 |
| Ceres/Demeter, Goddess of fertility, grain, and agriculture |
When I was a young child, my dad grew a huge garden in our backyard every year. I remember he would drag a board across the soil to smooth it out, and he would have me lay on it to weigh it down. We grew so much; tomatoes, beans, cucumbers…and my mother would can what we didn’t use right away. I remember the sunflowers that grew high above my head at the side of the house.
 |
| Huron County, MI |
Then we moved to North Carolina. There, instead of the rich, loamy, black Michigan soil, we found the packed, red Carolina clay. We bought a house which was mostly wooded land, and Dad tilled up a spot in a clearing for a garden. But after that year, he gave up. It was just not as easy in that soil, and with so many trees blocking the sun. Every time we visit my home state, my jaw drops to the floor as we drive past miles and miles of that black gold. I just want to stop the car, walk out into a random field, and dig my hands in it.
The land is in my blood. Both my grandfathers were farmers. I never knew my mom’s father, though—he died when she was still very young. He was out in the fields when he had a heart attack. Grandma stayed on the land to raise her three children, but the fields were rented out. I have fuzzy memories of visiting her farmhouse before she later moved to town. My other grandfather worked his land bordering the river running through town for many years. I have many fond memories of our visits there, especially of Grandpa sitting in his overalls and smoking his pipe. He was a gentle and hard-working man, and I see much of him in my father. He was in his nineties when he passed away five years ago. Grandma still lives on the land in their farmhouse.
 |
| My grandpa in his garden with my niece. |
I think I’ve always been a little jealous of those who grew up on farms, almost as if that should have been my life. Perhaps I’ve romanticized it a bit, but as I know myself more I am learning to just accept the connection to the land that I feel inside. It is not simply a love of nature, which is an essential part, but an appreciation for the way nature supports us; recognition that in a garden or on a farm, humans and nature are partners together. This is true anywhere, even in a city, but more intentional, and I think more honored, among those who work the land. It is a quality I deeply respect.
Even while still young, it hurt me inside to watch fields and pastures replaced by housing developments. As I grew up, I became very interested in environmental issues, and I learned about organic and sustainable agriculture. The summer after my sophomore year, I planted my first garden, all organic, in that clearing in the middle of our woods. Perhaps I was a bit ambitious, but I generally dream much bigger than practicality. I'm generally an all-or-nothing kind of girl. I planted tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, peppers, and sunflowers. I remember my joy at seeing the first leaves of the pumpkin seedlings pushing from the ground. To me, it's a miracle every single time.
 |
| My garden in Guilford County, NC. |
The only problem with having a garden that summer, was that I was gone for a month that summer attending Summer Ventures at UNC-Wilmington. I bribed my sister to watch the garden, which I later learned was not such a great idea. By the time I returned, weeds were rampant where I hadn't been able to mulch with newspapers, and the pumpkin vines had grown all over the garden. It was still beautiful. And meanwhile, in Wilmington and Pender County, I was taking soil samples and studying their properties.
 |
Kitchen garden at the living history farm where I worked two summers during college.
Blue Ridge Institute, Ferrum, VA |
As a senior, our final paper/presentation in English class was about a career of our choice. Mine was on sustainable agriculture. I'm not sure, but I think I kind of shocked my class. I remember feeling a bit vulnerable yet passionate at the same time, trying to impart to them the importance of what I was talking about. For part of my project, I visited and interviewed Rick Williams, a professor at Ferrum College in Ferrum, VA (where I had been accepted). He and his family grew their own food (including a cow), and he showed me the different methods like crop rotation that he used.
 |
"Farmer's Heartache"
Mixed Media Collage
with poems by Wendell Berry
Fall 1996 |
When I began college, I had declared a major in Environmental Science with a minor in Agriculture. I jumped right into my science classes, taking Environmental Issues, Chemistry, and Ecology my first semester. I joined the Agriculture Club and met Dr. Moore, who was the professor of most of the Ag classes, and beloved by all of us.
Over those first few years, though, something strange happened. I was also taking some art classes, just for my own edification. I had become hooked on painting in my 12th grade Humanites class, and just wanted to get a better foundation for myself. However, it unleashed a previously unknown creative force inside crying to get out. My science classes became a burden to me, especially Chemistry. There was no room for creativity when there was only one right answer. So after some amount of angst, this science and math girl did the unthinkable: I switched to a major in Art with a minor in English.
 |
| Ferrum Ag Club at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway |
I stayed in the Ag Club, although I never did feel completely like one of them, especially after switching my major. Yet that was my fault for being too self-conscious. I felt intimidated by their real-farm experience. And being pretty much a teetotaler in those days, I didn't make it to many of their social gatherings. And yet I couldn't resist the chance to be around them. Thank goodness, because I made some pretty good friends out of the deal, one of whom later stood up for me when I got married. I went along a few of the Ag Club trips, including the one to Iowa to see the John Deere factory in Waterloo, and the Field of Dreams in Dyersville. I went to every Dakkota concert I could when Ferrum brought them to town, where I would teach a few line dances to the gals and two-step with a few of the guys. I even took an Ag class
after I'd switch majors, just to be with the guys and have a Dr. Moore class. I can't say I was the brightest mind in the room, as I had little experience to relate the subject matter to. Nevertheless, I still have my textbook--Farm Business Management: The Decision Making Process, 3rd edition.
 |
| At Big Ed's cotton farm in Orangeburg, SC |
Fast forward a number of years--years spent with and recovering from corporate America (partly by
working on a farm); years spent being married and later divorced; years spent growing. Time has taught me that sustainable agriculture will always be in my heart, that in fact, my life's purpose is intertwined with it. I hold the belief that no experience is ever wasted, and so I think that somehow my art and my writing will play a part in my passion as well. I believe that every job I've ever had will give me the skills and experiences I need in fulfilling my purpose.
This is the seventh year I've been a member of a local CSA (
community supported agriculture). The first was a farm in Ruther Glen, and then the
Fredericksburg CSA Project (FACSAP), which I love because of the variety we get from five different farms. While volunteering with them for distribution, during the summer I was unemployed, I was able to get to know their organizers and volunteers a lot better. I then stepped up to be the organizer of the Canning Farm CSA for a few years, which was a small CSA delivering to Fredericksburg. (Canning also delivers to FACSAP, other local CSAs, and now its own CSA has pickup at the farm.) I am now back with FACSAP, with a group of people I strongly admire.
 |
| FACSAP 2011 Season |
I am still rather shy in approaching our farmers, even though I want so much to deepen that connection. But I realized recently, that if we are to have a food revolution in this country, and change the way we grow our food, it will take a hell of a lot of people to do that. It will take a lot of people growing, and it will take an even greater number of educated eaters. Anything that any of us can share to spread this knowledge will help. My knowledge is limited, especially when matched next to any of our growers. Yet, my knowledge is great matched next to a lot of lay people. I have a lot I can share, and I have a passion to share it. My goal this season is to connect our members more directly to our growers through tours and sharing pictures of each farm.
A long time ago, in high school, I had a dream that has always stayed with me. I was working at a farm, which grew a multitude of different vegetables and fruits. It even had fruit trees; I think at one point I was up in a tree harvesting apples or plums. There were a large number of people there, of all different ages. It was a place for people to buy produce, a place for people to learn, a place to play. Some of the produce was grown for and even by those staying in the local homeless shelter. I think over time the dream has evolved with other ideas in my heart inserted.
 |
| Cleome blooming in my garden. |
I just know that I need to be working with the earth, and it seems, also with people. I've got the CSA, but I knew that I had to get my hands actually in the soil again. Our city started a community garden this year and I was lucky enough to sign up for a plot in time. And she doesn't look perfect, as I don't have as much time or energy to spend there as I would like. However, I am very proud of myself for actually doing it. I have over 30 varieties of plants, mostly herbs and flowers, and one tomatillo. The cloeme flowers are particularly striking. The herbs come from
Forrest Green Farm in Louisa, where I am also taking their Whole Living Class, which covers everything about herbs from good soil and seeding, to the nutritional and medicinal properties of herbs, to making tinctures, vinegars, oils, and infusions.
While I still have a journey ahead to find my exact place in the world of agriculture, this is what I know: My life's purpose is inextricably woven with sustainable agriculture, with co-creating a partnership with plants and nature, and with the healing of the earth through our most basic need: to eat.
~~~
The Man Born To Farming
by Wendell Berry
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?
