quickly, and I know the second half will as well, and then I will make my way back to Vermont, if only for a short while.  I’m still on the no-plan plan, but as the time gets closer, I feel the pull for green mountains and family.  Until then, I will continue to follow the energy as it moves, and be here, thankful for the sunlight and all it grows.

School Gardens and Social Change

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Politics, Sustainable Agriculture

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Earlier this spring when I was doing outreach for the EATinG program, I found myself annoyed and disappointed with the language used to encourage students to volunteer.  In each classroom I visited, the main motivation used was the fact that volunteering can be used as a resume booster and a way to put you above others in the competitive world of college and job applications.  It seems as though it isn’t enough to say you can help your community, and as a result volunteering becomes an act only to propel oneself onto something better, rather than an act to better one’s community and environment.

On one hand I wonder, is it so bad to do a good thing for personal gain?  After all, creating a stronger, healthier community does have positive affects on the individual, and perhaps one will go on to enjoy volunteering for reasons other than resume building.  On the other hand I wonder, what it is that creates a society that so often views acts done without the motivation of personal gain as unusual or as something to be put off for when we have more time, which we never seem to have.

As I was growing up, my parents took my brother and I to nursing homes to pass out Christmas presents, involved us in “Green Up Day” every spring, and enrolled us in a school with classes that emphasized community service.  I learned through doing that interacting with my community in a positive way is fun, and a desire to help grew in me because of that.  Now I want to teach my students the importance of serving one’s community and environment, and the value of giving without the expectation of receiving.

On Monday I held a discussion with my student gardeners called “Charity versus Change,” a workshop from the Food Project’s Growing Together, by Greg Gale.  I wrote the words “charity” and “social change” on the blackboard and asked the students to call out words that come to mind for each category.  They had no problem with charity, shouting out things like helping, donating, sharing and giving.  When we switched to social change, they fell silent, with one girl throwing out the word donating again.  I helped them along by explaining how charity is an act done by a person of greater wealth for a person of lesser wealth, and is often a singular event that must be repeated in order to have a lasting effect, whereas social change is altering policies and laws in order to create a community that operates on equality, inclusion, and diversity.  It’s like the saying “give a person a fish and he/she will eat for one day, teach a person to fish and he/she will eat forever.”  Giving a fish is charity, and teaching to fish is change.

I knew this could be a difficult workshop for them—one girl is going into eighth grade while the other four are going into seventh, and I didn’t know what kind of community service experience they have had—but I wanted to challenge them to think about and understand the broad affects of this school garden and their work in it.  Since the garden started in 2009, vandalism at Hunter Elementary has sharply dropped.  Last summer there was only one instance of suspected vandalism, which turned out to be kids catching ladybugs in the garden late at night, and this summer there has been none.  As a result, the sense of community pride has soared.  Everyday passersby stop to compliment the garden, ask what’s growing, or just say hello, and our Thursday farm stand had people lining up before we opened for business this week.  Most importantly, though, this school garden has increased access to local, fresh food while teaching students the values and skills of organic growing, selling produce, and making community connections.

After we defined charity and social change, I asked each student write down their talents and passions and then identify ways they could use these things to create positive change.  As we went around the circle, the girls talked about using the internet to connect with others; drawing flyers to post around neighborhoods to create awareness about an event or issue; writing speeches, stories, or articles; teaching others how to rock climb and learn to interact with the environment in new ways, thus increasing an appreciation for the natural world.

We ended the discussion with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Everybody can be great.  Because everybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”

I told the students, “This garden is an incredible thing to have in the community, and you are making it grow.  You could be doing anything this summer, and maybe this is just a way for you to make some money, but despite the reason you chose to be a student gardener, the fact that you are working here is making a difference, and you can feel great about that.”

Maybe they will go on to volunteer later in the summer, after their four weeks of work are up.  Maybe they won’t.  But at least they have heard it from me: their work matters, the food they grow and eat and sell matters, and this small piece of land in Fairbanks has transformed from an unused lot to a place of learning and growing because of them and all the teachers, community members, and Calypso farmers who support it.

Growing in Alaska

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Farming, Travel

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Interior Alaska.  Many people have come up in search of gold or work on the oil pipeline.  I’ve come here to garden, and to teach students to do the same.  Before driving to Fairbanks, I spent four days in Anchorage and a night on the Elmendorf Air Force Base with my friend Rick and his wife Megan, neither of whom I’d seen since high school.  We reminisced and laughed over memories, they told me of their three years at a base in Italy, I told them of my travels to Northern Ireland and New Zealand.  When their friends came over, Rick introduced me and said, “She’s going to do some gardening thing in Fairbanks!”  General confusion and a look of slight bewilderment crossed each face at this statement.  Why would you come here to garden?  Do things even grow in Fairbanks?

As it is, things do grow here and all over Alaska.  Hardy greens like kale, and most other brassicas, thrive in Alaska’s planting zone of 2-3, and greenhouses help fruits and veggies that like warmer temperatures get a head start in the spring.  This spring has come early, and we may be able to get the first plantings in by mid-May.

On Friday I spent the morning at Hunter Elementary, where I am the School Garden Supervisor, mapping out rows and getting ideas for garden expansion.  Throughout the week I went into classrooms and started seeds with the kids.  Next week I’ll begin broadforking, loosening up the soil in order to plant potatoes with classes before school lets out for the summer.  I feel blessed to be working at Hunter where the teachers and administration are as excited about the garden as I am, maybe even more!

Each time I walk into the school I am welcomed like the first spring flowers that pop up from the ground.  Elementary students call me “Miss Katie” and give me hugs.  They see me in the garden and run to the fence, yelling, “Miss Katie!  Can we help!” when all I am doing is measuring bed feet and borders; I know that 10 children running in the garden will not help me with this but I say yes and they come sprinting in.  “Remember the number 127,” I tell them, and then ask, “Who wants to help me find my pencil?”  They scatter along the rows, eyes darting, racing to see who will find the pencil that fell out of my pocket.

This summer I’ll be working with students from 6th grade up through high school, teaching them how to seed, transplant, maintain, harvest and sell vegetables at a farm stand and through a CSA, but for now I’m still working on understanding how to plan for a CSA myself.  Susan, my boss at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, has been trying to teach us the basics of garden planning, but total comprehension won’t come until we actually do it.  She smiles with enthusiasm when she says, “It’ll all fall into place once you get into the garden and start planting!”

I’m excited to start.  And I’m glad I came here to garden.  The earth fascinates me in its ability to give, especially in places one wouldn’t expect.  As the spring unfurls, the snow is transforming into water and the garden soils are thawing.  One of these days I’ll wake to see greenup—the sudden popping of tree buds that happens all at once, bringing a wave of green to the forests—and I’ll know the garden is ready to plant and ready to give once more.