I Get Nekid

After six weeks, it was finally time to say goodbye to the orchard. Claire made sure I loaded up with plenty of apples and snacks for the road. It took me a while to pack everything into the car, but on a rainy Friday morning I finally hit the road.

I had ten days before starting at my next farm. It was tempting to stay at the orchard a bit longer, but after the long workdays, seven days a week, I was ready for a little vaca. I didn’t go very far right away, though, because my good friend Anna was having a party in Missoula on Sunday. It was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of her friendship with her best friend, and all of the friends I made at my previous farm were going to be there, so I didn’t want to miss it.

My solution for staying close was to visit the well-known Jerry Johnson hot springs just over the Idaho border. I found the place easily enough, then lucked out with an amazing (and free) campsite a few miles up the river. For the next two days, I spent my time sleeping late, staring at the river and soaking in the hot springs.

I haven’t had many hot spring experiences, but there were a few in Oregon. I learned early on that I prefer the natural hot springs to the paved pools full of screaming kids. These natural springs usually involve a hike into the woods and lots of naked people. That was a little weird for me the first time, but once I learned to let go and join the crowd the awkwardness faded fast (it also helped to realize that people in much worse shape than I weren’t ashamed of their bodies).

Jerry Johnson was the natural kind. It involved a 1.5 mile hike into the woods that led to a big, rocky clearing full of several warm and hot pools. People came and left every few minutes, and many of them had no qualms about baring all. It was a chilly weekend, so the hot soak felt great.

And yes, I got naked. Not for the picture, though:


I returned to Montana just in time for Anna’s bash. It wasn’t anything crazy—a potluck in her parents’ backyard with a few drinks and games. Later, a few more drinks and dancing. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last night in big sky country with my closest Montana farm friends. Oh yeah, and the party had a dress code: wear a one-piece.

Want Me to Kill That For You?

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.

Axe Murderers and Amish Rebels

My next farm was located in northwest Montana, about an hour north of Missoula. I spent a couple days visiting my sister in Santa Fe before making the trek.

I had never been to Montana before, so my goal was to drive as long as I could the first day to get up there quickly, then take the next day or two exploring the new territory. Normally, I avoid interstate highways on road trips, but time was an issue so I made an exception. I drove a good 14 hours in one stretch, which started to take its toll on me.

At a rest area just north of Denver, I picked up a hitchhiker named Joe. I’m always a little skeptical about hitchers, but this guy had a camera that was nicer than anything I owned—which isn’t saying much—so I figured he wasn’t likely to rob me unless he really wanted an 8-year-old iPod that only works half the time. And he didn’t have an axe, which is a good sign.

Joe was a real friendly guy in his mid-40’s. He was laid off from a welding job when the company was bought out and his truck broke down shortly after that. He refused to let lack of funds or a vehicle stop him from visiting some old friends in the Rocky states, so he resorted to his thumb. He pointed out that he could have taken a bus, but hitching was far more fun. He had hitched up and down the west coast a few times, which he said was pretty easy with all the hippies driving along that route. Out here, however, getting rides was considerably more difficult. Until I picked him up, he had only traveled ten miles in two days. A sympathetic 7-11 clerk let him sleep in a storage shed the past couple nights.

It was on my route, so I drove him all the way to his destination in Casper, Wyoming. Joe grew up in Wyoming and helped keep me awake with lots of stories about baseball-sized hail and ice fishing accidents. He was documenting his trip and wanted to take my picture, so I asked to take one of him, too:

I made it to the Montana border after dropping Joe off and slept in my car at a rest area. The long day of driving was worth it because I got to soak in a good bit of the state at a leisurely pace the next day. When I passed through Butte, I learned they were hosting the National Folk Festival, which began that night. Admission was free (my favorite price) so I spent most of the evening there.

I arrived a couple hours before the first band went on. A few families were setting up blankets and chairs in front of the main stage, so I followed suit, laid out a beach towel and fell asleep on it. When I woke up, about half an hour before the band started, there were a million people around me. I had no idea how huge this festival was!

I watched a bluegrass band, a zydeco band, a Celtic band and—my fav—a honky tonk musician named Dale Watson. I’m a sucker for rockabilly (longtime Elvis fanatic), so that made the night for me. With loads of swing dancers, his tent was by far the liveliest.

Sunsets look different in every state. I always thought New Mexico had the best until I saw what Montana had to offer. They don’t call this big sky country for nothing. Magic hour lasts a long time here, and it’s intense. The entire sky turned a pale burnt orange color and everything and everyone around me was glowing as if they were all made of gold. I think I took more pictures of the sky than I did of the festival.

After the music, I looked for a campground. There were plenty nearby, but they were all full, so I slept in the car again. Believe it or not, those two nights curled up in my back seat were two of the most refreshing nights of sleep I’ve had in weeks. It sucks not being able to stretch out when I want to, but I’m a total insomniac and any chance for a good night of rest is well worth it. Now I know that if I have trouble sleeping on a farm I can always crawl into the car. Ha!

I spent the morning at the Missoula farmer’s market, then made my way up to the farm in St. Ignatius. I arrived just in time for the Amish auction up the road, where I met the farm owners and Anna, an old friend of mine who currently works for them. The auction was a little strange. I lived in Pennsylvania and have had plenty of experiences with Amish culture, but this was quite different. These Amish drink Coke, use digital cameras and cell phones and buy parts from Walmart to build their furniture. I think somebody needs to tell them what it means to be Amish.

At any rate, I got settled into my new cabin at the farm and met the extended family of the farm owners. Today was supposed to be a day off, but rain was threatening to ruin the hundreds of hay bales sitting out in the field. The bale-lifting tractor was misbehaving, so we hitched a trailer to the back of a pickup and went to work running through the field and hurling bales onto the flatbed. It was backbreaking work, and I felt like I had a baptism by fire, but I really enjoyed it. The family recently finished building an outdoor cob oven and treated me to homemade fire-roasted pizza afterward.

Then another amazing Montana sunset hit us. Incidentally, the cabin where I’m staying is facing a long line of ginormous snow-capped mountains. It’s a hell of a sight to say goodnight to, or to wake up and see first thing in the morning.

View from my cabin porch.

So far, so good…