Dog tag.
A couple weeks ago a woman from the Young Farmers' Coalition asked me a for a photo of Cara and me farming together. Photos of us together are pretty rare, and finding one of us farming together is even rarer. Somehow, in the insanity that is summer on a vegetable farm, there's just not many pictures taken.
While searching, though, I found just such a photo from our first year at Roxbury--it was early fall and I'd decided to carry a camera for a couple days. I don't recall what I'd been up to here at Quincy Farm the day that I was looking back at that photo, but I was beat and demoralized... it just kind of happens sometimes when you work as hard and long as you can every single day, and never quite reach your expectations. Anyway, in this photo from four seasons ago, everyone looks like they're having so much fun! I thought, man, working for someone else (provided it's the right someone else of course) is such a good time, everybody's laughing and enjoying themselves. Starting out on your own is just masochistic.
While searching, though, I found just such a photo from our first year at Roxbury--it was early fall and I'd decided to carry a camera for a couple days. I don't recall what I'd been up to here at Quincy Farm the day that I was looking back at that photo, but I was beat and demoralized... it just kind of happens sometimes when you work as hard and long as you can every single day, and never quite reach your expectations. Anyway, in this photo from four seasons ago, everyone looks like they're having so much fun! I thought, man, working for someone else (provided it's the right someone else of course) is such a good time, everybody's laughing and enjoying themselves. Starting out on your own is just masochistic.
Cara, Jody, and Justin picking sweet corn at Roxbury in 2008.
Mixed in with the flooding and failures and challenges, of course, there's moments of satisfaction--peeling back row cover to find huge healthy cucumber plants, finally getting an improvised equipment solution to work great, talking to people at market who are thrilled to get such great produce. And sometimes, there's fun. Just plain old little kid style fun.
Tonight the sun was setting through the trees as we finished up our task down below, and we whistled the dog in out of the river. Next thing you know, there's a full tilt game of dog tag going on, and all three of us are panting and grinning (maybe the dog always grins? Hard to tell). It didn't matter that I'd been up since 4:30, or that if this were last year, I'd already be showered, fed, and enjoying a cold beer by 8pm. We were filthy, exhausted, and behind schedule... and having a damn good time.
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