A visit to the farm
Given the state of the economy and the world today, it is no surprise that every self help guru and talking head imaginable has crawled from the wreckage, ready to clarify our distress and remedy our fear – to the point now where nearly every conversation becomes a competing rant. And as sexy as a silver bullet is, the cause and cure are both more mundane and invisible as heightened stress blinds us to the basics. For me, the pleasures of cooking and sharing good food have always had a therapeutic affect beyond those of simple tastes and the family table. The happiness inherent in developing the skills that underpin a calling can, I suppose, be interpreted as a healthy reaction to the realization that in the end we are left to our own devices to find our way in this world – although I can’t count the number of people who have made my success possible.
For most of us it is mainly the ebb and flow of personal motivation that defines our progress. How then do we learn to weather the unforeseen? For that lesson, go to a farm. Larry and Carol Ann Sayle of Boggy Creek Farm are two local farmers I know well. They have the serenity and skeptical humor that come only to those who don’t have predictability in their job description. They are organized, prolific and work harder than we would like to imagine and are independent by our idealized measure – yet their daily partner is the unforeseen.
The art and science of building a livelihood around the weather stretch back to the mists of prehistory – a lifestyle rooted in uncertainty that transcends the political and forces those involved to develop a highly advanced ability to adapt along with an indestructible determination. Larry and Carol Ann may smile grimly when talking about the last freeze that set them back a month or more, but it is a smile nonetheless. Maybe it is their experience that assures them that a new crop will come or the knowledge that nature in the end cooperates and replenishes that which she takes away. But these truths do not in and of themselves explain the success of Boggy Creek Farm – it is also the calling of Larry and Carol Ann to nourish others as well as themselves that allow them to embrace and navigate the forces beyond their control.
You are what you grow…and eat, no guru needed.
