An Education

By far the most striking emotional experience of my apprenticeship thus far has revolved around the learning I am doing on a daily basis. I am constantly aware of how incompetent I am in all farm-related, practical, hands-on. It's a very vulnerable position to be in, to begin each new task from square one, especially when our teachers, the farmers here, are guys who are around my age. Fortunately, they are the most patient and humble of teachers, gently but deliberately offering us opportunities to grow and making us feel safe and comfortable to make mistakes.

Our "professors" giving a harvest training

Even more humbling was learning from our volunteer last week, Mira, a sixteen year-old who stayed with us during her spring break from an Environmental and Social Justice-themed semester program at a school nearby. Mira grew up on a homestead in North Carolina, and was homeschooled until last semester, when she decided to spend the remaining two years of high school at various semester-long programs around the country. Not only will she graduate with a fairly in-depth education in Environmental and Social Justice, Politics and Government (from last semester's program in DC), and urban history and culture (from next semester in New York City) she's also impressively skilled in all things homesteading: carpentry, animal raising, breadmaking, wool spinning, knitting, and welding, to name a few. I want to be like Mira when I grow up.

Admittedly, I was pretty intimidated at first by this sixteen year-old girl wonder. I already felt green enough, having to confront my ineptitude with power tools, plant propagation, and plant and pest identification, and wondering frequently, "What have I learned in the past twenty-eight years?" Now here was this girl, twelve years my junior, who did it all with ease; she was giving the farmers lessons on carpentry and metal working. After a few days of wide-eyed disbelief, I realized that she could teach me a lot, if I just got let go of the fact that she's a high school kid.

Mira, my sixteen year-old hero*

So I got over it. I apprenticed myself to her as she was designing pulley systems for the egg-collection doors in the mobile chicken coop we were building. She'd give me a small task, like screwing in an eye-hook, and half the time I'd still need her help, or she'd gently correct the work I'd done, explaining why it'd be better to do it this way instead of that. I spent the afternoon learning how to bang metal wire into hooks and securely attach pulleys and latches and cables. And then I learned how to whittle a handle. And then she gave me a breadmaking lesson. And then she taught me a knitting stitch I'd been trying to figure out.

Mira and me, showing off our work*

Working with Mira really drove home the fact that I am in control of my education here. I will gain a lot of skills and knowledge no matter what, but to get the most out of my time here will require me to surrender myself to the feelings of discomfort and vulnerability that go along with learning. I'm trying to be patient with myself as I fumble around awkwardly with new tools and new tasks. I'm recognizing that it's okay not to know for sure how to do something before you do it. In fact, sometimes you can only learn by just going for it, accepting that it might not work out perfectly, but when it doesn't, that just means you'll know how to do it better next time.

The other day my friend Kevin came to visit from San Francisco. He was the first visitor I'd had, and it was really great to take him on a tour of the farm. There was so much to share with him, and I realized, while describing plant propagation in the greenhouse, that I knew what I was talking about! These words--this language--was coming out of my mouth that, up until a month ago, I didn't know at all. We've only just scratched the surface, but the knowledge I've gained in just a month is truly awesome. It's so exciting to think of what's to come during the next seven months.

Learning about crop planning in our Thursday afternoon class

The launch of the chicken tractor

Another spectacular sunset

* These photos were taken by the lovely and photographically-gifted Cristina Martinez-Canton

March at the Ranch

Farm Sweet Home

A little over a week ago, I bade farewell to San Francisco and my generous friend Meg, who had hosted me for a yoga-filled four days in that great little city, and set off North for the unknown. My new home, American River Ranch, in Rancho Cordova, awaited me at the end of a journey that included three trains and a pick-up truck, but took just around three hours.

What I found at the other end of the trip is just about the best new home and job I could ask for. American River Ranch is a forty-acre farm with about five acres in vegetable production. It’s in a blue-collar suburb of Sacramento, and is nestled between a residential neighborhood, the sports fields of a local park, and a twenty-five mile-long bike path, which runs along the American River into Sacramento, fifteen miles west, and Folsom, ten miles to the East.

I live here with three other apprentices, with whom I share a common kitchen, bathroom, and living space, in an old field hand bunkhouse next to which our 10’ by 10’ canvas tents are set on platforms. Four other staff--the second-year apprentice, the Farmer/Educator (our supervisor), one of the youth job corps leaders, and the assistant farm manager--share a duplex ranch house two hundred feet away, and just between is the farm manager’s cabin. The organization’s main offices are in a house here on the property, too, so there’s a good-sized group of fifteen to twenty of us here most days.

We work from 8am-5pm (7am starting next week), with an hour break for lunch (which is cooked for us and which we eat together around a long table outside in front of the office), and every day so far, besides setting gopher traps in the morning, our work has been different. The four of us are equally excited to be learning how to graft fruit trees, dig garden beds, harvest and sort oranges and grapefruit (Oh, California!!), and build a mobile chicken coop, and spend our off-hours marveling to each other about what a great life we’ve got.

Our “teachers” are four young farmers, between one and four years older than me. They are very smart, laid back yet efficient, and very patient, humble, and kind. They explain clearly and quickly, then hand the reins over to us, making it clear they are available to clarify and correct. It is humbling to be so green and exposed before these experienced peers, yet they make it as comfortable as could be expected.

I’m still in the honeymoon period, for sure, (“for sure” is a favorite phrase of my new Californian friends) but I’m breathing it in deeply. With the sun making a moving masterpiece of the landscape each day, I can’t imagine the post-honeymoon could be so bad.

Don't Mess With It

I’m in San Francisco, on the second leg of my three-part journey leading me to Soil Born Farms in Rancho Cordova, California. I left nearly a week ago, last Thursday, from New Haven. It worked out that my parents were leaving around the same time from JFK to fly down to southern Chile, to do their own version of the Torres del Paine hike that I so loved when I was there last April. We were able to drive to the airport together and wish each other “Bon Voyage.”

And then I was off to Austin, for the first leg of my trip, to visit one of my best friends from college, Lily, in the city she has called home for the past three years. It took me the full four days of my visit to get used to seeing people in shorts and flip-flops in February, but I loved my first visit to Texas. She toured me around the city, bringing me to some of her favorite spots, like the Alamo Drafthouse, an awesome movie theater and restaurant, where, as we watched the Oscar-nominated animated shorts, I ate a delicious black bean burger and drank one of the theatre’s draft beers, locally-brewed 512 Pale. (The first film, Madagascar, Carnet du Voyage, a beautifully-drawn travel journal from the artist’s trip to Madagascar, was far and away the best). We “hiked” around Barton Springs in Zilker Park, checked out the crazy cowboy boots at Allen’s, and I ate way more than my fair share of cheese and sour cream, as Mexican food is everywhere.

Now, I know it was a brief visit, but I made some observations about Texas, or at least, Austin, that I wanted to share:

1) People are SO friendly! Smiles flow like water, patience is the default reaction to inconvenience, pleasantries between customers and clerks extend far beyond the cursory. What a lift such simple gestures bring!

2) Texas is all about Texas. The state name and outline is incorporated into store names and logos ALL OVER the place. I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but I know there aren’t many businesses using CT pride to sell their products! (“Don’t mess with Connecticut?”)

3) Austin is serious about the casual dining experience. Neon-signed Mexican and barbeque “joints” are everywhere, in both classic and hip-kitsch forms. The food cart/food truck revolution has hit the city in a big way, with not one but several outdoor “food courts” scattered around the city: parking lots full of picnic tables and rows of taco, waffle, Thai food trucks and retrofitted Airstream trailers.

4) Vintage is huge. From the kitschy glow of neon signs to the vintage stores on every block, the city is a retro treasure trove. Would love to return when I'm in more of a nesting mode.

5) UT is so big it's scary.

I got a good introduction to Austin, and more importantly, I got to spend four full days in relaxed, never-ending conversation with one of my favorite people. It was sad to leave, but SO good while it lasted. Thanks, Lily!

California, I'm coming home.

This is where you will find me for the next eight months, beginning March 1. I'm packing up and moving to California. Sacramento, more specifically, or rather, to this farm right outside of Sacramento. I'll be working as a farm apprentice there for the upcoming season, until the end of October. I'll be living in a tent and getting paid close to nothing, but I couldn't be happier. This adventure combines a number of goals I've had for the past few years:

1) Live on the West Coast;
2) Work for a full season on a farm;
3) Get involved with a project that's improving food access for low-income populations; and
4) Live simply.

I had had two previous interviews for this position before the final phone interview last Tuesday, so the possibility had nestled itself comfortably into my brain as just that: a possibility. I had pretty well decided that it was a long-shot, too, because I was unable to go out and visit for a working interview, as had the other candidates. So it was a bit of a shock when I found out, a few hours after the interview, that I had been offered the position, and then decided soon after to accept. It was a quick transition from "life as usual" to "moving across the country in a month."

So, is farming my Job? I'm not sure. People keep asking me what's next, after the apprenticeship is over. I don't have a clue, which is fine. I'm still getting used to the first next, which will be upon me in just three weeks. If I love this, then perhaps I will continue farming and gardening in some capacity. I don't see myself becoming strictly a commercial farmer, but working with a non-profit, educational farm could be great. Maybe I'll realize that a backyard garden is about as much "farming" as I care to do. I know myself well enough to know that I won't know until I do it, and "next" will remain a question mark for many more months. At the end of the day, this apprenticehip might be a career move, but that's not necessarily the point.

So now, I'm getting organized. I'm gathering and sorting and purchasing things that'll prepare me for eight months on a farm. I feel like I'm going abroad again--I keep having to remind myself that it's okay not to bring everything; I'll be able to buy what I haven't brought once I'm out there. California only seems like a foreign country.

And, I'm trying to prepare psychologically for the change. I've had about the coziest winter of my life this year, doing crafts and cooking daily in my parents' comfortable home, reading classic literature by the fire while watching the snow fall. Though it's hard to imagine exactly what it'll be like, I know for sure that nearly all of these comforts won't be a part of my life come March 1. So the challenge will be to maintain the Zen contentment I've got going on here amidst a much more demanding, more dynamic and hopefully fulfilling, lifestyle. Now, however, I've got to get back to my knitting.

What is my Job?

I've been thinking a lot these days about jobs. I currently have one, thankfully, but I'm looking for another one, and trying to figure out what kind of job I want. I find the most difficult aspect of this is sifting through and reconciling "The Way Life Is Supposed To Go" with "What I Want." These two things, I'm realizing, may not overlap so much. Twenty-eight years of subtle and explicit cultural and societal messages about ambition, success, career, education, etc. have become a mountain atop the latter, which I am now trying to unearth, slowly but surely.

I read something today that helps. It's by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Buddhist teacher who wrote the book Wherever You Go, There You Are. I read one short chapter every morning before meditating. It is an excellent and accessible guide to meditation and mindful living. The passage I read this morning is called, "What is My Job on the Planet with a Capital J?" I want to share a small part of it:

Rarely do we question and then contemplate with determination what our hearts are calling us to do and to be. I like to frame such efforts in question form: "What is my job on the planet with a capital J?", or, "What do I care about so much that I would pay to do it?" If I ask such a question and I don't come up with an answer, other than, "I don't know," then I just keep asking the question. If you start reflecting on such questions when you're in your twenties, by the time you are thirty-five or forty, or fifty or sixty, the inquiry itself may have led you a few places that you would not have gone had you merely followed mainstream conventions, or your parents' expectations for you, or even worse, your own unexamined self-limiting beliefs and expectations.

...[Asking this question] may not mean that you will change what you do, but it may mean that you may want to change how you see it or hold it, and perhaps how you do it. Once the universe is your employer, very interesting things start to happen, even if someone else is cutting your paycheck.

Kabat-Zinn also talks about Buckminster Fuller in this chapter, and about how, from the depths of depression, Fuller decided to live his life from then on as if he were an employee of the universe, basing his actions on the question, "What is it on this planet that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it?" He says that Fuller also liked to point out that, for the honey bee, it's all about the honey, but in its pursuit of honey, it becomes nature's (or the universe's) pollinator.*

It's still not easy to figure out whether I want to be a farmer, a baker, a social worker, or something else entirely, but it's reassuring to know that no matter what job I find myself doing, if I approach it right, it will be my Job.

*from Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are. New York: Hyperion, 1994.

The Power of Vulnerability

I've known about TEDTalks for a while, but I've only recently started watching them regularly. Here's one of the many reasons why. Posting on my blog makes me feel vulnerable.