The Pregnant Farmer Turns Into The Mama Farmer

When J was first offered his fantastic job, we'd just come off of our first season farming and had somehow managed to survive on my modest and then quite sporadic pay. It was harrowing, to say the very least, to figure out how to live on so very little and with so few guarantees that -- small or not -- the next check would come at all, or ever again.

We were trying to get pregnant at the time -- for like the 14th month -- and I started to convince myself that baby wasn't coming because somehow the universe knew we didn't have the capacity to handle a baby, either financially or otherwise.

And, I wasn't sure how I could be a Mom and work the way I was working. I'd almost always been the breadwinner in the family and that pressure was immense when I considered that on top of caring for a wee one.

So, at the word "benefits" we jumped at J's job offer, and fast.

But, what about the farm? At the time, I told him that if he was working full time, I would go part time with my off-farm job and become the primary farmer the next season.

Then, I got pregnant.

Fooled him, didn't I?

I was some help on the farm last year and even spent the day before I went into labor on my hands and knees weeding the parsley, but largely (ha!) I couldn't cut it.

There was so much that went undone, so many opportunities we may have lost, so many ventures tossed aside -- all because we were short handed and of the hands we did have, one set was swollen from all the water retention.

So, as I look at pictures of the farm from last fall, weeds overgrown and turnips and carrots left in the beds to rot, I'm terrified that we'll do it all over again, or maybe even fall shorter.

See those large masses to the right of the high tunnel? Yeah. Those are supposedly beds of carrots.

I'm trying to imagine how we're going to manage a full-time off-farm job for J, a part-time one for me and my more than full-time Mama role and so far, I'm coming up blank.

But for now, the seeds need to be started to I'm learning to work around nap schedules. I take the baby monitor into the greenhouse and start seeding, as fast as I can, hoping that she'll sleep long enough to get a few flats going. Other times, I strap her into the front carrier, hook her onto "life support" as my friend Steph calls it, and away we go.

So, far, we're all keeping up, but the ground will thaw soon and then we'll see just how feasible a family and a farm can be.

She's Got the Whole World, In Her Mouth

She might be teething... or pondering world domination.

Have I mentioned how much I love that I live someplace where my friends can just drop by for quick chats and play dates?

Or, have I mentioned how extremely lucky I've been to find such an awesome tribe of women in our little town?

Or, have I mentioned how excited I am to be feeding my baby winter squash grown on our own farm? (See this post on the farm blog today for a little more on that.)

Or, have I mentioned how hard it is to get this kid to eat when there is anything distracting her, let alone two adorable girls playing in the living room?

This picture says all of that:

Thistles and Shamrocks, Sesame and Kale

There are few things I enjoy more in this world than the combination of the following:

1. The Thistle and Shamrock on NPR
2. Cheap, but decent, wine
3. Time alone in the kitchen
4. Thai food
5. The sounds of my husband and daughter playing in the other room while I partake in all of the above.

The kitchen has become somewhat of a haven for me, something I never thought would happen.

And, while I often complain that the kitchen in our little house is too small (it really is a one-butt kitchen and when we have company, I get isolated back there), the truth is I like the solitude it creates.

It's just me, NPR, a glass of wine, a sharp knife and a pile of good ingredients at my finger tips. It's my one bit of space during the day for creativity, quiet thought, my own music and a tangible sense of accomplishment and purpose.

Last night was just a regular Saturday night in our house, but for me, it was perfect.

And the food didn't turn out half bad either. Here are the recipes. (But keep in mind, they are only guaranteed if cooked with cheap wine and Irish music.)

Finding Some Balance

When it's this cold and windy, it's hard not to go just a little bit nuts.

Last week, while having one of those hanging-by-a-thread-so-thin-it-would-break-in-a-soft-breeze sort of days, I decided to stop for a moment and do a little yoga while Willa napped.

Nap time is so very precious, and I know I should be taking time for myself, but inevitably, I end up working or planting, cleaning or prepping dinner.

So, I've been trying to prioritize time for my mind and my body.

That means yoga. In the course of the last 10 years, I've gone in and out of practice, needing yoga more during some times and less during others. But it's been a constant in my life -- something I've always seemed to find my way back to. I can't (or won't) run and I don't have any other major physical tendencies other than work so yoga is my exercise of choice.

It's helped keep me centered and relatively sane through bouts of depression, loneliness, intense stress and transition, cancer and a few years of infertility. You could say it's been good to me.

I Wish I Was Just Like My Mother

Oh God. Did I just type that?




I wrote a short story in college -- workshopped it and everything -- with the premise that one of the worst things you can do is tell a woman she's just like her mother. Even worse is illustrating it by calling her by her mother's name.

As in: "OK, whatever, Julie."

(Chills. Up. The. Spine.)

My brother says it when I overreact. My husband says it when I worry too much. My best friend says it when I reach for another Diet Coke and a pack of saltine crackers.

The truth is though, being called by my Mother's name bugs me because I am like my Mother -- when I overreact, when I worry and when I drink too much Diet Coke.

By the time you've become a woman of your own, you've worked decades to differentiate yourself from your Mom. So, it really gets under your skin when what annoys you about your Mom gets discovered in you.

But, being just like my Mom is actually a good -- nay a great -- thing.

There are so many amazing, wonderful things about my Mom and never are those so vivid or so inspiring than when she is with her grandchildren.

The woman has this, this something, with kids. They light up in her presence. They show off, they giggle, they play.

She has a way of relating to little ones and letting their world envelop her. She reads books and plays and counts and sings ABCs, for hours and hours.

My Mom is, and always has been, so present.

And just so dang much fun.

Take this weekend, for example. While I run around the house, trying to straighten and clean, cook and shine, she sits, delighted with Willa, dreaming up fun things for all of us to do. Let's go to Village Drug! Let's get the stroller out! Can't you just wait until summer when we can take her to the pool! Oh! Won't that be so much fun!

She lives to have fun, like a kid.

How does she do it? Perspective.

She's always quick to tell me, when I'm fretting about work or the farm or the house or the massive amount of dog hair accumulating around me, that this stage only happens once and if you're not careful, you'll take it for granted.

"If I could, I would do it all over again," she said this weekend. "Just so I could do it again. God, I loved it when you kids were little."

So, on Sunday, even though I had dinner to cook and seedlings to plant, grain to weigh, columns to write and logos to design, I spent about two hours playing with Willa as my Mom dressed her in everything pink and/or fancy she could find in her closet. Why? Just because it's fun to play dress up.

(Someone should tell her though, that this is a baby, not a doll, despite the evidence in this photo.)



My apologies. I can't stop posting these. I mean, c'mon. Could you?



Seriously.



Rumba butts drive me nuts.



Willa absolutely cannot believe how excited Nana is about this dress.



But this excitement starts to turn to frustration pretty quickly.

Willa denounces the silliness by trying to eat the dress.



The situation then quickly devolves to this.



And then finally, this.

Doing Ourselves a Solid

The day of Willa's first meal started like this:

The book says winter squash at 6 months. She's five and a half. Maybe we should start with sweet potatoes.

But we can't grow sweet potatoes. We have our own winter squash and wouldn't it be better to start her on something we grew?

How do we make sure the spoon is fully sanitized?

What's that spot on the sweet potato, is it rotten?

What if I got the wrong kind of water? Did the book say spring water or purified water?

How long do I have to boil the water?

Why does she have to have water again?

And, really? I need to watch her water intake because too much could make her *what* fail?

Are you sure the cup is BPA free?

Are we sure this is the right time? One study says 4 months, another says 6 months. What if she develops allergies because of this?

All these questions I hadn't thought of before started popping up and just like that, just when I thought I had things figured out, I didn't.

But, after a minor panic attack, Jacob assured me that for centuries, mothers and fathers had figured out how to feed their children and we could too.

So, I mixed stirred and breathed and then fed my baby. Smooth as sweet potato puree.

A few days and we had the food thing down pat.

With sweet potatoes at least.

Work at Home = Madness at Home

The first three months of Willa's life were filled with only her.

When she was in utero, I promised myself I wouldn't let other stuff, stuff outside this little bean, distract me. I would be Mama first. The rest would come after. And, I would not. I repeat, would NOT take on too much outside work.

You see, I'm somewhat of a pleaser. I like to help and I love when I'm needed. Oh, and I can't say no to people I like or issues I care about. So, I have a tendency to take on too much. I vowed that this baby would make me better at boundaries.

I was very clear with my work how much I could give and I turned down several opportunities that came my way (from people I like and on issues I care about) to better focus on the part-time writing gig I do have, the side writing projects I want to work on and most of all, my babe.

It's all gone to hell.

Big Girl Pants

Today, I pulled a sleeper out of Willa's drawer, a hot pink one with little pale pink hearts all over it. It's Valentine's Day and even if no one will see us dammit, we're going to be festive. (I'm learning, very quickly, that as a stay-at-home mama if you're not festive for yourself then who will you be festive for?)

I pulled the cute little suit on and in places, it was a little big, but overall, it fit. Then, I looked at the size. Nine months. Nine months. I've put her in too-big sizes before. Six month outfits for a four month old isn't a stretch. I can imagine six months old. But are we really this close to nine months?

Then, I looked at my to-do list on the wall. It includes the following:

-Put together high chair
-Research first baby foods
-Bring crib in from garage
-Child proof bathroom cabinet
-Order Willa's walker

My God. Where did the the last five months go?

Since Willa arrived, time has stopped, accelerated and slowed to a crawl -- sometimes, all at once.

Already, I've felt the sting of nostalgia and the terrifying "they-grow-up-so-fast" cliche. But, this, perhaps, is my first precipice.

Three weeks ago she rolled over. Two weeks ago, I had to let our a button on her adjustable cloth diapers. A week ago, she sat in her first high chair. Last week, I noticed her picking her little rump up, making the first silhouette of a soon-to-crawl baby.  Today, she fit into her first nine-month sleeper. In a few weeks, she'll be eating food -- like the same kind of food we eat.

It feels like these little moments are leading up to something BIG and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. She's in her big girl pants, and I'm not sure I fit in mine yet.

Home

In the last two weeks, the bean has become a wholly different little being. She's gone from infant baby sweetness to little personess just. like. that.

She's all smiles and giggles these days and is so, fully squishable.

She's also very into swinging around while I sing loudly.

I've been turning up "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magfinicant Zeros (partially inspired by this adorable video of a Daddy and daughter singing it) as loud as our computer speakers will blare and we twirl around the room, me singing at the top and her squealing.

The other day, I noticed that despite the utter delight on her face, her little hand was still tightly clutching at the hair on the nape of my neck.



What a perfect human experience: Squealing with abandon, but not forgetting to hold on tight.

Why I Married a Farmer

Two years ago yesterday, I did something I promised myself I would never do: I married a farmer.

I've never in my life made a better decision.



Jacob and I married in front of an historic red barn, with our friends and family surrounding us. The leaves on the cottonwoods were just turning and the air had that unmistakable fall crisp to it. The food came from Jacob's first farming experiment in Big Sandy and the flowers from my first large cut flower garden. It was the beginning of so many things for us.

The Clouds are Either Half Full of Moisture, or Half Full of Delay

The other day, Jacob pulled me into the greenhouse. "I want to show you something," he said. "Look at all of this. Look at what we've accomplished. Look at how much work we've done."

He was referring to this:


I laughed out loud. Just the day before, I took a moment to fully survey the greenhouse and got a little despondent thinking about all the work we had ahead of us. "All of this," I thought, "Has to be in the ground in the next few weeks."

So, the greenhouse is either half full of accomplishment or half full of work, depending on your vantage point.

Luckily Jacob and I have a knack for balancing each other. On days when I see work, he sees accomplishment. On days he sees a to do list, I remind him of all we've caught up on. That's what marriage is all about, right?

But back to the greenhouse. There are two main reasons it is still so full this late in the season:

Nights are still dipping down into the mid-30s, leaving us a little leery of transplanting things like tomatoes and peppers and the likes. Last Saturday, as a matter of fact, we got our last (knock on wood) frost and it got a few of the tomatoes we'd just put out to harden off. (They'll survive though.)



And, with all that cold is coming lots and lots of rain, which has hampered our efforts to get into the field to work beds and transplant.

But, as a kid who grew up on a dryland farm I'm never going to complain about moisture, no matter how much it's pushing us back. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that just when you think something is not working for you, like all the rain, you turn around and see that it's just what something else needed, like our emmer and Kamut and lentils:



Just look at that pretty stuff, popping up in nice little rows.

We delivered our first CSA shares this week and despite our worries about not having enough yet, we filled bags with lettuce and spinach and kale and radishes and our customers walked away happy -- some even overwhelmed with the bounty. We have so much spinach that we're delivering our first order to the local IGA tomorrow. So, the weather has been good to us in some ways, and bad to us in others.

There's the lesson.

The truth is, farming is an exercise in surrender. Surrender to weather and pests (we've stopped losing tomatoes, by the way) and schedules that are not your own. We control very little on this little patch of land and sometimes, that's just as it should be.

Progress, and the Long View of Farming

I'm always amazed at how quickly they grow up. In the last few weeks, we've gone from this:





to this:



We're having some problems with spotty germination (I know, sounds like a personal problem) but other than that, our little greenhouse in our *actual* house is working thus far.

Today, I moved a handful of these flats out to the real greenhouse, where we'll still have to use some additional heat, but we're nearing the day when all these little ones can be in the greenhouse without worry of frost. (Fingers crossed.)

We're T-minus six weeks from the first farmers' market, CSA delivery and hopefully, last frost. That means the seeding is in overdrive around here as we scramble to get everything started on time.

I have a love/hate relationship with the discipline that all of this necessitates. One the one hand, no one is here telling Jacob and I what to do. Our farm time is ours and that's one of the reasons we do this. (Both of us have always been keen on working for ourselves.) But, on the other hand, these little plants and the unforgiving schedule of a farm can end up being more of a heavy-handed boss than either of us have ever known.

I could take a break from planting, for instance, but that would mean one less harvest of lettuce or basil come June. We could skip that late night planting spinach, but then, it wouldn't get in before the snow and that would mean less spinach to harvest for that first CSA delivery in June.

As a modern society, we are so used to the immediate. For me personally, in my online work, every action has an immediate reaction. It's easy to get accustomed to that kind of immediate gratification or dissatisfaction.

But in farming, what you do right now does not have consequences tomorrow or next week. It has consequences three months from now. And, while that can be a somewhat difficult concept to grasp, it's a valuable exercise. It teaches us patience and perseverance, two qualities we don't take enough time anymore to foster.

So with that, I'll plant another flat of basil, that isn't likely to germinate for a few weeks and which I won't likely enjoy until the end of June. But I'll be dreaming of that pizza with every seed.

Stay in there little one

A few nights ago, I asked Jacob to put his hand on my stomach and tell the little one -- if he or she is in there at all -- to stay put.

(It's implantation time. I know this because after six months of "practicing" for pregnancy, I know just about everything there is to know about the process of baby-making, except, apparently, how to successfully make one.)

I breathed in and out a few times, watching his hand rise with my breath.

And I saw how badly he wants this, which is to say, as badly as I do.

The ups and downs of trying have been rough on me, forcing all manners of emotional issues surrounding my body, control and surrender to the surface. And, at times, that work got lonely.

The last few months have been an exercise for me in letting go, but in doing that, I think I stopped letting Jacob in on the process and I stopped allowing myself to dream.

And so the other night, as we both gave into the small indulgence that was actually acknowledging what we were both longing for, I was reminded not only how good hope can feel, but how good it can feel when it's shared.

In that small moment, I got a glimpse again of what we're working toward: A tiny person, made of a bit of him, a bit of me, a lot of hope and little breath.

For a Little While

A few years ago, my friend Brooke, with whom I share a deep love for literature and empty spaces in which to read it, told me I must read Willa Cather's O Pioneers!, but to do so in the spring.

"It's a delightful book for spring," she said -- or something to that effect. Brooke sometimes speaks like the heroine in one of the novels she's devoured. It's one of the many reasons I love her.

So, this week, I happened to find O Pioneers! in the one box of books I've brought in from the garage.

I read it fervently and tonight finished the final chapter, the beauty of which I always forget. It was, as it is every spring, gorgeous and complex.

But this year, now that we're farming, I brought an entirely new perspective to the book. And because of that, one passage in particular sang for me.

Last fall, when Jacob and I first started talking to David about leasing his land, he had a surprisingly unsentimental take on the future of the place. I don't mean dispassionate. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It was just a sense of practicality and no-nonsense. I can't remember exactly how he put it, but what he said had something to do with him not being the first one on the land, nor the last one. No one really owns their land in the first place, he said.

It's not a novel notion – but it is one I've heard mostly from the mouths of academics or environmentalists. Try it on a farmer who's been on his land for 50 years and his family for three generations and it's not going to fly. That's why coming from a farmer -- especially one staring down the reality of handing his land over to someone else – the idea held a tremendous weight.

I know a thing or two about the more sentimental approach to land ownership. For the better part of six years, I've cried every time we flash past my childhood farm on the interstate. The thought of another family there, of another farmer's plow in those fields … somehow, I felt robbed. Something that was mine was no longer.

David's place is 15 minutes from the that farm. I now pass the old place at least twice a week. When I remember, I glance over at the profile of the homestead – to see if the trees are still growing on the edges, if that depression near the turnoff is still sinking. But, I don't cry anymore.

Maybe it's that it's no longer “the farm” now that “the farm” is our farm, Jacob's and my farm. Or, maybe I am just finally able to intellectualize that the farm was never really mine to begin with, that what I was mourning was a childhood, innocence and an unscathed family, not a piece of ground.

Or, maybe I just knew it would be a waste of moisture – so very precious in this eastern front wind – if I had to cry every time we passed the farm.

Regardless, now that I'm digging in our dirt, which is actually owned by David, but technically still owned by the bank, and before that, owned by his parents and before that by someone whose name I don't even know, I see what David was talking about: It's about being able to see farther back than yourself or even your parents or grandparents and farther forward than your children or even their children.

Or, in more eloquent terms, it's about what Alexandra Bergson explains to Carl Lindstrum in that final chapter of O Pioneers!:

"Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference will that make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will there be in fifty years? I might as well will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, the land is always here And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it -- for a little while."

Too Much, Too Soon?

As we drove away from the greenhouse this weekend, I said, "I can't believe we're doing this."

"In a good way or a bad way?" he asked.

"Neither, really, I just actually cannot believe we're doing this."

Someone a few months ago suggested we try not to change too much at once. It's a good piece of advice. Too much change too fast can shake even the grounded.

But to hell with that. In the next four months we'll start a farm, rent our house, move across the mountains and possibly get pregnant (fingers crossed).