July and August are brutal months for vegetable growers. It is the point at which, year after year, the demands of the farm are at their peak and morale is at its lowest. It’s very hot, we always go through a drought in our region at this time of year, and the feelings of burnout get more intense towards the end of summer. We need to start seeding our fall crops in July and it can be really hard to get cool season crops to germinate and thrive in these conditions, so there’s also a level of low-grade anxiety about the winter and having enough to get by. We are also annoyed at the freeloading hens we take such good care of, as they have really been slacking on the egg front and we have been shorting y’all - sorry about that, we will make it up to you once tomato season hits, which will be very soon. We cannot wait to load you up with incredible tomato varieties - you’ve never tasted tomatoes like these. (this is just a straight up brag, not even humble - but I learned to grow vegetables from a seriously old school Italian montrealer so I know what I’m talking about) This quote from Clara Coleman really rings true at this time of the year:
“I feel like one of the ugly truths of farming is the tendency for burnout. Farming is inherently tied up with how much we give and do and produce, and when we need to take a moment to step back to take care of ourselves, either our farms suffer from our absence or we suffer from the guilt and realization that the act of stepping back might actually be uncovering the tip of an enormous iceberg of necessary self-care that we feel we cannot prioritize at this point in time. Too many tomato plants to prune; too many items on the to do lists; too many responsibilities to the needs of plants, animals, our employees, our customers; too many self-imposed demands of our time and energy; and no real way to truly clock out at the end of a day, at the end of a week. Too much time spent doing, and not enough time spent being. How do we change the world when we are so busy farming that we barely have enough time to do the internal work to change ourselves? Oh the irony of creating @realfarmercare—here I am doing a crappy job of prioritizing self-care, something of which I know in my gut to be essential to the success and longevity of farming and of a life well-lived, and I can’t even seem to find this critical balance right now. Why is farming and self-care so damn hard? If anyone has some wisdom or insights or reflections, I am listening…”
Clara Coleman is the daughter of one of the heroes of modern day sustainable market gardening, so she knows her shit. She is also the founder of https://www.gofundme.com/f/realfarmercare, an organization (one woman, actually) that distributes small no-strings-attached grants to small-scale farmers, focusing particularly on BIPOC farmers. Anyway, enough griping - the good news is that we have finished up kidding for the season, we have lots of adorable healthy babies running around like drunken parkour experts, I am forcing myself to find time to milk my does every morning and make some small quantities of cheese, and there’s lots of food coming out of the ground. We persevere.
