Note—I have left the names of businesses and individuals out; privacy is
the priority at the expense of making this less personal.
So it's been a long time since I've written anything on this blog, nearly a
year in fact. Last fall, I wrote prolifically about all sorts of things
related to farming, and even though I am no longer farming, I will stick with
the theme. I am still here in the Central Valley of California, but
hydraulic hoses, rice irrigation boards and white Ford Ranger trucks with
screwdrivers as radio antennae are no longer a part of my life. I am not
posting any photos of the current work I do as an accounting graduate student
at UC Davis: images of Bond Premium Amortization Schedules, Audit flowcharts
and Section 179 property deductions somehow don’t compare with giant rice
combines, grain bins full of popcorn and views across endless fields towards
the Sutter Buttes.
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| Sills Farms, December 2012 |
So what is the connection between the two? How do I go from a life of
farming in the rice country of South Sutter County to being a Master of
Professional Accountancy student at UC Davis' Graduate School of
Management? I am not going to tell the story of how I got from one place
to another, of how I got interested in accounting.
This is the story I constantly repeat in one
form or another to fellow classmates, interviewers and many others, and there
is another I’d like to tell instead. In the past few weeks, I’ve realized how
profoundly farming has shaped who I am.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to share my gratitude for
all that farming has done for me.
At the
same time, I also cannot ignore that the negative aspects of rice farming are still very much a part of my life.
 |
| Wheat, Dec 31, 2011 (your truly made all those perfectly straight beds, thanks to a GPS tractor) |
This past September I started a Master in Professional Accountancy program
at UC Davis.
From the beginning, we were
thrown into the career development, aka, job search process.
Recruitment for the big accounting firms
began as soon as we walked in the door.
Was I prepared?
Not really.
I ended up buying a suit—the first one I’d
purchased since high school graduation—the night before our big job fair, using the bonus
I’d received from the farm when I left in August.
These initial days of school, where I felt
like I was flying by the seat of my pants, reminded me of ‘water on’, that
intense month of work during May and early June when we flooded over 1,000
acres of rice fields in preparation for planting.
During the first few weeks of graduate
school, I reminded myself that if I could survive ‘water on’ I could survive
this.
And I did.
Even though I didn’t get hired by one of the ‘Big
Four’ firms, I at least looked good in my new suit, had a couple initial
interviews that allowed me to get the jitters out and became more and more
efficient about getting my school work done.
 |
| Water's on, May 2012 |
Initially, when I first started graduate school, I looked back on farming
with ambivalence.
I wondered
at times why I hadn’t had a more ‘normal’ job working at an accounting firm or
doing some kind of financial stuff (I actually tried unsuccessfully to get a job at an accounting firm last January and decided to stay on the farm).
It has
been hard to explain to people what farming was really about.
The majority of my time on the farm I spent
in the office, either making Excel spreadsheets for agronomy research or
inventories, entering in time card data or researching topics including labor
law, fuel storage regulations or corn cutworms.
However, during the harvest in the Fall I surveyed fields, had a stint
driving tractor preparing fields for wheat planting and also coordinated a few days of
the rice harvest.
In the planting season
in Spring I helped flood rice fields and manage water levels.
This is not a straightforward thing to
explain although people who know farming in the Valley understand the whole
process.
When I began school, farming became
something to flee from; if I lost motivation while studying, I imagined belted
tractors (with no bonus burritos or cigarettes in the cab) or angry wasps and
black widow spiders coming after me.
This helped me finish my tax reading when my concentration lagged.
 |
| Flooding a rice field, May 2012 |
But fear only works as a motivating factor for so long.
As the first few weeks of graduate school passed,
I found myself waking up at night thinking about the farm.
I realized that I was in the midst of a culture
shock and that instead of wanting to run away from South Sutter County and
never look back, I missed a lot about it.
No, I am perfectly happy wearing a nice clothes and not having to worry
about the things that could potentially ruin them, including, but not limited
to: muddy dog paws, hydraulic fluid, rice field slime, that red grease that
always leaks out of a
chorizo
burrito, sooty Johnsongrass pollen, motor oil, pump grease, pump oil, smoking
oil from a poorly maintained ATV and did I say dust?
I don’t miss those things.
What I found myself missing is the people of
farming, and the people have become a major motivation in school and life.
 |
| Tractors, Dec 31, 2011 |
The farming landscape of South Sutter County is unforgiving: the machines
stop for no one (only for breakdowns, which are frequent); in the summer, the heat can be intense and brutal, and the
work doesn’t wait.
This place creates a particular class of people that are tough,
ingenious, resilient and incredibly hard working. The guys on the
rancho have myriad ways to survive the
heat and the long days, including bringing enough burritos to stave off hunger
during a 14 hour shift, as well as a
remate
stand’s worth of fruit for health and energy, and of course the frozen Gatorade.
This last trick became my favorite: when you bring a frozen Gatorade to work at 7
AM, it’s still ice cold when you crack it open at 3 PM it tastes like heaven
and for a moment you forget that you still have five hours of work ahead of you.
 |
| Combines, Dec 31, 2011 |
I think of the tough people in South Sutter County when school seems tough.
I think of the guys who spend 90 plus hour
workweeks irrigating the crops, or who operate combines—solo of course—for weeks
on end until the harvest is done.
I also
think of the youth and the women, who are equally tough and who hold things
down despite the fact that the men often indulge in vices to excess when they
get off work.
I think of all of them,
and whatever I’m doing doesn’t seem so hard anymore.
I stop complaining and I feel humble.
This is perhaps the most important thing that
farming taught me: how to be humble.
When you're around people who spend their lives doing work that
you can barely handle for a day and people who even though they may have stopped
school after eighth grade are smarter, more ingenious and way, way better at
fixing things than you ever will be, that makes you humble, despite educational
pedigrees and grad school admission letters.
I am frustrated that our broken immigration system keeps many people
from getting an education and realizing their potential, but it would also be a
shame if I didn’t realize my own.
For
that reason, I am very grateful for the opportunity to continue my education
and find a career beyond the rice fields.
 |
| Spring in Sutter County, CA |
Despite all the positive things that farming did for me, the work took a
toll on me.
One has to take the good
with the bad in life, the challenge for me is to hold onto the good I take from
farming—the humility, work ethic and the ability to persevere—while leaving
behind the bad.
At the heart of it, rice
farming is a lonesome trade.
Spending 12
hours a day in a tractor is lonely, same goes for doing solo irrigation or
field surveys.
Profoundly lonesome in a
way that I could never have imagined at my previous job at an elementary school.
At first, I found rice farming a peaceful
change from my old work, and it certainly had many moments of tranquility: the
beauty of looking across a field lush with flowering yellow mustards in March
towards the snow covered mountains or making an early Sunday morning round of
the rice fields listening to soothing
trio
music on the radio.
I appreciated
very much the company of co-workers when I had it, for they were the best part
of the experience, but there was far too much alone time.
Even though it’s been since June that I
stopped farming full time (August part-time) I have a hard time being alone for
much time, and I have no desire to do activities like hiking alone
like I used to.
The isolation and the
intensity of rice farming made me feel bitter and detached at times from others
not familiar with the realities the lifestyle.
The long hours during busy season exhausted me and left me with little
energy to socialize even though it was what I needed most.
I didn’t reach out to old friends enough and
I felt myself drifting away from some of them.
Being alone so much damaged my social skills, and I found myself
becoming more and more like those irrigation ditch tenders who, when they
corner you, will talk your ear off nonstop until you somehow manage to escape.
When I left farming and began the transition to school life, this is what I sought
desperately to leave behind. But now I have come to realize that I am proud to have farmed rice in Sutter County, CA.
I am slowly figuring out how to move
beyond the negative parts of rice farming while not forgetting the people and the work and the powerful lessons I learned from both.
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