How do you say farmer in Dutch?
Hands in the dirt. Grains and chunks falling over calloused palms, through scarred fingers. The soil is cool and damp under its sandy top layer. Leafy greens and purples burst from the crust and flitter in the wind rushing over Belgian towns with stepped brick facades and plain concrete rowhouses, with cafes where beer is served in goblets and streets smell of freshly baked bread. It blows through overgrown grass fields being diligently mowed down by billowing sheep and cows with charming overbites. It swirls though the banks of canals lined by tall trees and bike paths. It carries the sound of Dutch into the field where I crouch on my knees pulling out dandelions and grass shoots for hours in the warm sun. I am sweating and sunburned and smiling. I am on holiday and working. I am growing and learning how to grow and grasping weeds and words like crazy (zot).
At 5pm with the sun still high overhead we are called to the porch covered in goose poop and overrun by mewling kittens. We are poured Pastis and water, a cloudy anise flavored concoction perfect for a hot spring afternoon and a workday well done, thunderheads building in the distance. A pygmy goat on a chain leash wanders into the fields and starts eating the potato leaves. A flurry of Dutch reprimands fly in his direction, glasses set down and feet set running. He is promptly reattached to a nearby tree and resumes grazing on the lawn. We talk of CSAs and finding purpose, of cohousing and goat cheese and clover under the pumpkins.
We have dirt on our faces and compost under our fingernails and the glasses of Pastis are refilled.
I go from an "I" to a "we" in the matter of a few hours in a day. I pick up a shovel or a bucket of herbs for transplanting and suddenly I am helping to support a community, my/their/our way of life.
We are farmers. We are artists and scientists in the soil. We are the we everywhere. Dirty, smiling, zot.
(boer)
At 5pm with the sun still high overhead we are called to the porch covered in goose poop and overrun by mewling kittens. We are poured Pastis and water, a cloudy anise flavored concoction perfect for a hot spring afternoon and a workday well done, thunderheads building in the distance. A pygmy goat on a chain leash wanders into the fields and starts eating the potato leaves. A flurry of Dutch reprimands fly in his direction, glasses set down and feet set running. He is promptly reattached to a nearby tree and resumes grazing on the lawn. We talk of CSAs and finding purpose, of cohousing and goat cheese and clover under the pumpkins.
We have dirt on our faces and compost under our fingernails and the glasses of Pastis are refilled.
I go from an "I" to a "we" in the matter of a few hours in a day. I pick up a shovel or a bucket of herbs for transplanting and suddenly I am helping to support a community, my/their/our way of life.
We are farmers. We are artists and scientists in the soil. We are the we everywhere. Dirty, smiling, zot.
(boer)
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