Finished my first week on the Montana farm. The Utah place had its perks, but this already feels like a more enriching experience. While the Utah vineyard was an isolated environment, this farm works closely with the large farming community in the area and sells through a local cooperative. They also grow a large variety of fruits and vegetables here, as opposed to just grapes, and I get to work more directly with all the produce we’re growing. There is also a more traditional farm family here; the couple that owns and runs the farm has an adorable 4-year-old daughter and the aunts, uncles and grandparents come by every day to help out with the chores. It’s also nice not to have to worry about pulling cactus quills out of my ankles every afternoon.
The food is great! As much as possible, what we eat here is grown here, and the pantry is stocked full of dried beans and grains from previous harvests. On my first day, I received a tour of the home garden where we can help ourselves to a variety of lettuces, beets, peas, strawberries, herbs and a wealth of other goodies. A dairy cow lives here, too, so all the milk is fresh and raw, as well as the homemade yogurt and butter. There is also a small herd of cattle for beef and a large freezer is filled to the brim from last year’s slaughter. The family just finished building an outdoor cob oven they use for making their own sourdough breads and for frequent pizza parties. Anything that can’t be provided internally or traded with other local farmers is bought at a natural food store in nearby Missoula. There are definitely no Walmart receipts to be found on this property.
The work is what I expected: lots of weeding. Someone once told me that organic farming is 90% weeding, and so far that seems to be accurate. I spend the better part of my days either scraping the ground with a hula hoe or digging it up with a trowel. I felt a bit embarrassed my first day when I was weeding onions with Julie, the farm owner, and Anna, my friend and the farm intern. I looked down the field after an hour of weeding and saw their lines of onion stalks standing tall and straight, but mine crumbled, broken and leaning every which way. Even more embarrassing was that I could only weed about half as much as they could in the same amount of time. Hopefully I’ll get better with practice.
I did learn how to use a brush mower, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a lot like a regular gas-powered push mower for a lawn, except that it can also take down small trees. This thing can run over anything, even a cinder block (which I did). My first task was to mow between rows of asparagus. The asparagus plot here had been left to grow wild for a long time, which has something to do with nurturing the soil that I don’t quite understand, so the weeds were as tall as the asparagus stalks—which were as tall as me. It looked not unlike a jungle and I had a lot of fun plowing through it with my beast of a mower. Unfortunately, I also took out a huge bed of lupin flowers that Julie planted next to the asparagus. This is where my inexperience came into play; they looked like weeds to me.
I felt pretty bad when I realized my mistake, and I apologized profusely. Julie was very understanding and told me not to worry about it. After she walked away, her father came up to me in private and said “I always hated those flowers.” Then he told me that if I wiped out the rest of the lupins on the property he’d give me a big tip.
Julie’s sister gave me the nickname “Killer” after that episode. I was afraid I wouldn’t be allowed to use the atomic mower again, but they still trust me with it. I’ve had loads of fun wiping out overgrown weed forests all over the property without any more unwanted casualties, although Anna did stop me just moments before taking out the strawberry patch. I don’t know if I would have recovered from that one.
First week is down and I’m still thrilled to be here. I’m also told I’ll have the opportunity to learn how to slaughter chickens in a few days. Never thought I’d say it, but I’m really excited about that.
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