Earthblog

A farmer seeks roots in more ways than one
Written by Nicolas Theisen
Thursday, 29 April 2010

Photo by Seth Roberts

Being a farmer without land is lonely.  A partially unsocial nature has led me to seek non-conversational companionship and solo work that for the better part of the past decade has been with the land.  Walking out to the fields in the morning is like a ritual cup of coffee with an old friend, a friend with whom so much time has been spent that you both view time with words unnecessary.  The accompanied silence is settling and comfortable, creating a tingling awareness that sharpens lines.  A friend loved so much that working fingers raw goes unnoticed.  Relentless work powered by the meridian sun that no matter how sincere and dedicated it may be does not compare to the selfless gifts returned.

Winter was restful and the land-farmer separation was subtle, but spring once more is accompanied by longing.  Most of us are agrarian by ancestry and even if that embedded inheritance has never been utilized the longing still comes.  I hesitate to share this using romantic language that could be misunderstood as analogy, which it is not.  I am lonely and, in the most elemental intention of the word, ungrounded.  Limbo is my current home.  I have unexpectedly arrived here following years of various manifestations of peasantry, working someone else’s land in one form or another.  The termination of our last foray into land tenure left me disenchanted and in want of a place to call my own; I no longer care to be a vassal of any human lord.

I dream of verdant hills and arable lands fingering into hardwood forests, stonewalls and faded red paint, cows on pasture and pigs in the orchard.  Omnipresent pastoral yearnings pervade me.  On a farm in the foothills where I spent many years I herded sheep from corral to pasture at dawn and dusk conducting the flock with a hooked shepherd’s cane.  Walking up the locust lined lane with the red hogback to the east, the green ridge to the west, and the valley settled between is what I yearn for, mundane beauty at its quintessence.

You might know Joel Salatin’s face better than you know his name. The inspired farmer with a jovial, bespectacled visage plays a memorable roll (himself) in recent foodie films Food Inc., and Fresh, as well as in journalist Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Salatin and his family have worked Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley for generations; Salatin’s take on a the people-powered relocalization of food-production and distribution is time-tested. While Americans have been told for years that the family farm is dead, Salatin’s practical advice on growing your own food and making it pay is uniquely empowering.

An author and a speaker, Salatin will give a talk in Fort Collins called “Change We Can Eat.” He will be discussing food emancipation, covering topics tackled in his book Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front.

Photo by Kris Hite

Gailmarie Kimmel of BeLocalNC spoke to the successes of the Fort Collins local food movement, in particular the ever-growing popularity the Winter Farmer’s Markets, held twice a month November through March at the Opera Galleria in Old Town, where “twenty-two thousand dollars exchange hands on any given Saturday.” Other speakers focused on their desire to transfer the momentum from the movement to those who need it most. Bailey Stenson from Happy Heart Farm explained that her 27-year-old CSA (“the first CSA in Colorado”) was trying to raise funds to donate a fourth of their shares to low-income families. Megan Phillips from The Growing Project echoed the non-profit’s mission to “close some of the gaps in the food system.”

"Eating locally in winter is easy. But the time to think about that would be August," wrote Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the memoir about the year her family spent growing their own food and eating locally. Now that August is a distant memory and I've picked up the last box of hearty root vegetables from my CSA's winter share, I'm not looking forward to the lack luster months that lie ahead, February, March, and April, when local seasonal food is lean.

Historically, the months ahead were considered the "hungry time" when people had to rely on their stock of dried, salted, and preserved food. Now that we can buy a multitude of fresh, frozen, or processed food from any corner of the globe, I know I'm in no danger of starving, but I will miss the pleasures of nourishing myself with fresh food that connects me to my immediate community. So, while my cupboards are by no means bare, these are not months of abundance either.

"We are entering what the German's call saure gurken zeit which means, 'the sour pickle time,'" Ursula Holmes told the five of us last February. We were seated around her kitchen table to learn the art of making fermented vegetables, an ancient food preservation technique. Essentially, we were there to learn how to make pickled vegetables. Instead of preserving them in a liquid with high acidity, like vinegar, we would let the natural bacteria, lactobacillus—an organism that lives naturally on organic vegetables—create a fermentation process. The bacteria would raise the ph of the liquid in the jar, which would preserve the vegetables, keep any unsavory microbes at bay, and infuse them with a tangy fresh flavor.