There’s a backhoe parked outside my living room window. It dug a trench out to the western field so that we can run water and electricity to two year round chicken coops west of the house. The coops won’t be ours, though. They’re being built by the Mainstreet Project, which will rent them from us and then offer them to aspiring Latino farmers that have gone through a beginning farmer class.
This is something we’ve been planning and agonizing over for many months. During the last parts of my pregnancy, I’d sometimes wake up because of contractions and in my half-awake state, I’d assume that the contractions had something to do with the proposed chicken barns instead of the baby. “What does this mean for the barns?” I mumbled to myself until I woke up enough to regain a grip on reality.
After all this anticipation, the back hoe is here now, and our western field has been terraced, and there’s a 6-foot trench dividing our yard. It seems surreal. In spite of myself, I find myself wondering how it all came to be, as though the decisions had been made by someone else.
We made the decision though, and I think it was a good one. We’re renting this land to the Mainstreet Project because they’re trying to help people realize their dreams of being independent farmers. I’m so grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to follow this dream ourselves, and we couldn’t have done it on our own. We feel excited to be part of a sustainable food movement that includes more diversity. Also, we see opportunities to possibly work together with these farmers to sell chickens so that our family’s farming can be more financially sustainable.
Like all exciting changes, it brings a sense of loss. This fall, my daughter wrote a paper for school about her favorite place, sitting in a maple, looking out over waves of corn. Starting this spring, her maple will look out on a chicken yard, and twice a day, folks will drive in to take care of those chickens. It won’t be quite as isolated, and for a girl entering middle school, it’s sometimes important to have privacy when you’re doing things like climbing trees. The same might be said for 38 year old mothers who sometimes sit in trees.
We’re moving ahead with it though, and it’s exciting. People might be raising chickens here by March!S
Monday, December 19, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Age 10
My 10-year-old daughter has become quite competent. A few weeks ago, I watched her in the kitchen, holding her little brother in one arm while fixing some food in another, and something old rose up inside me. I saw that she was capable of pulling her own weight and quite a bit more as well, and I evaluated her capabilities as rationally and eagerly as my husband evaluates tractors. This is a girl who can work, I told myself. This is a girl who can work for me. I didn’t like the way I was thinking about her, but I thought it anyway.
When I watch my girl, I often see family stories transposed upon her. I know that at age 10, my grandma’s oldest sister worked harder than I ever have. She cared for three young siblings and fixed the family’s main meals while her parents worked in the fields. I expect she did the work fairly well. At ten years old, my mother went trick or treating for the last time. Several months later, my grandma died, leaving my mother to take up the work of keeping house. Mom wouldn’t let me go trick or treating after the age of 10, because she expected that if she had done a good job as a parent, then I should be fairly grown up by that age. The first Halloween without trick or treating, I put on a leotard, painted wrinkles on my face with eyeliner and told the neighbor children who came to my door that I was dressed up as a dream deferred. I felt both jealous and superior.
My daughter and I are living out lives that our family members longed for. We have the precious education that my great aunt wanted so badly. We both have mothers who are alive and who love us like no one else can. Neither of us must work so hard that we have to leave part of ourselves behind before we’re ready. Even though I enjoy our privilege and take it for granted, I sometimes feel as though I’ve wandered out on untried ground, and I keep glancing back, trying to learn what strength we might be leaving behind.
When I watch my girl, I often see family stories transposed upon her. I know that at age 10, my grandma’s oldest sister worked harder than I ever have. She cared for three young siblings and fixed the family’s main meals while her parents worked in the fields. I expect she did the work fairly well. At ten years old, my mother went trick or treating for the last time. Several months later, my grandma died, leaving my mother to take up the work of keeping house. Mom wouldn’t let me go trick or treating after the age of 10, because she expected that if she had done a good job as a parent, then I should be fairly grown up by that age. The first Halloween without trick or treating, I put on a leotard, painted wrinkles on my face with eyeliner and told the neighbor children who came to my door that I was dressed up as a dream deferred. I felt both jealous and superior.
My daughter and I are living out lives that our family members longed for. We have the precious education that my great aunt wanted so badly. We both have mothers who are alive and who love us like no one else can. Neither of us must work so hard that we have to leave part of ourselves behind before we’re ready. Even though I enjoy our privilege and take it for granted, I sometimes feel as though I’ve wandered out on untried ground, and I keep glancing back, trying to learn what strength we might be leaving behind.
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