For The Love Of....

At the end of every market season we are always exhausted. We, or at least I, am looking forward to tucking in for winter and hibernating until spring. In reality there is no hibernating but, the beginning of another kind of busy season with school sports, the holidays and preparing for cold weather.

The change and break is always welcome. I always chuckle however, at how quickly my desire for a break changes back to looking forward to market season almost immediately after Christmas.

I always joke that being a farmer is like being in labor . At the start of the season I am always full of hope and wonder, just like how I felt when I was pregnant. By the end of the season I am exhausted, hot, tired and swearing off farming ever again which, coincidently is how I felt during labor as I proclaimed, “I will never have another baby again!”

Like the desire to have another baby not nearly long enough after the pains of labor, I find I am always looking forward to another season of farming rather quickly after vehemently swearing it off only months earlier. How quickly I forget the heat, exhaustion, physical labor and body aches when I am diligently starting heirloom tomatoes seeds in early January.

There is a love to market farming. A love that is deep and full of connection to the land, the community and our customers. A love that drives us into this that I find hard to describe in words. The driving force is enough to motivate us to continue at 3am when the wood stove needs more wood to keep the tomato plants from freezing in February. (Full disclosure that’s Matt’s job, not mine as seen in the above image, although it’s not 3am there)

The love is enough to motivate me to whisper sweet things to our tender tomato plants to encourage growth. The love is enough that days and weeks later I am diligently weeding those same tomato beds and still whispering sweet things as I weed….just so we’re all clear, weeding sucks…….like really sucks and for those interested actual whispering does happen.

All of this love for farming leads me to another kind of love… the love of our family. Farming is not always in the ‘love’ category for our children like it is for Matt and I. Our kids have lots of other loves however, on days that we need the help our kids have come through on many occasions although sometimes begrudgingly. On those days I have left the field at the end of the day feeling drained and yet euphoric knowing that we have created the best kinds of memories and experiences with our kids. We didn’t leave the farm, we didn’t spend any money and we didn’t include any electronics but, what we did do is work together to accomplish something. We got dirty, we stacked endless amounts of wood, hauled compost, broad forked, stretched heavy silage tarps across beds, planted and planted some more. We worked hard and we bonded together through laughter, conversation, arguments about who is working harder than another and the occasional goofy photo session.

If Matt and I are thankful for one thing on the journey of being market farmers, it’s for experiences like this, for memories like this and for families like ours.