Down on the Farm...in Korea

Alisha studying a hill of pear trees on a Korean farm.

My sister and her husband farmed with us the past couple of years but this year they went to Korea to teach English to students there (they really like to travel). They've kept up a blog on their experiences to keep the rest of us back in the States updated on their great adventure. I went to read their blog tonight and the title was "Down on the Farm," and the blog entry was about a recent trip they took to visit a mountain farm in Korea. There are some nice pictures and if you're at all interested in what farming looks like halfway across the world, I recommend checking it out. Just click on the "Ever Wonder What Happened to Alisha and Joel?" link on the right-hand side of this page and it will take you to their blog.

Field Legs

Every day when I'm working in the field or in the greenhouse I am bombarded with great ideas on what should go on the blog. I finish a tray of a certain variety of eggplants and I think:
I should write about this eggplant variety (Little Spooky) and why it's one of my all-time favoirte varieties even though it's the dickens to get started!
Tim and I research plant families as we fine-tune our 5-year rotation plan and I think:
I should tell everyone that tomatoes and potatoes are in the same plant family (Solanaceae) and now that I think about it, I'm kind of dense for not realizing it before because pototo foilage does resemble tomato foilage, tomato flowers do resemble potato flowers, potatoes is tomatoes with a p instead of a t, and there are certain varities of tomatoes (the infamous Brandywine for one) that are known as potato leaf varities.
I sprinkle basalt onto my garlic and I think:
I should explain why we're tossing rock dust all over our field!
I frown over leeks that didn't come in as thick as I wanted them to and I think:
I should explain how cucial temperature is when it comes to getting good germination and how those days of 80 degree weather thoroughly confused our plants!
And then I think:
I should describe how well they've all recovered and how resilient plants are!
I stumble as I drag hoses across rough ground and I think:
I should talk about how tricky it is to walk across this garden of ours!

In fact, the ground in the garden is uneven, sometimes clumpy, sometimes grassy, and sometimes spongy, and you need "field legs" to walk across our field kind of like the way you need "sea legs" to walk around a boat at sea. I've forgotten how much energy it takes to spend a day gardening. It doesn't seem like hard work when you're doing it but then at the end of the day you're exhausted. I can't work more than 8 hours without really slowing down. And by the end of the day, all those wonderful ideas still seem wonderful...but I'm just too tired to sit at my desk and write. What a wimp! It's getting better every day, but I'll be super happy when I finally get my "field legs" in good working order.

My bruised and broken boy...

...and partner in farming crime, Tim, was out of the action for a couple of days. He broke his big toe last week when a heavy metal table fell on it and has been tramping around in a special boot all week. He's trying to stay off it now, but this isn't exactly the time of farming season that's conducive to stayinf off your feet! His toe is feeling pretty good these days, and he's already spending lots of time in the field (that boot is to the point where it's never coming clean). I wanted to get a picture of Tim in his heroic efforts in the field despite ailing toe and cumbersome shoe, but we're still lacking a digital camera and so I'll make due with a picture from last season. You can imagine a boot on Tim's foot, otherwise he pretty much looks the same this year (especially since the weather's been so nice we're already wearing shorts) only he's planting potatoes and not digging them. Since purchasing a digital camera for the farm is on Tim's to-do list, maybe he'll have some time now that he's supposed to be resting.

Run Away, Run Away!

It’s that time of year again….
Even though Choice Earth is a small and straightforward endeavor, we don't dare do our own taxes. After a half hour of listening to the accountant talk about tax bases and agricultural deductions and sales tax and machine hire and depreciation on the plastic on the greenhouse, our only thoughts are, Run away! Run away!

Farm taxes are just a little too baffling for us, and we'd much rather focus on getting the potatoes in the ground. However, in our pursuit to understand the history of farming in the Heartland, Tim and I both have read some economic theory from time to time and we came across a proposed tax system for our country that sounded really interesting. It sounded so interesting that I'm sharing it with you, even though this blog is about farming and not taxes! It’s called the fair tax (www.fairtax.org). What the fair tax does is raise sales tax to 30% (which is equivalent to a 23% income tax) and eliminates every other tax. Then, people get credits back each year to cover the sales taxes paid on cost of living items like groceries and gas. It's not the flat tax, since it taxes spending rather than income. This system sounds very good to us for several reasons:

1. It generates the same amount of money the government makes now.
2. It rewards people who use their money wisely (save for retirement rather than blow it all on fancy dodads).
3. There are no loopholes for the rich. They end up paying the most tax (slightly more than they do now) by virtue of spending the most money on consumer items and services. However, if people with money use their money to invest in a community (like start a business that provides employment or donate to charity) they don’t pay taxes.
4. Low income people, while not necessarily paying less, won’t pay more than they do now. This is basically because they already get so many tax credits in our present system. But again, this system awards poor people who try to save money instead of buying bigscreen TVs (which in their situation isn’t the smartest choice).
5. Middle class people, who are for the most part ardent consumers, still pay less tax. This may save the middle class, many of whom are starting to struggle financially.
6. The IRS goes away. Billions of dollars are saved on a government bureau that confuses and sometimes just plain scares people.
7. People personally save money on tax preparations. Each year Americans spend more money on tax compliance than the U.S. government spends on the war in Iraq. From an economic point of view, the money going to tax accountants does not do real work. It does not create goods or services or help the flow of goods and services. In an economic sense, it’s paying billions of dollars to shift money into the government’s hands.
8. It simplifies life. Even the IRS says that if you call them and ask a question, the answer they give you may not be right and you are still liable if your tax preparation ends up being wrong because you listened to their advice. Last year a guy sent annual financials on a fake family to 47 different tax preparers and when he received back the 47 tax returns, no 2 returns were prepared the same way.
9. Retirees get to keep all of their pension payments and workers get to keep all of their paycheck. This gives people more freedom to use their money as they see best. The Fair Tax preserves the American tenets of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." (This quote is straight from the Declaration of Independence.)

10. It’s fair for everyone. All Americans get to choose how much tax they pay by deciding how much of their money they will spend on unnecessary consumer goods.

At this time of year, when Tim and I stare at the convulted mess of our taxes in despair, nothing sounds so appealing as the fair tax!

Waking Up

For all who are interested or perhaps don't read the Source, here's the full-length version of the article "Eating In Season" appearing in the Iowa Source this month:

I found spring this morning. Last night when I went to bed it was winter, and this March morning when I woke up it was spring. It seems fitting to me to meet spring this way, waking up together and together shaking the sleep from our senses. I knew it was spring by its smell. The smell of spring is the smell of the earth warming. It is the smell of sprouts, of the time before the plants become powerful and fragrant, when you can still smell the soil itself.

I found spring in gardening. I didn’t pay much attention to the soil or its smell or the seasons in general before my husband and I came back to Iowa to start our community supported agriculture (CSA) garden. I didn’t pay any attention to the land, though farming is what I came from and what I grew up with. When I began reading about the CSA concept, I came across glowing statements by CSA participants on how their CSA membership reconnected them to the land. I didn’t know what they were talking about, what they meant by “reconnected,” but it sounded good, so I quoted them in our CSA pamphlet. Only now am I starting to get the feel of “reconnected to the land.” It’s an awareness, of being conscious of how we feed ourselves. It’s knowing the land in a way that’s sadly overlooked by our modern food systems. What we put in our mouths nourishes our lives, and the soil is the start of all nourishment. More than that, being awake and aware is the only way we know we’re alive; eating is acknowledging life.

Gardening is elemental. Consider gardening for a summer, try it out, even if it’s only a two tomato plants and a patch of lettuce. Gardening brings on appreciation, which brings on awareness, which brings on wakefulness, which brings on life. If gardening isn’t an option for you, try the next best thing: a local CSA. I fell in love with the idea of CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, as soon as I learned of it. In short, CSA growers sell advance shares of their harvest directly to their members. For a set price, CSA members receive weekly shares of produce throughout the harvest season. It’s a lot like owning your own garden. You get to experience the unbeatable taste of home-grown food. You get to see what vegetables look like before they’re all waxed up and packaged up for display and feel the energy that flows from vegetables that were hanging on the vine only 12 hours ago (it feels different from eating grocery store fare). You get to try varieties (unbelievably tasty varieties) that you can’t get in the store—varieties that are grown because they taste phenomenal and brim with vitamins and not because they ship well and ripen on the shelf. You get to support and know local growers who care about you and your family and who are stewards of the land we all depend on. You get to tour the garden during an open house, inhale the fresh smell of the ground that feeds you, and show your children how Brussels sprouts look when growing (I didn’t know how until I was 25).

Those are the obvious benefits of CSA, the benefits that first appealed to me. Every year I find more reasons why I like CSA, and this year, the year in which I woke up to spring and the smell of the land, I’m beginning to think that I missed the best point of all: Joining a CSA is like eating from a garden, and when you eat from a garden, you eat by the seasons. This is how I finally found spring this year, why I became aware of it. Spring signals the return to nourishing, tasty, garden-fresh food. It is in essence the return to life. The seasons are fundamental to life in the Midwest. When it’s winter, it snows and we wear coats and forget all about swimming at the lake or barbequing for the Fourth of July. Yet we eat as if summer never passed, with cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, green beans, asparagus, and peppers proudly stacked along the aisles of our grocery stores. Over the last few decades genetic engineering, faster transportation, and better preservation technology have transformed our food delivery system so that now in Iowa it’s winter everywhere but on our plates.

What I learned from being part of a CSA is that while having year-round grocery store access to fresh fruits and vegetables seems like a good thing, it comes with a price, and in the end it puts us asleep, deadens us to the real costs of food convenience. We waste fuel and energy in transporting out-of-season produce to the winter states, and eating long-distance encourages large-scale gardening. This “industry” of commercial farming can be brutal on our soils and burn through petrochemicals. Even organic farms can be industrial, can mistreat their soils and their produce, and that’s one more reason to consider eating locally by the season—you’ll know exactly how your farmer treats the soil and the vegetables that go into your mouth.

And those are just the obvious losses that accompany our modern food systems. When we start to ignore the seasons, to deaden ourselves to the rhythms of growth, we lose even more. We lose:

Who we are. For thousands of years, our ancestors were connected to the food they ate—first through hunting and gathering and later through agriculture. From the vantage point of history, it’s been a very few years indeed since we lost touch with the growing process. Look how quickly we gave up our thoughts of the land! Gave up the sense of renewal that comes from watching the greens come up with the lengthening days and the fundamental privilege we have in not spending our time struggling for basic survival. Gave up shared heritage and community, transforming from neighbors discussing when to sow the fall lettuce to falling-in farmhouses and individuals who have no idea that lettuce leaves scorch in the heat of July. We continue to give up varieties of fruits and vegetables as we unwittingly mold to the restraints of our modern technology, eating Delicious apples and forgetting all about McIntosh apples because Delicious apples travel much better. We’re giving up the seeds our families labored to hand-save for generations past, the seeds they saved for us.

Health. The day I woke up to spring, I also woke up to this headline on the ABC News Website:

“Fruits, Veggies Not as Vitamin-Rich as in Past, Says New Data
Larger Fruits and Vegetables Mean More Plentiful but Less Potent Bounty”

The USDA has data showing that recently grown crops have up to 38% less protein, calcium, vitamin C, phosphorus, iron, and riboflavin than these same crops had in decades past. Part of this problem is that we’re eating out-of-season, consuming produce that never fully ripened in the field. In-season produce that is fresh and fully ripe contains more nutrients than out-of-season produce that is picked under-ripe so that it ships well. The problem goes deeper than that, to the very soil itself. Not only are we growing nutrient-poor vegetable varieties and harvesting them before their prime, but we’re growing them in nutrient-poor soil. While we sleep through the seasons we deaden our health. When our bodies don’t get the nutrients they require, our immune systems weaken, and we get sick, experiencing everything from more cases of the flu to diabetes or cancer.

Contentment. The people in our society aren’t getting full enough. It seems funny saying that, after listening to reports on the radio of the obesity epidemic in our country, of climbing rates of overweight children. Aren’t full tummies the problem? Not exactly. It doesn’t matter if the tummies are full if they’re full of the wrong food. Our bodies know what they need for optimal health, and when we don’t feed them the nutrients they need, they tell us we’re hungry. If we keep eating empty food, then we’ll keep experiencing the desire to eat, and we’ll never know fullness, and we’ll overeat. But there’s more than getting our nutrients to help us feel satisfied—there’s taste. In the culinary world, chefs and connoisseurs are beginning to bemoan the loss of variety, flavor, and nutrition that has accompanied our modern food system. There’s a complex, three-dimensional taste to fresh garden vegetables that you can’t find in a Big Mac or in January tomatoes. It’s this full-bodied taste that deep down we crave, and it’s this craving that drives us to keep eating even though we may not know what we’re searching for.

Every year I find more reasons to like CSA and this year it was eating in season. Eating in season brings us all closer to the land. I woke up to spring for the first time this morning and suddenly had a new insight into the name of my family’s CSA. We named it “Choice Earth,” thinking that this was a good name with many meanings: We’re growing on earth (soil) that is choice for growing vegetables. Our members are choosing to save the earth by supporting sustainable farmers. What I never realized is that “Choice Earth” also describes the choice I made when I came back to gardening. It was the choice of returning to the earth, to going back to the land, to the soil, to a home I almost forgot I had even known.

Happy 60th!

Happy birtday, dad! Here's to sixty years of growing.

Coming Soon...The Night of the Stealth Cows

In case that last blog was a little on the negative side, here's a promise of a more upbeat story I'm working on now. All this rain makes me think of an April night last year when dad called at 1 a.m. to let us know the cows were out...so next time's blog will be dedicated to that most noble of creatures, Jazzy Girl.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John...

was surreal to see. Most of the time when I go to the movies I don't see anything close to my world on the screen. But then...there it was. Farming. Maybe a little crazy farming, but real farming just the same.

I have felt a little desperate most of my life. It's not a specific desperateness, just a general feeling that I can't stop working, can't take a break, can't spend money, can't go in debt, can't risk having children until I have the money saved up to care for them. I didn't recognize this feeling earlier but it's becoming clear to me more and more, especially after watching this movie. I remember the year I first becamse aware of time, or more generally, aware of the outside world. It was 1984. All these official looking documents kept appearing in the mail, and the numbers 1,9,8,4 were always on them. It seemed like 1,9,8,4 were everywhere. That's when it hit me--1984 is somehow now. There's something beyond this kitchen with the peeling paper and sinking floor and window you have to hold open with a stick. And in 1984, that world beyond was desperate. Dad was fighting for the farm, against foreclosure. Lots of people were. My dad has lots of stories from those times.

My dad tells the same stories over and over and over. Every time he tells a story, it gets a little grander. He likes to tell a story of when I was out farming with him when I was 2. He left me on the tractor seat while he went to open the bins, and somehow I got the tractor in gear. He looked over and saw the tractor going with me on it and well, he never ran so fast in his life. He vaulted over a board fence so he could catch me. The first time I remember hearing the story from him, the fence was 4 ft tall. Later it became 5 ft. And wouldn't you know it, but these days that fence was 6 ft tall!

So when dad told stories of a particular big, old tree on the edge of the timber in a local man's farm that was perfect for hiding machinery under where government or the bankers wouldn't find it, even by helicopter, I used to think, "And that fence was 6 ft tall." I've been reading more about the 80s in the midwest, though, and I've come across much more sensational stories:

"In Hills, Iowa, a farmer kills his banker, his neighbor, his wife, and then himself...."
"Near Ruthton, Minnesota, a farmer and his son murder two bank officials...."

I read things like this and wonder at all the stories I was hearing that I didn't believe in or that I've maybe purposefully forgotten by now. Watching the Farmer John movie was like hypnotism, like tapping into those bottom layers of the subconscious you just don't want to mess with for fear of what's there.

Of course, it was also very real to me because I've been to that farm and the buildings and the face of Farmer John were familiar. Tim came across the farm's website (www.angelicorganics.com) and when I read about it I wanted to go volunteer there because I wanted to see a farm that worked. When I left Iowa, I left knowing that there was no hope for farming, no hope for Iowa. It was a deep, deep knowing. The first time I thought I might be wrong was when I saw Angelic Organics. And the rest...well, guess I know now what mom meant when she said that farming just doesn't leave your blood.


To learn more about the movie, check out www.therealdirt.net. It's at the Fairfield CoEd through April 13th. There's a show at 7:10 every night.