#women who farm

Despite the frigid mornings & frozen fingers, I find myself missing this recent farm season unlike any before. The friendships I built, the language I learned, and the growth I underwent have left me astonished by the beauty of this world.

I miss harvesting turnips, bunching herbs, hoeing lettuce in the high tunnels and singing songs en español. I miss the sweet smiles of my hardworking compañeras when they greeted me at the beginning of another work day. I miss Monday night mead after work, and building the bus on our days off. I miss all our friends, and our endless inside jokes, and our long talks about life, in the mist of Oregon fog.

I miss it all so much it hurts, but we will return soon. We are on to new adventures (but change takes so much time & discomfort). Oregon was comfortable, cozy, and homey. We always push ourselves into new situations just as we finally settle into a place. We hit the road right after we found real community… and I’ll be honest: sometimes I question why.

Encuentrame en el campo con muchos monojos de verduras y una sonrisa grande.

(Find me in the field/countryside with bunches of vegetables and a big smile).

Farming is all about patience, attentiveness and care. The harvests come quick & abundant. Our hands & knees move at a rapid speed through 300 ft high tunnels of fruiting tomato plants, trellised to the ceiling. Nearby, pepper plants are heavy with juicy green shishitos; zucchini plants grown over the pathways with bees pollinating their furry yellow flowers in a nectar-craving frenzy. Farm trucks loaded with hundreds of pounds of tomatillos, nearly a thousand bunches of carrots, or twenty tubs of cucumbers.

Yet sometimes I have to go out to one of the fields after work and enjoy a slower harvest to bring home with us. Striking a balance between the fast pace of production farming and the slower enjoyment of subsistence gardening is so important to me. Those Sunday afternoons in the shishito pepper greenhouse let me return to that meditative feeling of growing plants just for fun.