Humble Pie Farm

"The grief is simply proof that you're invested in living & loving.

It's Mike's last day ever at Gardens of Eagan today. He's picking 120 or so boxes of kale. I think they have a big order today before the predicted hard freeze, and most everyone stops working for good. He can pick bunches of kale like a madman, fitting 13 bunches under his arm. I wonder how many harvest crew members he's taught to pick kale? A lot. I saw the quote above by Ann Voskamp on Facebook earlier today and it gave words to the ache in my chest and the lump in my belly.

I keep asking him if he's sad. Just today he said yes, he's feeling a little sad. On Saturday we'll all gather there one last time for a private harvest party. We'll cook-off chili, roast pork shoulders, play farm olympics and have a bonfire. We'll probably reminisce. I kind of don't want to go, because I'm tired and it's too sad. I just want to move on. I'll pull it together and go, of course, because like our friend Susan says, we have to go through it. Together, just like we've gone through so much else.

I've been working on something to say to the crew at the harvest party. I think it'll go like this.

I've been driving a lot and so, thinking a lot. Trying to figure out how to find closure. We weren't really ready for GOE to close its doors this year, and when we found out in April it was shocking. We had some indicators, sure, but still. I keep learning in life that the result of things isn't always what we want. People die too soon, you lose big games that you tried really hard to win, stuff happens to all of us. But what our lives are made of is the sum of our days. What we do each day, the work, the words, the actions towards others, that is what creates our life. And all that we have at the end of things. 

GOE is our birthplace; where Mike and I met, where we had our baby, where we birthed our farm business too. It will always be a special place in our heart. A few years ago I wrote an article about a farm being its farmers. I still believe that's true, but now that I've participated in changing a garbage heap of unhealthy soil into beautiful, thriving, land, I understand better the connection of farmers to the land farmed. 

As we leave this place, this 126 acres, this entity, community, brand, co-op-owned farm that is GOE, to the eye we leave some emptyish buildings and quiet tractors and frozen cover-cropped soil with recent remnants of mowed flowers and cabbage. That's what you can see. But really what matters is not what's left. What really matters is what we carry with us, in our hearts, minds and bodies. We carry the experience, the learning, the health of the good food. It has helped make us. We are changed from what we were before we came here to what we've gained from being here. 

We carry countless heads of healthy beautiful broccoli that's fed our family and yours, and countless drops of sweat as we've planted, cultivated and bedded down these healthy fields. We carry countless learnings, and laughs, and tears, and competitions to pack the fastest box of kale. We carry knowledge of the deep satisfaction of participating in the whole life of our food, from seed to swallow. We carry life-long friendships that have been forged as we've worked as hard as ever next to each other. We carry the wisdom of hard practical work of the earth, and the wisdom of helping each other because we're only as strong as our weakest link. We carry the peace of a bone-tired body and mind at the end of a long, hot summer day. We carry the sweetness of a dirty arm around our shoulder and laughter of a co-worker sharing the unspoken understanding of peace gained from bone-tiring earth work. We carry relationships with courageous folks who value humanity and real work and the earth enough to have made choices that have promoted health and spirit and earth and all the other growth in their lives that matters more than money.

We carry the blessing of work that fills us and teaches us and makes us better.

We know we'll find more. But right now we grieve the loss of this experience because of what it means to us. We grieve the loss of this daily community. We grieve the loss of the stewardship of this piece of ground.

But, "The grief is simply proof that you're invested in living & loving."

Thank you all for your investment. For your work. For your love. You are all welcome on a little 16 acre piece of ground in Wisconsin.

Peace out GOE, you live long in our hearts.

<3 J,M+E