Life after Farm Camp: Carrots, Politics and wisdom of 'One Straw'

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Marc's Garden, Bainbridge Island WA

Carrots, my dad and I learned last Monday, have the most complex flavor of any vegetables, and the third most of any food, after chocolate and coffee. This was one of many nuggets of carrot knowledge we learned from John Navazio, a PhD and seed breeder who works for the Organic Seed Alliance. That organization sponsored the event, a chance for farmers, gardeners and anyone else to learn about carrot seed breeding and trials at Nash's Produce in the Dungeness Valley of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The seed trials were sponsored by NOVIC, a collaborative that aims to develop seeds for organic farmers in the northern tier of the US, who need to produce a yield from fields that are often too wet or too cold. It wasn't too cold or rainy that day at Nash's, but the fields peered across were muddy from previous days' rain. We stood in our mud boots gazing across acres of carrot tops and pondering this contraption designed to harvest those delicious orange roots:


John Navazio and Scott, a field manager at Nash's, explained to us the goals of carrot seed trials: to get a carrot that will hold in the sometimes frozen, nearly always waterlogged soil at the farm through the winter into the spring and will still taste good after harvest. After looking at the bolero carrots, checking for any white fungus growing in the tops and discussing varietal differences, we headed inside to taste some of the recently-harvested bounty from the fields. With 10 varieties present, it quickly became clear that not all carrots taste the same.


After more than enough carrots to ensure our daily dose of Vitamin A and a delicious winter squash soup, we headed back to Bainbridge Island, where we'd spent the night before with my Uncle Marc and Aunt Nancy. We had just enough time to finish off the previous nights' dessert--chocolate mousse--and catch the ferry back to Seattle so we could watch what was the last game of the world series. Although I really enjoyed the games in the series, my introduction back to the world of advertisements after nearly six months of TV-free living at the Farm and Garden was not always a pleasant one. I am reminded of the consumer-driven reality that many people spend much of their lives immersed in.

I can't recount the events of the past week without mentioning the elections. Elections are a reality check, a reminder that lots of people out there in America have values much different from mine. Fortunately, many of the things I voted for (or against) in California were successful. Still, on the national level, the results of Tuesday don't give me much hope that the federal government will solve any of our pressing issues: economic stagnation, ongoing foreclosure crisis, a broken immigration system, global climate change. It's up to us, but I don't have many answers at the moment, except that I will continue to 'till the land' for whatever that is worth. I used to get all bent out of shape about politics, too emotionally involved. Back in 2008 the election in 2008 was all I could think about for weeks leading up to the contest. I even had to take the day of the election off (I ended up phone banking) because I was so distracted and couldn't get anything done at work. I vowed to not let this happened and swung into apathy while I was in Santa Cruz. I am trying to forge a new route: not feeling the weight of the world's problems on my shoulders all the time, but not trying to escape or avoid all the pressing issues of our country and the world. A kind of middle path.

Wednesday was a beautiful, sunny day in the Puget Sound, and I took a glorious walk through the Nisqually Delta on my way to Olympia. These sights were enough to revive any post-election blues:

View of the Olympic Mountains to the west, across the sound

I was reminded just how beautiful of a place the Pacific Northwest is. I had dinner and spent the evening with my aunt, uncle and cousins at their house in Olympia and left the next morning for Let Us Farm, a small family run place in the Chehalis Valley about 45 minutes south of town. Fog and dew clung to the meadows and forestlands as I headed south on 1-5, then exited and headed west through Rochester and Oakville, two small towns in the flood-prone Chehalis River plain. I finally reached the farm, which is just west of Oakville, and joined in helping Cecelia wash parsnips. Later, Steve drove me around past the vegetables and into the expansive acreage planted in various cover crops. The couple had bought the 88 acre property--a defunct dairy-- eight years ago or so and had converted it to a successful organic farm that produces all sorts of delicious veggies. It's a beautiful spot, a rural, green valley surrounded by the gently sloping forests (albeit a bit clearcut, but hey, it's Gray's Harbor County).

I spent two days working on the farm: harvesting beets and winter squash, washing greens and lettuce, pulling up rutabagas, sorting potatoes, packing the van for the trip to the U-District Farmers' Market on Saturday. It was a great opportunity to do some real hard farm work, meet some knowledgeable farmers and get out of the city for a couple days. Most of all, I was reminded of the humbling experience of farming, and that as a beginner, I have much work to do and much learning. Sure, I took the cucurbits class and the irrigation class (I fell asleep during the soil nutrition class) and made some bouquets at CASFS, but I was reminded of the shortcomings of that program and that the reality of work on a production farm is much different from how I've spent the past six months. I was reminded yet again of the lesson I learned at Black Mesa the previous winter: that for people making a living off the land, actions often speak louder than words and fast-talking isn't usually welcome. This is a refreshing change from how the rest of society operates, and is humbling for me, a graduate of elite schools who could flash credentials around but prefers to let the work I do speak for itself.

The 'silo' at Let Us Farm; the rest of the winter squash we pulled from the fields on a sunny November afternoon in the Chehalis Valley.

Recently, I've dug into Masanobu Fukuoka's classic treatise on 'Natural Farming', the One Straw Revolution. It's a great book, documenting Fukuyoka's transformation from plant pathology expert working for the government to farmer of grains and citrus. Fukuyoka's work is inspiring because it presents an ideal of farming that I strive for: one that uses no off-farm fertility inputs, tillage or chemical sprays and fertilizers and conserves water and energy. It also connects the simple life of farming and living and eating close to the land with Zen Buddhism, a philosophy that's long influenced my own life. I am reminded of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and that as an aspiring farmer, I am most definitely a beginner. One thing that appeals to me about farming is that one can never know it all: organic agriculture is incredibly complex and presents a lifetime of learning.

So I turn away from the world of politics, with it's rhetoric and deciet, knowing full well that it shapes all our lives and it is not something we can escape from by fleeing to a bucolic setting and avoiding the people we disagree with. It is easy to begrudge those who do things that we view as stupid, ignorant or cruel and to want to change their attitudes. I am not sure how to do this, but instead of going down this path of frustration, futility and anger, I turn towards the self, and how I can continue to cultivate my own person, not in a self-absorbed, self-indulgent way, but so that I can continue to learn and grow and perhaps be a positive influence in the world. I choose to work with hands and body, focus my mind on observing and learning, realizing I don't know all that much in the grand scheme of things and that there is much beauty and mystery in this world around us, however terrible that place can appear at times. And maybe eat a few carrots and a kabocha squash or two while I'm at it.