Farm Life

It was only after consuming a grande iced skinny triple shot caramel macchiato from the kind Starbucks barista, Cecilia, that I was able to slowly open my car door and brave the already balmy summer morning. Each weekday I trekked forty-five minutes from my home in the city out to the deep countryside of Maryland to work on a nonprofit farm.  I would arrive at seven and walk down the hill through the dewy flowerbeds, past tangles of sweet peas and white squash to our morning meeting in the greenhouse; the smell of stored garlic and rosemary mixed with the stifling heat would hit you at the door.

The greenhouse was always a collection of many stages of growing plants, from ripe cherry tomatoes to the beginnings of winter kale monitored carefully in their trays. It was also a storage area for all kinds of farm tools I had never seen before. Plant trays in all sizes littered the floor and sometimes spilled over into the walkways.

We would begin the farm chores for the day. CSA (community supported agriculture) harvest mornings were the best, since it always felt like a treasure hunt as you swept your hand through leafy vines for a cucumber or crept through prickly bushes for blackberries. The food would be gathered and divided for each of the CSA members to pick up in the afternoon. The dozen of us workers all scrambled to be the ones to put the food away in the refrigerated shed, just to feel the rush of cool air on our sweaty, soil-smeared faces for a moment or two.  

However, if it was not a harvest day, we would be delegated to different tasks for the upkeep of the farm. This could range from the exciting work of feeding the goats and chickens to the extremely mundane (and more common) work of weeding. I would meticulously crawl through the rows of crops to find and eradicate all of the unwanted visitors. My tireless crusade never ended, for when I came back after a few days to the same field, the weeds would have redoubled their efforts and made it seem as if I had not even worked there at all. 

The goats were a very different story: when they saw you coming from the valley of the crops to their hilltop field, they would begin to bleat with excitement and gallop awkwardly to the gate. They loved attention from us, but also the food that our visit promised. Within their field, there was a further fenced-in population of hens and their coop. I would sometimes trek up the steps and through the small door into the darkness of their coop to collect eggs. An awkward silence would meet me as I came in: the chickens roosting and roaming around would all stop their activities and look straight at me. Then some would start to cluck and all of them would try to remain as far from me as they could, ducking away when I walked toward them. They always gave me the impression that I was disturbing them.

After the hours of grueling humid heat, we would finish up our work at noon and head to lunch. I have never been more excited to eat a fresh salad in my life - I guess spending the day amid delicious plants can do that to you. Nowadays, I try to stop by farmer's markets since it reminds me of my summer there.