Noticing and Appreciating Labor

When I was growing up on Long Island in the 1960s, our cul-de-sac of new ranch houses was bounded at its end by a potato field. In fact, our small, middle-class neighborhood – about 40 miles from New York City – was  surrounded by farms at that time. But that potato field got particular attention because once the farmer had finished driving his mechanical harvester through the field, we neighborhood children were allowed to come walk the furrows, gathering up the potatoes too small for the machine into paper bags. We’d take them home, and our mothers would cook them up for dinner. It is one of my strongest memories of the end-of-summer weeks just before the start of school.

Earlier this summer, a buddy of mine asked a group of people, “What are some of the daily ‘small’ ways that you notice classism?” I thought of that potato field, and my memories of that large, fascinating harvester and the fun we had roaming the field collecting the small, half-buried tubers for our dinner. And I thought about the fact that the farmer was not part of those memories. I do not know his name; what he looked like, whether he had a family; what else he grew on the farm, if anything; what it was like making living as a farmer in those days on Long Island; or anything else about his life. Nor do I know how it was that he invited us to come gather up the potatoes that the harvester left behind, or where he went when the farm became another housing subdivision shortly before I began junior high. (It was the last of the farms surrounding my neighborhood to “disappear.”) I just know that our parents allowed us to go play in the potato fields during those last weeks of summer.

This, I think, is one of the ways that classism daily shows up our lives in the U.S. Most of us go to the supermarket and buy our food, thinking little about the people who worked hard to grow that food and knowing even less about who they are, where they live or what their lives are like. If we are part of the growing number who frequent local farmers’ markets, we may know the faces, and maybe even the names, of the some of those farmers, but we likely still know little about the everyday reality of their lives. (One of the benefits of community supported agriculture – CSAs – and campaigns to “buy local” is that consumers may build at least some relationship with the people who grow their food. But that remains far from the norm.)

This “invisibility” is not because we are intentionally rude or unappreciative, or are “bad” people, but because we live in a time and place where most people in the U.S. are separated from the production of the food we eat, and we are encouraged not to notice. If I hadn’t begun growing large quantities of fruits and vegetables, I doubt I would have thought of that neighboring potato farmer in response to my friend’s question. 

One result of this rigid separation is some silly ideas, like the columnist in the New York Times earlier this summer who wrote that he looked at the prices of the organic vegetables he was buying and imagined the “upstate farmer” driving around in a BMW. Unlikely. Most farmers I know work second, and sometimes third, jobs just to make a frugal living. Then there’s the romantic “Plan B” that the Times repeatedly cites: urban professionals fired from their corporate jobs who want to move to a “simpler” farming life in the country.

But on a more basic note, this separation also means many people can sit down to a meal without thinking about or appreciating the extremely difficult work, frequent worry, precarious finances, and often, lack of health insurance of those who grow our food. So this Labor Day (and beyond), I invite you to join me in noticing, appreciating and learning about the people who bring food to our tables.

Photo: Daniel Hittleman/drhPHOTO

Playing around

My dad has become a very good photographer since retiring. (See some of his photos at drhphoto.net). I only began regularly picking up a camera when I started this blog. But I find that I’ve learned from watching him capture patterns in nature. 

Growing food – especially on the home scale – need not be purely utilitarian. Rather, it is an inherently creative act, adding to the beauty around us.

Sometimes that beauty comes from shaping whole landscapes, seamlessly blending form and function in a harmony that works with nature to delight our senses on many levels at once. In our yard, we see the multi-hued greens and vivid, changing colors as flowers bloom in sequence; smell the earth and moisture with their changing scents throughout the day; taste the tangy mustards, spicy nasturtiums, sweet raspberries, or sun-warmed tomatoes as we wander; hear the unmistakable whirr of a hummingbird’s wings as it flits among nectar-filled flowers; anticipate the flavors of the dinner that will be prepared from ripening zucchini, beans or beets; or sit beneath a grape and kiwi-covered arbor, sensing, on some level that's hard to name, being a part of this life-filled environment all around.

Other times, however, beauty comes from seeing on a smaller scale than usual, discovering new perspectives in a familiar sight – as in the fabric-like foldings of this cosmos flower starting to go to seed.

Top photo: Richard Lansdowne, taken during my parents’ visit in late May. Bottom: Margo Hittleman

Tipping toward fall

The world around us is slowing tipping toward fall. Early mornings, like this one, are chilly, although the temperatures will climb into the high 70s later today. The goldenrods paint yellow along the woods edge. Overhead, we hear the first flocks of Canadian geese beginning to gather. Down the road at the Angeltree Alpaca Farm, the alpacas’ coats are thickening, and further on, hay bales dot the field; late in the day, golden and red apples glow like jewels on two old apple trees surrounding the hand-dug, stone foundation of a long-abandoned home.

In our own yard, Richard picked rose hips yesterday from the Rugosa roses at the edge of the planted gardens. Unlike their domesticated hybrid cousins, the “tea roses,” these “species” roses thrive and spread, requiring almost no care beyond digging out those that have spread further than we wish. They also produce large "hips" which are high in Vitamin C. Earlier in the summer, we enjoyed the scented flowers. Now that the weather is cooling off, the hips will make an excellent tea.

The fall-bearing raspberries are ripe, too. I pick a handful of berries each day, up from the one or two berries last year.

We hope for a sizable crop in another year or two, although I worry that the verticillium wilt – an incurable fungal disease that destroyed first the summer raspberries and this year, eliminated most of the wild “black cap” harvest – may get to the fall-bearing raspberries, too. Unfortunately, I ignored the problem for too many years, not knowing why the raspberry canes flourished each spring, only to have the berries remain small and hard, with the new growth dying back by mid-summer. The following spring, the cycle began again; untended, the wilt spread throughout the garden. I’ve learned the value of a good reference book, and now have several that I consult regularly! (See bookshelf for my favorites.) I’ve also learned the importance of prevention in the health of the organic garden. We may have to go for some years without raspberries until we can renew the soil where they were – raising the temperatures by “solarizing” with a cover of clear plastic in mid-summer, and adding enough fresh compost so that beneficial organisms might outcompete those that promote disease. In the meantime, we savor these seemingly “out-of-season” treats.

Finally, there is the promise of what is still to come: the grapes on the still-to-be-finished arbor over the deck are plumping, the cabbages are filling out, and cool-loving herbs like sorrel and sage (rear and front, respectively, in bottom photo) are thriving in the raised bed by the kitchen door. Our “volunteer” pumpkins – which we suspect may be a cross between a pumpkin and a zucchini – are flecked with orange, and we’ve begun digging the potatoes. (More on all of these soon.)