Off Season

I worked in a few schools a few weeks ago, the same district I attended when I was a boy. A friend needed help installing towel and hand soap dispensers. I made friends with janitors and walked the halls of my old high school. I saw a picture of Marina on the field hockey team, faded behind glass. I peeked into the library and the cafeteria, all the rooms that once comprised my whole life, that were once peopled with every person in my world. I felt like an old ghost.

I also worked at my friends guitar pedal shop in Casco - a fellow farmer, Geof Hancock, hes a wonderful person and a tremendous farmer and helped us start the Foothill Farm Alliance. He still farms but also makes these guitar pedals, beautiful little devices for manipulating and distorting the sound as it goes from the guitar to the amp. Hes a real whiz that Geof; he lets me test the pedals and screw some things together.

But mostly I paint in the winter; the interiors of beautiful houses owned out on the islands in Casco Bay. Painting is very soothing to me, something like meditation. I paint with another farmer, though he doesn’t do commercial farming any more, he still grows stuff for his family. We also painted a new restaurant on Exchange Street in Portland, up on ladders as people walked by on the street below. Something always needs painting it seems.

My brother works as an apprentice electrician in the winter, messing with arcane magic. He does things I have no clue how to do, complicated things I have no reference point for; electricity is a mystery to me. He used to work for a company that sold all natural skin products, sitting at a computer in his house with a headset, sipping coffee and talking to people all over the world. 

And so these jobs help us get by in the winter months when there isn’t much vegetable growing going on. By hook or by crook we get by. For me it’s part of the fun of farming; I need the variety and constant flux of activity. 

As farmers we wear many hats. On any given day we need to be horticulturists, public speakers, mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, veterinarians, doctors, artists: the list goes on. The skillset needed to tend to a growing farm is vast and hard to really pin down; in fact, the actual growing of plants is just a small fraction of the work. So in the winter we keep it fresh, try other things, other hats.

I imagine all jobs are like this to some degree. There is always overlap, all things like a great Venn Diagram. The teacher cant help but be a therapist, the nurse must be an amateur wrestler, and the police officer must be a counselor. In this way we can learn to  respect other people and the things they do, we can learn empathy and love through our shared struggles.

I hope you are wearing a few hats you truly love as we embark on this young year. Our current farm hat includes a lot of spreadsheets, material ordering, planning and more. Things are starting to come alive here as we start our first seeds next week!

Be well,
Old Wells Farm