Lessons from Old Siam

The sweet work begins!

After an eye opening 3 week tour of “Old Siam”, I am back in the states, at my computer of course, grinding away at the more silent and taciturn tasks of this farming lifestyle. These are the times that only I get to have an adequate appreciation of the work to be done. The work of winter shows itself as truly as can be in every carrot top, every bonfire, and every sore muscle of August. What exactly am I up to? The first thing I set my mind to is “who?”: Who will farm with me, whom shall we farm for, and whose syncopated lyrics and thunderous drumming will elicit the force to make my laptop a more important and real place to be. Before the “whats”, the real meat on the planning chop block, the “who”'s are the pep rally. Then come the spreadsheets, the field maps and seed catalogs, the too-much-coffee stomachs, and the eye exercises, all necessary when putting together a caloric leviathan of a season.

Some fast facts on the “who”s. LotFotL's swelling to at least 4 full time, 3 part time, and 5 work-for-food laborers in '09. We're doubling the size of our CSA to 150 families, producing for RSA(Restaurant Supported Agriculture), the brainchild of David Swanson of Braise on the Go culinary institute, and meeting deeper needs for organic goodness at Beans and Barley, Pier 347, Earth Harvest Farm, Local Industry in East Troy (formerly Nokomis Bakery), and both happiness factories of Good Harvest Market (one now in Milwaukee). Casey, my stalwart ally and friend, who stepped in to help 2008 wind up quite successful, will move on to begin his own CSA in Watertown, under the name, Local Roots. I'm sad to see him go, but like me, he's had the need for a full and all out assault on his abilities. The confines of LotFotL can't be that for everyone for ever. I've hired 2 good friends and very experienced “new hat” farmers to work with me in '09, as well as some folks with less experience, and bigger stars in their eyes. We're upping our production acreage from 4 to 8 acres. We've turned the corner in negotiating the resurrection of an Allis Chalmer's G tractor, which should cut weeding down to a less dominant part of our daily chores. We're healthy, happy, getting more fit after some new years debauchery, and poised like fire on a matchstick to grow just as much and as wonderful of produce as the God's will allow.

But, all of that comes later. For now, it's time to tell tales of tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok offering ping pong shows, and to show pictures of buddha after buddha after buddha to friends, family, hell anyone who will listen really. April(my sweetheart) and I left for Thailand on the 28th of December and returned to the coldest day of the year, January 15th. The weather is not much to adjust to, really that's my truth. Culturally though, both places are not yet real to me. I'm walking in a fog, a safe warm one, with plenty of space between sidewalk and thoroughfare. Questions have arisen in my head. Is it better to shove poverty into the corners of society, for example, or allow the tin roofed shacks, or condos, to go up just wherever they please. Happiness is a, if not The virtue to which we strive, but is it better to give smiles, to generate as much happiness on the outside of pained and miserable bodies, or to show your “true colors,” as ugly and painful as they may be for others to accept? These are not the questions that will be answered by March. They are only given a glimpse of encouragement and sunshine though in these cold, dark days.

So, I savor the future and the present these days, and consider that they might be the same thing, all while evaluating my “skills”, caring for my body, taking the right sort of time for all I set out to do, and looking ahead, to the rumble, the almost hallucinogenic daze of the coming blitz of seedlings, rainstorms, earthworm tunnels, sparrows (so many sparrows), and whatever else I'm graced with this spring. This year will be my best yet. That's something real, that I hold onto, no matter the weather, the company, the continent, or the language I'm speaking. Make this year your best, and you never lose, never age, you almost don't even exist. The downs can be the ups. Given time, regrets become blessings, mistakes become successes, and this yin/yan dance becomes the fabric of a steady, seemingly effortless life, where your wants dwindle, your needs overflow with the waters of satiation, your gaze softens, and you become mu.

The thing I do most in the winter is dream.