“May you live in interesting times.” – Proverb (or curse), apocryphally ascribed to the Chinese
Well, interesting times have come. Each day brings a week’s worth of news. We’re quarantined away from our friends and in with our immediate families and partners, and we’re not sure which is the more challenging to deal with. Millions have lost their jobs practically overnight and there’s little doubt now (in early April) that the year ahead will be fraught with challenges. Even if it hasn’t materialized for most of us yet, we know many thousands of our friends and neighbors, perhaps families, perhaps ourselves, will become sick and could face the worst COVID-19 has to offer, and the quiet (and sometimes not quiet) anxiety of that is bleeding through the cracks of virtually everyone’s reality at some level.
At least it’ll be interesting.
Life on the new farm is rich with work and challenges, as Jackie and I knew it would be, global pandemic notwithstanding. There is much ground to clear, to tame and reclaim from the honeysuckle and sumac, all of whom you’ll be unsurprised to hear care not a whit for the novel corona virus outbreak. Blueberries need soil amendments and weeded and mulched. Chickens, both for meat and eggs, are on their way, while new fences need to be erected where the egg birds will one day cluck and peck. The mobile coops and brooders all need some repairs and refittings, while some of the pasture grounds still needs cleared of invasives and small trees. The garden plots need leveled and regraded, expanded, a big load of compost and a big dead oak tree that is growing diagonally across their grounds needs to be felled.
Much of farm life is unchanged in a way that is reassuring. The natural world goes on, and if you’re living in tune with that rhythm, that’s a comfort.
Of course there is still much uncertainty. The farmer’s markets are unlikely to open this year, and that source of sales for blueberries, produce and chickens won’t materialize. On-farm tours and you-pick blueberries will need to wait a year. My best restaurant customers, who have made my foray into pastured chicken possible, are running diminished take-out capacity and it isn’t clear yet they’ll be up for buying much in the way of pastured, premium chicken – that’s assuming I can succeed in keeping them alive once they’re moved to pasture: the predator pressure is unreal out here, from raccoons, coyotes and opossums. You like the taste of pastured chickens, and I assure you so does a pack of coyotes. It’s nothing some very spicy electrical nets shouldn’t prevent, but that also becomes a matter of cost, another expense weighed against an increasingly tightening budget.
Here’s what I do know: I’m going to keep doing what I do, raising as high of quality pastured chicken, blueberries, and garden vegetables as I can, and making all of my products available for purchase directly. We can arrange delivery and go through all the appropriate hygienic / social distancing measures in both harvest and delivery, ensuring you and your family have access to nutritious local food.
We live in interesting times, but I’m thankful that I have an opportunity to go through interesting times with you.
Our very first crop, garlic, pushes up into the spring sun.