Patience and Waiting

 

 



So, with one week left until I board a plane for Texas I opted to spend some of my last days in the Northeast in my old home: New York City. During a hurricane. And Halloween weekend. Wonderful planning. Not that planning could actually help one avoid a hurricane, but now I'm stuck here. Indoors. No walks through the park, no coffee shop journal writing, no lunching with friends or chatting over wine with gal pals.  (Halloween just brought out the freaks on Saturday night... I actually saw three girls wearing fishnet pantyhose with very little covering their behinds. Like less than a pair of underwear would cover. And, your going to sit down in that cab, sweetie? We don't see things like that up in the country.)

 

So, once again I'm forced to be still. And think. Funny how this continues to happen to me. I've taken advantage of the gym downstairs in The Markham's building. I did an enzyme face mask. I've job searched (a little...) I even went out to the East River and watched the waves beat upon the boardwalk. Yeah, it's windy. And we headed indoors soon thereafter.

 

I feel sort of guilty for leaving the three guys (including Chris) back on the farm to weather the storm alone. This is our very last week of CSA harvesting. What timing. I'm sure they are busting their butts today to get as much harvested for delivery Thursday. Harvesting in the driving rain and 40mph winds tomorrow could be brutal- I'm sure.

 

My initial plan was to catch the Amtrak train back to Albany Tuesday afternoon. No, that is my plan. I have a ticked for a 3:00 train! But, with all public transportation services terminated currently, I seriously doubt that will be happening. And I have some serious packing to do about 250 miles north. Sigh........... So, here I am.

 



Packing and Moving and Going Back

 Moving again. Trying to figure out how to make the last ¼ cup of olive oil last two weeks, how to not buy anymore butter and eating oatmeal every morning. We’ve packed almost the entire kitchen but left out enough things so I can scrap together a meal. If it’s roasting vegetables, I’m doing pretty well. I do have all my pots and pans still… But without any mixing bowls or really any bowls in general it’s sort of difficult to throw anything together.

And after eating so well for the last several months, even spending two weeks on hot pockets or peanut butter sandwiches sounds pretty terrible. How did I ever eat Zone Bars or Jello Instant Pudding? I know this sounds weird, but sometimes I think I can taste the chemicals in food….

So we’re living in our barn apartment amongst the boxes of things from here and the boxes of things that we’ve taken out of the storage unit that we have had the last seven months. It has been like Christmas going through some of our old things, remembering what we’ve forgotten. I’m working on packing my bags for Texas, because I won’t need what I have been wearing here. I don’t want to see those three pair of Dickie work pants for quite awhile. I’m thrilled about terrible American things like GAP jeans, high heels, V-neck sweaters and a navy jacket from J. Crew.

Could I go back to my 9-5, 40 hour a week, vacation, sick-pay, insurance, maternity leave, “Summer Fridays” job (where I was LOVED….)? Probably. But it’s not what I’m supposed to do. There is more. Even if it requires more from me. And pushes me harder. And there isn’t sick-pay and Summer Fridays and I am not even loved….

A friend mailed me this scripture from Isaiah 43:

This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea,

a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses,

the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

...

This week I backed the farm truck in the tractor while out in the potato patch. In front of Farmer Thomas. And I've cried once. (not about the farm truck) But standing in the kitchen, thinking about how everyone else views these past eight months of my life. Do they all think I am slacker, a hippie, a unsocial country bumpkin who wants to be a hermit? Do they think I've wasted my time and that I'm avoiding Life. "What a waste of intelligence. What a waste of a college degree. What a waste. Poor Girl... " Because really, I feel like I AM LIVING LIFE. But I do think it's time to leave… (and really I was sort of crying because I was freezing cold, wet, crawling in-between rows of mizuna, harvesting for CSA and wanting the day to be over. So, I took five and went inside for a potty break. Just so you know, I still go to the the bathroom at work to cry...)

I haven’t cut myself with the harvest knife- which was a huge fear initially. SUCCESS! And Thomas was the only one to fall through the floor (ceiling) when we were re-insulating the barn floor (our apartment ceiling) this spring. Teetering along those beams, drill in hand- I did so well.  And Chris did take down a huge limb from a peach tree while trying to pull on it to reach the ripest peaches. “Delicate… Ornamental… Fragile trees…” Whoops. I guess we’ve all had our moments. 

I’m ready to uncover what’s next though!

The End is Drawing Near

With two weeks left until I leave this here, “farm livin,” I find myself drinking a Hefewiezen (I am NOT a beer drinker. At all.) because there is no wine in this barn apartment, and eating some lovely 85% dark chocolate.

My hands are burning from the peppers I chopped for the last batch of fresh salsa I will make for the season. Yes, we are still harvesting tomatoes. They are in a greenhouse. (Well, it’s not a greenhouse technically, as in there is no temperature regulation, just sides that roll up and down and the irrigation is monitored. But really, the plants are just protected. I call it a field house. Some call it a hoop house. But they are in the ground. They are not hydroponically grown. Whatever.) It’s the cilantro that pretty much went kaput after the first (and only) frost the night of Oct. 12^th… So with the final cilantro of the year and some of the last tomatoes I whipped up some salsa for my honey. With two jalapenos and two NeMex Jo’s and my hands are feeling the sting.

Yesterday I made the last loaf of savory zucchini bread with the last half of the last zucchini for the season… Chris was quite sad. He’s still not sick of zucchini. This savory bread was new to me: zucchini, parsley, cheese and scallions. Much different than the pumpkin-like zucchini bread I’m used to.

So, our time is almost up. Well, my time is anyway. In two weeks from today I’ll be flying home to Texas. For good. For now. And in between now and then I’m taking an extended weekend into New York City to see my girls one last time. So, yeah, my farm days are numbered. Chris will follow soon thereafter. Somehow. Although those details aren’t quite figured out yet. Uhaul? Winnebago? Truck? Van? And we have a car and a motorcycle we are sorting through… .Oddly enough, we both agreed that me NOT being around for all the moving drama would probably be a good thing. I’m just boxing everything up and leaving him to it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’ve learned or felt or accomplished while being here. And while I really don’t know what exactly all that means and may not be able to easily put my finger on what has changed in me, I know things have. This opportunity has put a lot of things in perspective for me. I just want to live simply. I want to be purposeful with my time and career and in all things. God continually reminds me to slow down and to enjoy the “nothing to do.”

In the seasons of cold and rain and wind here in upstate New York, with no community and very little to do for outside entertainment, I often felt I might go stir crazy- BUT, I know resting was what my body needed. More reading more writing, more stillness and time indoors and less going from gym to work to rehearsal to wine with a friend to an apartment that was never ever as quiet as it is here.

I still love farms and farmers and farming--- just not sure it’s for me. For a career.

And I still love (and miss) my 3” heels and dangly earrings and Armani wool coat and pink toenails. Having things is not bad, but letting THINGS get out of control is. We are not our things.

I’ve been with my husband, pretty much 24/7 since April 1^st. I am not lying. At times it has been trying, but I think overall we’ve laughed more together in these last seven months than in the last seven years combined.

…

I’ve also been thinking about what I would like to do in NYC during this final trip in and I think my first stop will be to get these bushy eyebrows tended to! It’ll be awhile until my hands are back to normal –if that even happens at all, and no one is seeing these toes until spring, but my brows need some assistance. As does my hair, but that may just have to wait until Texas where prices are cheaper.

I want to sit and write in Java Girl again, visit the Union Square Farmers Market (cause I can’t get enough), walk through Central Park, have soup at Le Pain, something yeasty and bready and crispy at Amy’s Bread, and some world-renowned licorice at Dean and Deluca. It’s the people that I miss the most though. And that I will continue to miss.

People who hugged me when I was hurting, who cried with me, who invited me to Thanksgiving dinner and who sat on my sofa on Christmas Eve. People I have run races with, sang songs with, been on TV with, danced in the street with, been fired from jobs with, worked 9-5 forty hours a week with, been to weddings with, been to funerals with, written letters to and received letters from. People I’ve visited in the hospital, cat sat for, who’ve let me sleep on their sofas (and they've slept on mine!), called when I was down, had wine with, people I've prayed with.

Falling in Love

Earlier this week while cleaning out the seedling house for the end of the season, I found a little  mouse in the huge black trash bag full of empty soil bags, broken seed trays and old seed packages. I squealed, Chris came running, while telling me “don’t move” and whacked the mouse out of the bag with his shovel. Sitting, perplexed on the ground (the mouse, not Chris!) Chris trapped him between the shovel blade and the dirt road and that was the end of him. Pour guy. I think I saw his heart beat it's last beat. Outside of his fur. Ehwwwwwww!

This little mouse is a nuisance to the farm and the plants. Mice have eaten many beets and turnips this year alone. But, in that moment he wasn’t doing any harm. I wasn’t sad for his death, just sorry that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now that I think of it, that is the fifth animal Chris has killed with that same shovel this season alone. And that does not include the rooster(s). Oh, dear…

 My closest friends can attest- I’ve never really been an animal lover. (Heidi, Percy, Bess, Bruiser, Harley- so sorry...) I’ve always just sort of been indifferent regarding pets such as dogs and cats. I had pets growing up, but in the country it was different. Dogs wandered up, cats came and went. And none of our pets were allowed indoors. I think I just sort of guarded myself from ever feeling sad should one die, get stolen, run off, or get hit by a car. Which did happen frequently.

 But here on the farm I guess I feel a sort of responsibility to care for the barnyard animals. I work around them eight hours a day, they are most always within view: Eleanor and Franklin the donkeys, Megaton and Amadeus the pigs (who should be meeting their fate very, very soon), and the abundance of roosters, hens and chicks. I enjoy dumping bins of weeds from the greenhouse over the eclectic fence for the donkeys. Thistles, purslane, lambsquarter: delicious. I like taking bolting lettuce to the chickens in the hen house and giving almost any and everything rotten to the pigs. They don’t like bell peppers though- or garlic.

Seamus is still my favorite animal on the farm. He walks around like he owns the place. Courageous, proud, boasting in his swagger. And each night around 7:00pm when he makes his mad dash for the dogie door in the basement of Thomas’s home Winston barks his head off- never backing down. But Seamus is wise and very aware. He mostly likes to taunt the dogs by laying right beyond their reach on the other side of the invisible fence which would give them a jolt should they proceed. It’s sort of funny that Seamus knows just where to talk and lay to upset the dogs. And I'll spare you the details here, but recently Seamus caught a tiny chipmunk and decided to play with it for awhile I still can't make it through the story without laughing my butt off!

I like their personalities. The donkeys expect treats of misshaped carrots and always stand right by the greenhouse whenever we are in there- hoping for oversized beets or slimy frisee. They brae and brae and brae. Pitiful. The pigs squeal when we walk by, but stop and tilt their heads and push their ears forward when they hear the food bin open. They literally do back flips for their feed. And tomatoes. Most all other veggies seem to bore them, yet they eat them nonetheless.

Megaton and Eleanor like to break out of their fences from time to time.  Always the girls- being mischievous. Breaking free. Looking for the greener grass. (or blueberry bushes and fields to root in, in this case.) I like this about my girls- never really satisfied and always knowing there is something more, this is not a bad thing!

I think I’ve just grown to appreciate what we can learn from animals- geese or birds or cats or pigs. I like observing them and trying to figure out what they are thinking. (Well, that’s why I like people watching too, but this is an entirely new level. It’s what we writers do, in case you’re wondering.) I’ve been known to size people up, and write their fictional story to a fault. But, I don’t really think I can change how my mind works. It’s sort of who I am. Quite wordy.

And in so many words I guess I am admitting here that I really like animals now.

Mud and Merk and Me

The fall has been rainy and damp. There are slugs eating the turnips and radishes. I’ve purchased an expensive wash to waterproof our pants and have generously sprayed our clothing down with Scotchguard.

There is mud everywhere, all the time. I’ve worn my Hunter mud boots nearly everyday in the last two weeks which is most unfortunate since they have zero arch support. Washing root vegetables is quite the task these days as well- beets, carrots, diakon radishes… But none of these are quite nearly as bad as leeks and scallions which took me almost an hour to wash, clean, peel, de-root in preparation for market last week. People don’t want to see roots on their vegetables. Or dirt (Not to mention bugs or spots or holes.) This makes organic farming all that much more challenging.

Last week, while picking beautiful leaves of red chard the sunflowers looked pitifully down on me; their heads drooping in my direction without buoyancy or color or much life at all. Their dead brown centers were sort of depressing hanging above the vibrant shoots of green and red Swiss Chard. In the bed beside us: Beedy's Camden, Russian Red, Dinosaur and Crinkly Kale at their finest, as winter draws near and summers sunflowers die off. All within it’s time. Kale even tasting much sweeter after the first frost, which will be here sooner than I’d like to think.

 With threats of a freeze warning possibly this week we harvested all bell peppers that had sized up. (This happens to be around 1,000. We counted.) Most of them green. Row covers will be coming out again very soon as well. We will cover the bell peppers, hot peppers, beans and zucchini in an effort to make the most of the fruit that are on the plants. Eggplants have already bit the dust. And most everything else in the ground will survive for at least the four weeks remaining in the CSA delivery: broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, kale, chard, turnips, rutabagas, beets, celery root, fennel, radishes, arugula, mustard greens and mizuno. (Whew!) And then there are the plants in the four field houses- but we don’t have to discuss that now.

 We’ve been cleaning and bagging onions, shallots and garlic. Cleaning out the seed house, preparing an ever-growing pile of trash to take to the dump some day soon. We will also be planting garlic sometime soon as well. But first, we have to take each and every head of the 150lbs of garlic and break them up into cloves. This will be a nice rainy day activity that I’ll get to do in my not so distant future.

I’m counting down the days, and trying to not wish my future upon myself too quickly. Sometimes in the mud and cold that is hard. The sun has been shining some and last Friday, on our anniversary we did get to take a little motorcycle ride into town, for some ice cream of course. But as quickly as the 77 degree temps were here, Saturday after farmers market, it was in the 50’s, windy and rained steadily all evening.

Hundreds of geese fly overhead daily. It’s so amazing to see them in flight, so determined and headed so far away. I think I get distracted too easily, gazing upward, listening intently, but it is a beautiful thing.

Anniversary trip to VT

Stefani, Oct. 2012 (6 year anniversary)

Stefani, Oct. 2007 (first ann. in NYC LaSirene)

Chris, Oct. 2012

Chris, Oct. 2007

 

Even though most of our trip was gray, foggy and rainy- just getting off of the farm for a few days was nice. We traveled through the Green Mountains of Vermont and saw some amazing foliage, ate some delicious cheese, tasted various maple syrups,  had some nice drinks and rested well. It it gorgeous up here!

Rolling Hills

Harvesting Corn

Watch for farmers popping wheelies

Covered Bridge

Tour and FREE samples at the Magic Hat brewery

(My personal favorite was Circus Boy. mmmmm!)

Ben and Jerrys Tour