Monday mornings, Zach and I wake up around 5:30, a couple of doors from one another, dress in more layers than I have the space to describe here, brew our hot caffeinated beverages of choice, throw the day’s cargo (seed trays, boxes, seeds, lumber, irrigation materials, could be anything) into the truckbed with little said, and begin the drive out to west Gainesville, where we stop to pick up Tim at his house, and then Morgan. Zach has oftentimes made cookies, or muffins, and we both bring a thermos of something piping hot and lively to share. The silliness begins as soon as our eyes are open wide enough to see beyond the ice on the windshield, but it’s sober enough until Tim gets into the car. Then it’s no holds barred, and I have to put on armor, for the blows fly. Morgan’s still mostly observing, and perhaps sharpening her claws. Sometimes, Tim asks me if I’m ok afterwards.
When we get to the farm, Tim gives the sun a proper salutation, while Zach and I start pacing anxiously from barn to greenhouse, to the fields and back, taking notes in our speeding brains, and on completely different wavelengths. Thus far, Morgan seems to just marvel placidly at the hilarity of all of it. Occasionally, a miracle occurs, and when we reconvene to set our tasks for the day, Zach has the same ideas as I do. More often, we see urgent and immediate care required in entirely dissimilar realms. My focus (if it can be called that) is often on infrastructure, or the long view. Zach has the next harvest in High Definition, fairly permanently, and keeps a helter-skelter survey of plant succession. I have a mind for the farm, Zach has a mind for the food. Another way to say it is that I am impractically ambitious, and Zach is frenetically on-point. And so we get to work, often in pairs. This past week, I remembered Morgan telling someone she had worked building stage sets for theater productions and fashion shows, and so I asked for her company in finishing the greenhouse and building benches for the seed trays. Zach and Tim went down into the field to finish prepping beds for planting.
By midday, I usually experience some small private moment of inconvenience that triggers within me a completely disproportionate response, an overreaction. Let me provide an example. In attempting to screw one piece of wood to another, the screw drops to the ground, and suddenly, I feel the world is a tragic and difficult place to be. These moments help me realize that I am hungry. They often take place just before Zach announces he is going up to the house to make lunch. Soon after, we all sit down to pizza and kombucha, a fresh salad, and reinvigorated melees of emotional abuse. It’s the best part of the day, hands down. We made a commitment from the get-go that if this was going to be about food, then we had better go ahead and enjoy a good meal all together each day that we’re working. It’s been the church of our farm, these lunchtimes, truly. We clean up together, maybe share a pot of coffee if there’s an extra dose of lethargy in the air, and get back to the dirt. By the time we had better leave if we want any hope of salvaging our relationships at home, we’re all thoroughly pooped and the ride home is often a bit milder in its tone, a little softer for the transition back to other life. Heck, we might even talk about what we need to accomplish on Tuesday. And after Tim and Morgan have been returned to their saner abodes, and it’s just us again, we’re happy once more to sit quietly and enjoy the smell of earth on our clothes.
What is it that begs us to beat up on one another to show our love? Is it that we’re celebrating the trust that has been forged in the brutal fires of friendship or family? Are we exploring the outer limits of our emotional color wheels as some twisted covenant of solidarity and love? Maybe it’s just that fun.
Anyway, this is dedicated to my partner in farming, my kid brother with a kid, my lunchtime mother, my dream co-pilot, my good friend Zach.
In solidarity, with love,
Noah Shitama
Swallowtail Farmer
Recipes:
Baked Carrots
4 cups of carrots, sliced
½ cup of water
6 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of salt
In a casserole dish, mix the sugar, nutmeg and salt with water.
Add the carrots and glaze them with butter.
Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes.
Cool for 5 minutes.
Berried Avocado Grapefruit Salad
Butterhead lettuce
2 avocados, seeded, peeled and sliced
2 cups grapefruit sections
1 cup fresh strawberries
Prepared sweet vinegar and oil dressing
Line salad plates with lettuce. Arrange avocado, grapefruit and strawberries over and sprinkle with dressing.
