Every Place Sucks the Same

Last week was the first week since I came to the farm that I did not sit down to write. I can’t blame my tardiness on the busy week, because one of the best things about the farm is that the pace is consistent, constant. This morning Jeff and I planted about 600 tiny beet starts and seeded several hundred more. After lunch, we finished roofing the addition to the barn. Before evening chicken chores I did some photography in the orchard for the cidery business. My days here are filled with tasks that are comfortable without being mundane. They are new and exciting without being obstacles to overcome. Contentment dulls my urge to write. I have no need to escape my surroundings. I have no emotional build up that needs releasing. So if I can find enough time in the resolute pace I hope to focus in my writing on a few main explorations:

Returning Home: Metaphors, Community, Elders
The Land: Back To, Taking Back, Growing things
Young Farmers: Finding Home, Clarity, Friendship

While I often write about the pure joys of the life I currently have, weeks roll by like a rollercoaster. I’m constantly fretting about what will happen for us after this farming season ends. I rocket sky high and freefall back down as I rapidly ride between the stress of communicating with friends as bosses and feeling that I could stay here forever with these people I love.

Some friends in Port Townsend recently went through a search to find a new place to farm and make home. They ended up staying and in expressing why they didn’t move said, “Every place sucks the same.” While it was likely a light-hearted, sarcastic comment, those words have really stuck with me. I’m constantly trying to calculate our next move to be the best choice possible. And now each time I start to flip-flop and fret that comment pops into my head. The lesson that is sticking with me is not that everywhere is bad. But rather everywhere has the same challenges. Every job has the same obstacles. So it really doesn’t matter if we find the perfect place, because it will be just as good and as bad as any other place we might choose.

So today, as I squatted between the garlic bed and the newly planted beet bed, and firmly placed both hands down in front of me to compact the soil against the tiny beet seeds, I realized, I just want to farm. And I can. And as I cut rafter beams on the table saw in the barnyard, I realized, I just want to build things. And I can. And I just want to wear my brown corduroys and brown wool sweater everyday. And I can feel alive and surrounded by beauty everyday. Maybe not necessarily here, but anywhere.

Nettle Mead

After a long sleepy Sunday morning in bed, Joe and I walked down to the bridge over the creek before breakfast. The bridge was built this fall to allow us to farm on both sides of the creek and preserve the nine-acre restoration zone surrounding the portion of the creek that runs through our farm. I remarked at all the nettles that were along the bank. Joe reminded me that those were the nettles I had to contend with after I fell into the creek last September. It was the day Joe proposed to me, the bridge had not yet been built, and we were harvesting winter squash from the fields across the creek. A fallen log was used to cross the creek then, and my foot slipped as I tried to make the long step out onto the log. The deep water swallowed me up to my shoulders and as I struggled to hoist myself up onto the bank, I dragged my body through the nettles.

Today we harvested nettles (with gloves on) and made nettle mead. We always wild ferment our brews. Meaning we mix some sort of juice with lots of honey and let the natural yeasts in the air find the sweet mixture and get to work converting the sugars into alcohol. We can’t say it always works out well, but when it does it’s been great. Nettle mead was an idea we had last year and have been waiting until prime nettle season (right now) to brew up a batch. As we’ve read up on it, turns out it’s not our brilliant idea. But we now have five gallons of sweet nettle tea sitting in our kitchen, waiting.

In the next few months, we’ll dine regularly on nettle pesto, nettle tea, and nettle lasagna.