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).

Mark Bittman on Food, Industrial Ag

A must-watch. Bittman is funny, self-deprecating and spot on. He also touches on something (just briefly) that I don't think gets enough attention when we talk about the downfall of "food" in the last half-centrury: Feminism.

Prairie Thai: Tom Yum Guy Soup

I miss quite a few things about city living, but the big one is food, Thai food to be specific.

Sa Wa Dee in Missoula used to get roughly 20 percent of every paycheck. I can't get enough of the stuff.

Out here, on the prairie, where your choices are beef and fries or fries and beef, I go through serious sour, sweet, spicy withdrawls.

So, whenever Jacob or I make a run to Missoula, we stop at the Good Food Store for three ingredients (for lots of other things too, but these are always on the list): Galangal, lemongrass and lime leaves.

From there, I can almost pretend on Saturday nights that we're sitting in a dark back booth at the Dizzle. The only thing missing is the company of our good friends and fellow Thai fanatics and Tao, the owner's daughter, who still knows just how spicy to order my basil chicken and how old our baby is.

I've played and played with this recipe to get it close to Sa Wa Dee's, but I'm still a ways out. Nevertheless, it's salty and spicy and sour and yummy.


Recipe adapted from this site.

2 chicken breasts
3 dried Chillies
4 Garlic Cloves
Two stalks Lemon Grass, cut two-inch pieces
1 good-sized Galagal root, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 Lime Leaves
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
Handful Mushrooms
6 cups water or chicken broth


1. Put water or broth in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Add lemongrass, galagal and lime leaves
3. Pound the garlic and bird chillies and add.
4. Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces, then add to the soup and cook for 3 minutes.
5. Cut the straw mushrooms into half and add to the soup.
6. Add the fish sauce, salt and lime juice into the soup and cook for an additional 30 seconds.

Serve over Jasmine rice and top generously with cilantro and chopped green onions.

Mandy's Sesame Kale Salad

Kale is a super food.

No, it's a super-dee-duper food.

But, it can be daunting to a novice. So, if you're looking for an easy, yummy and versatile recipe to try the stuff, here's a good one.

Our friend Mandy, who farms with us brought this gem to our CSA member appreciation dinner last year. It was a huge hit, maybe even the star of the show (especially for all our members who were at that point, a little sick of Kale and looking for something new to try with the 10 pounds piling up in their fridges.)

Sesame Greens Salad

1 bunch of greens of your choice, chopped - boiled until crisp tender
1/2 onion, chopped
1/8 c rice vinegar
1/8 c soy sauce
1 t sesame oil
1 t garlic chili paste
1 T sesame seeds toasted

Pull your greens out of the water and drain thoroughly. In a bowl big enough for the greens, mix your sauces together, and add the warm greens and onion. Toss. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and refrigerate.

Note from Mandy: I have been known to add roasted garlic to the sauce mixture and also sweet chili sauce.