Intensive market farming draws parallels to endurance sports. The pride in a long hard day’s work. Enjoyment of a struggle. Elite and professional athletes spend years of their lives training towards the pursuit of perfection. In the process often causing injury or taking over their lives. Growing and selling vegetables can have a similar effect. Spending months growing and harvesting crops sure feels like a marathon.
In the past I committed to “take Sunday off”. Looking back, I didn’t. Sundays usually involved opening the farm stand. Once at the farm I would often restock produce. A minimum of an hour. At the end of the day I returned to close up shop. My “Sundays off” totalled about 40 hours of work over the season. To be fair, I could have delegated better, but I wanted to set a clear boundary with my employees and keep them from over-extending themselves.
The continuous personal involvement in the farm, the lack of true days off, carried a noticeable cost. If I was spending time with family or friends there was a good chance I was not totally present. Instead, I’d be thinking about work.
By leaving myself with no true days off throughout every season since 2019 I have built my identity as “being a farmer”. While this year I did expand who I am to include a father, an athlete, a writer, I still feel close personal ties to being a farmer. The ties have serious personal ramifications. If, for example, the farm went out of business, at this point, I would consider that a personal failure.
Personal blame would ignore the relentless external pressures including the un-affordability of purchasing land, America’s addiction to cheap food (I am also hooked), operating a high cost, high risk, low return business, being a first generation farmer, and many other factors. If Folks Farm ceases to exist there are clearly many reasons besides something I personally did or did not do.
We have a clear recipe for disaster. This is the pathway to burnout, physical injury, and/or isolation from family and friends. This lifestyle, working everyday of the week for months on end, is clearly not sustainable for the long-term. Amazingly, I avoided burnout this year. I credit that to diving deeper into other passions including spending quality time with family and friends, pursuing ultra marathons, and the writing of this blog. I don’t think every year I will get as lucky.
I could argue with myself and say there is no time to waste. All those factors are against you so I have to fight daily to create space in this profession. That’s what people did 100 years ago to build legacy farms. Right?
We have witnessed fewer and fewer family farms over the past years. Children growing up in agriculture saw first-hand the toll this life took on their parents. They felt the brunt of the trauma shared in lost crops, high costs, and debt. In tandem with extreme mechanization these children fled rural areas in pursuit of different lives. We see it evident throughout Larimer County as farmers sell their land to developers. All the while, housing prices continue to rise.
I was recently turned onto the manifesto “How to Skate a 10k” by Niles van der Poel. He currently holds the world record for both the 10 and 5k distance speed skates. In this manifesto he lays out how he trained for these titles starting back in 2019. Daily exercise logs as well as personal information fill this piece. In it he talks about a 5-2 training week. 5 days on and 2 days of rest. The reverberations from this writing into my own life resonate strongly.
The forced break of two consecutive days forced him to build a life separate from speed skating. In turn he became more than a skater. I feel the same would be true if I took two days completely away from the farm.
With a growing family, my attention needs to shift from work to personal life. I know I haven’t always been the best partner over the past 4 years. I know friendships that have suffered by the relentless pursuit of running a “successful farm business”. I know I could do better.
Looking ahead to next season there is an overwhelming desire to keep work limited to 5 days. The 2 days completely off, no work at all, would create a significant change of pace. Only being 5 days away from a break would be something to look forward to. In turn, taking time away from the job will help me be excited to return after the weekend.
If someone can break world records by putting in 5 days a week of work then surely I can figure out how to enjoy a weekend. Granted growing food is different then putting in sets on a bicycle. However, the stakes are just as high. I want this to be a viable profession. I want to have a life outside of work full of family and friends. To be able to take vacations without being tied to the land. I want to keep training in the great race that is life.
Farm News
The nights are getting colder but veggies are hanging in there. We have been loving putting together our weekly produce boxes. For more information or to reserve yours click the link below. Remember, if you purchase a weekly share, it will be available for pick-up the following week.
No doubt farming is a 24/7 job. Since I have livestock I can’t get a vacation or day off myself. I try, it just never happens.