Humanity

Display from last weekend’s market.

It was the end of a farmers market, the final stretch of a long day. As I am dropping my checkout envelope off a cookie is offered from a market volunteer. He has fallen ill this year. Not the I should stay home sick but the I am fighting something deep inside sick. The I might not make it sick. 

I reached down, even though I was already devouring a sickly sweet treat, and accepted the offer. I brushed the encounter aside with jokes and banter about blood sugar and distracted driving.

Here is someone possibly facing the end of their life, who could have trouble just getting out of bed, and they are up cooking homemade cookies to share with vendors and coworkers.

Sitting at an intersection, the tears come. The sheer humanity of that simple gesture broke something inside of me. Death, or the tangible threat of death, brings a new light to life. We easily take for granted everyday we wake up to a new sunrise. I wonder what our world would be like if we could truly grasp how near death we all are. If we didn’t waste a moment to express our love and appreciation to the people in our lives. 

I have had only a couple conversations with this person over the past five years. Market days are busy, a schlep of setting up, selling, and breaking down. Finding time to drink anything besides coffee is challenging enough, let alone connect with people that make the event happen. But we always knew each other. The nods of appreciation. I see you. 

This moment was different. This year was different. The meeting point of grief and love brought into broad daylight and offered on a paper plate shrouded in sugar. 

This comes at a time when the season is dying. Around us as leaves fall from trees, summer crops stop bearing, and beds are cleared. It comes at a time where, as market people, we are tired from months of hustling. The rawness of fall, the feeling you are left with after playing your seasonal hand. There is little space for barriers. Emotions, feelings, love, and grief all ride to the surface as a final flourish before rest and snowfall cover us back up under the winter blanket. 

This moment was a veil lifted. When two humans witnessed each other. The pain, the beauty, the care, the love, the grief all commingled to show humanity in a pure form. It was also a delicious raspberry oat cookie warmed perfectly from the afternoon sun.

We don’t know when our time will come. There is clearly a strong chance this illness will be overcome, but the message remains. We spend a lot of time an energy attempting to not feel. Drugs mask both physical and mental ailments, offering temporary relief. Conventional food can fill our bellies, but there is a piece of our soul longing for more.

The depths of the human experience, and how we navigate them, create our true selves. No one comes out of this life unmarred, but we clearly have a choice to feel or not. To reach out, or not. To realize, at the end of the day, we are all human. Ideological differences can divide us, we really crave the same thing. Connection.

It has been hard to write recently, mostly because I was done writing about how cool farming is and why I am cool for being a farmer, and why you’d be cooler if you got food from local farms. I wore agriculture like a mask to hide my own feelings. It is something I do, but not all of who I am.

This moment was so pure, so real. Connective moments are happening all around us! I hope you feel them too.

Farm News

This Sunday will be the last opportunity to order a Winter CSA Share with the first pick-up being November 6th-10th.

The last chance to use Main Season CSA gift cards will be Saturday October 26th at 4pm.

Farm Stand hours will continue as scheduled up through the holidays and possibly into 2025!

We will also be participating in the Winter Farmers Market at the Foothills Mall every Saturday until December 21st.

Farm Stand Hours: 10-6pm Wed-Friday, 10-4pm Saturday and Sunday

Hopefully stocked this week:

Farm Fresh Pork- That’s right, the pigs are back home and ready to be loved a second time

Greens: Hearts and Souls Salad Mix, chard, kale, arugula, bok choi, endive, escarole, spicy mix, butterhead lettuce, gem head lettuce

Winter Squash: Delicata, spaghetti, butternut, acorn, kuri, kabocha, pie pumpkins, jack o’ lanterns, carnival acorn

Roots: Potatoes, onions, shallots, carrots, beets, turnips, red and watermelon radishes, and garlic

Veggies: Field tomatoes, eggplant, sweet and hot peppers, fennel, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks

Herbs: Parsley

KREAM Kimchi, Jodar Farms Eggs, Rey Atelier Home Goods, Bread Chic Sourdough, Fox Den Coffee, Owl Tree Farm Worm Compost, Bee Squared Apiaries Honey, Abuelita’s Hot Sauce, Christie Leighton Jewelry, Life’s A Buch Kombucha