Hungers that be
"Courageous Jenny!" she said as she passed me with a handful of netting. The strawberries need protection from the birds, she said. My hands were cut and the dirt was pressed into the dry creases, not to be easily washed down the sink (the water and some dirt would make it back into the fields through a gray water system at the house). I wiped my face and crumbs of weeds, sand, compost, and strawberry leaves clung to cheeks. "I just wanted to get it done," I said, motioning to the liberated (or at least now visible) strawberry plants. "There's a lot of weeding to do down there!" Farmer Kristien nodded her tanned face and half smiled, half grimaced. Add it to the list, she seemed to say. That list never shrinks really. Weeding is a constant, then there's always something to plant or seed or feed or amend. The goats and chickens and geese need attention, Marius the donkey needs to be tamed if he's to pull the plow to pile dirt on the potatoes. The centuries old barn needs to be fixed, the fences mended. I walked back to the newly constructed addition housing the family, the farmhand, the wwoofers.
"So you're just doing this for fun in your spare time," Erica the wwoofer asked. Even though she was working for free as well, she gave me a look of slight confusion.
"Yup. You learn something different from each farm. Like soaking starts in compost tea. That's new to me," I said, referring to the pumpkin seedlings we planted earlier that morning. "There is always something to take from a day's work. And I kind of like being exhausted at the end of the day for a good reason."
My ten mile bike ride back into the city would complete that exhaustion. I looked down at my hands now holding a glass of wine. I barely recognized them as my own. Finely lined, sunburnt, covered with dirt. Strong and freckled and scarred. I wanted to listen to the stories my hands could tell.
Kristien called me courageous because I stayed in the field longer than anyone else to finish the row. It was a volunteer work day and those who have bought a membership in the unique CSA came to work the land where they get their vegetables. They weeded and hoed and mended and harvested. Their kids played in the inflatable pool and led the tiny goat around on its leash and played swords with fallen branches. Everyone sat down to a long table under the apple trees for a lunch of bread and cheese and salads. At the end of the day the few remaining volunteers raised glasses of wine and beer to congratulate one another in getting through the hot day.
According to Kristien, she would not be a farmer if not for the community aspect. Members can come to the farm anytime day or night (during the winter flashlight beams can be seen darting from plant to plant) to pick their share. They take as much as they will use, Kristien says. It is all based on trust.
For a small farm such as hers with only a couple of farmers, the pick-your-own-veggies concept works. Harvesting, washing, boxing up, and delivering a box of produce once or twice a week into Antwerp would take too much time out of the already busy farming schedule. Plus people get to come to the farm and choose their own produce. Being less than ten miles from a major Belgian city is an obvious advantage that farms further from the city center would find difficult to sustain with a sparser surrounding population. It's not convenient for everyone in the city, but with 60 members in her third season and several news articles about the farm and CSA concept (relatively new in Belgium), they seem to be on track.
My toil is not totally unpaid. Besides the exhaustion I crave (Zot!), I pop into the hoop houses to harvest greens for that night's salad. Frilly red lettuce found itself in my bag (I've been eying it since day one!), followed by a delicately crunchy Bibb-like head. Carrots and red beets and a handful of a spicy mustard were stuffed into another bag and swung happily all the way home on my handlebars.
Biking, farming, biking, eating.
Courageous? Nah. Hungry for nourishment of all kinds? Totally.
"So you're just doing this for fun in your spare time," Erica the wwoofer asked. Even though she was working for free as well, she gave me a look of slight confusion.
"Yup. You learn something different from each farm. Like soaking starts in compost tea. That's new to me," I said, referring to the pumpkin seedlings we planted earlier that morning. "There is always something to take from a day's work. And I kind of like being exhausted at the end of the day for a good reason."
My ten mile bike ride back into the city would complete that exhaustion. I looked down at my hands now holding a glass of wine. I barely recognized them as my own. Finely lined, sunburnt, covered with dirt. Strong and freckled and scarred. I wanted to listen to the stories my hands could tell.
Kristien called me courageous because I stayed in the field longer than anyone else to finish the row. It was a volunteer work day and those who have bought a membership in the unique CSA came to work the land where they get their vegetables. They weeded and hoed and mended and harvested. Their kids played in the inflatable pool and led the tiny goat around on its leash and played swords with fallen branches. Everyone sat down to a long table under the apple trees for a lunch of bread and cheese and salads. At the end of the day the few remaining volunteers raised glasses of wine and beer to congratulate one another in getting through the hot day.
According to Kristien, she would not be a farmer if not for the community aspect. Members can come to the farm anytime day or night (during the winter flashlight beams can be seen darting from plant to plant) to pick their share. They take as much as they will use, Kristien says. It is all based on trust.
For a small farm such as hers with only a couple of farmers, the pick-your-own-veggies concept works. Harvesting, washing, boxing up, and delivering a box of produce once or twice a week into Antwerp would take too much time out of the already busy farming schedule. Plus people get to come to the farm and choose their own produce. Being less than ten miles from a major Belgian city is an obvious advantage that farms further from the city center would find difficult to sustain with a sparser surrounding population. It's not convenient for everyone in the city, but with 60 members in her third season and several news articles about the farm and CSA concept (relatively new in Belgium), they seem to be on track.
My toil is not totally unpaid. Besides the exhaustion I crave (Zot!), I pop into the hoop houses to harvest greens for that night's salad. Frilly red lettuce found itself in my bag (I've been eying it since day one!), followed by a delicately crunchy Bibb-like head. Carrots and red beets and a handful of a spicy mustard were stuffed into another bag and swung happily all the way home on my handlebars.
Biking, farming, biking, eating.
Courageous? Nah. Hungry for nourishment of all kinds? Totally.
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