by Elizabeth

When I was 14 my great-grandmother Dorothy interviewed me for a gardening job. Standing in front of her flower beds that day I thought the work looked hot and hard, and I didn’t understand what she meant when she said the beds needed to be cultivated. I wavered, not sure if I wanted the job, and she replied, “That’s okay, I should probably find a boy to do it anyway.” 

I don't know if she meant to, but she’d played me like a fiddle. I stiffened and stood up straighter, saying stubbornly, “No! I’ll do it.” She nodded, maybe even smiled. I tended her flower gardens for the next three years until I left for college. She taught me about the satisfaction of hard work and digging in the soil, and to never leave the rock rake lying tines-up ("Are you trying to kill me?" she'd say with a mock frown.) She started me down the path to becoming a farmer. 

As a young person I thought somehow I could save the world. Climate change, population growth, animal rights… it was enough to make my young heart ache for solutions. I wanted to make change, make it better, but I didn't know how to make a big enough difference.    

I kept building my plant- and food-based resume, working at a nursery, two organic farms, a grocery store, a food bank and a school garden. Slowly, through this work and with the help of many teachers, I began to see sustainable farming as my way to make positive change. I came to believe that the goal wasn't to make a big difference, but to make a difference where I could in a community that I’d come to love. 

And I chose farming not just because it was good for people and the planet, but because I couldn't get enough of it.  

Good food became my cause, and farming became my obsession. I would fall to sleep at night dreaming of the lush winter squash vines on my future farmland. I found plots of land to grow on, and I planned and planted and tended them religiously. I learned to sell my produce. I made mistakes, grew some beautiful crops, and I worked towards the life on the land that I dreamed of. Farming fulfilled me on a level that no other work ever had. I wanted more of it.   

Now, launching onto this long-awaited 4 acre farm site, it feels like an amazing fruition of so many years of dreaming and working. Tackling a big piece of land is exciting, terrifying, joyful, exhausting, and totally satisfying, all at once. Maybe most of all, making progress on this farm site represents the ability to overcome challenges, both internal and external. Gaining ground on big goals is a pretty awesome feeling.   

Teaming up with Cody came at the perfect point in my farming journey. Having a partner to troubleshoot with through the planning process has been invaluable, and I’ve also remembered how much more fun it is to work with friends. We have synergistic levels of determination, work ethic, geekiness, and love for the land. We both like spreadsheets and soil biology. We both have big dreams for our small farm.  

Today, I know what the word cultivates means and I think my great-grandmother Dorothy would be proud of our farm. She grew beauty for beauty’s sake, in beds of hydrangeas and peonies. I grow beauty too, in rows of carrots and beets and cabbage. And even though a core goal of our farm is to make the world a little bit better place, I know that it's the day to day challenge and satisfaction of working on the land that keeps me coming back for more. Thanks for the life lessons and calluses Grandma Dorothy!  

by Cody

I didn't grow up on a farm.  Or even in farm country.  I grew up in a ski town with schizophrenic feelings about its ranching roots, and I did ballet.

I remember my mom growing a few cold season crops when I was young. Kale. Maybe some cilantro. Rhubarb. But gave them up after not too long when she decided rafting and skiing were more fun. I stuck with ballet.

As I approached graduation I came to realize that my chances at becoming a professional ballerina were slim to none, especially at 5'2". I decided then to forgo a life as an anorexic waitress (a.k.a. semi-professional dancer) and pursue my other dreams - becoming a National Geographic photographer and an international development superstar. (Nothing but realistic, healthy, achievable goals for me!)

I went to college, studied International Development and moved to Nicaragua.

While living in Nicaragua off-and-on over a handful of years, I watched as development and 'Big Ag' started to move into rural communities and the subsistence farming lifestyle began to fade. Families who had worked the land for generations began moving away from the farm. People forgot that tomatoes could be grown without chemicals. Youth, who as children had referred to September as 'the time of the ayote (squash)', stopped helping their parents in the fields and began preparing themselves for office jobs in the city. Villages that had once been almost completely self sufficient became bedroom communities; parasitic pueblos dependent on the cities for survival. All the traditional signs of 'development' were drawing people away from the land and their heritage.

I also witnessed the damage that even the most well-intended, outsiders-with-influence can do when they think they know better than the communities they serve.  And the rural communities left reeling in their wake.  A water table that was critically lowered because of a failed running-water project when the community really wanted a school.  City style subdivisions plopped into rural communities without regard to water, waste or electricity needs.

I met people working against this tide though, and learned that it is the communities who look within themselves for answers and support who best survive the impacts of fickle outside forces. Communities who are clear about their values and about the importance of preserving local resiliency. People who aren't afraid of hard work but are afraid of losing their identities. It was at this point that I became most interested in the role that vibrant local food systems can play in preserving community health and identities.

But... instead of picking up a hoe and cultivating a piece of land at that point, I moved to the Caribbean and became a professional snorkeler. 

And eventually moved away from land all together, hopping aboard a sailboat and embarking on an unplanned circumnavigation. 

Maybe it's because I get incredibly sea sick, or maybe it has something to do with the physiological effects of being surrounded by thousands of miles of water, but it was on our second ocean crossing that I began to dream about farming again. I would dream of digging in the dirt and map out crop rotations in my mind as I steered the boat through starless nights. I informed my partner that if we ever got our own sailboat (we were hitch hiking then), it needed to have two heads (bathrooms) so I could convert one into a greenhouse.

We didn't buy our own sailboat though and eventually returned to the US, broke and homeless in the middle of 'The Great Recession'. We had loved sailing and traveling but we came back to land because we longed for a home and community again. The long process of community and job hunting led us, completely unexpectedly, to Quincy and we both instantly knew that we had found home. 

Not finding much work in international development or sailing in the rural Sierra Nevada mountains, I started building another career. It was at this point that I happened to meet Elizabeth and my wild dreams of farming began to take root. 

I now find myself pouring over chicken catalogs, geeking out on soil microbes, and coveting tractors. I know that I'm not going to save the world or become and international super star, but I feel lucky that I get to spend my days digging in the dirt and growing healthy food for my community.