“If I’m going to work on your farm this summer,” wrote the newly graduated young woman from UC Berkley, “I’ll need assurance that you can provide an emotionally toxic-free environment.” “I also require a diet that is gluten-free and vegetarian.”
Full moon through the trumpet vines
Bypassing that first demand, I asked Cindy, “Jesus, doesn’t anyone read anymore?”
Our farm description on the site that promotes short-term volunteers spells out the basic range of activities, which includes butchering chickens: Here are some of the tasks you might expect to help with: Caring for the livestock, including bees. Planting, weeding, or harvesting in the greenhouse or garden, and pruning in the orchard. Assisting with woodlot management (selective harvesting) and/or our sawmill. Butchering chickens. Making wine, kraut and kimchi, bread, or yogurt.
It is a comprehensive list that is built to give the participant a broad range of experiences and provide us with useful labor. I wrote a polite but to the point response.
“We raise livestock for slaughter, do not cater to special diets, and we are unable to provide timely trigger-warnings. Good luck in your search for a farm to volunteer at this summer.”
Fortunately, a young man in his late 30’s (and yes, sadly, I am at age 58 now able to describe someone who is 38 in that fashion) was staying with us the past ten days. A father of three he was looking for a different experience after an intense year of Covid-family togetherness.
He pitched in and moved electric fences each day, dug post holes for the new wine grape trellis, mucked out stalls, tilled the gardens, weeded and mulched in the garlic and onion plots, brought in composted manure for the vegetable rows in the hoop-house, used the weed-eater, helped build a raised bed with massive and heavy railroad ties, fed and watered the livestock, cleaned out compost bins, loaded sheep for transport, and provided an uncomplaining and a cheerful work presence while he was here on the farm. And, although he had the appalling taste to appreciate the Grateful Dead, we were glad to have him share in the farm life for those days.
However, he did express one area of disappointment, that he didn’t get a chance to butcher chickens. Not that he was desirous of killing a creature. He simply realized that a small diverse farm is built on life cycles and he wanted to experience as many of those as he could while working with us. So, it was with some pleasure that I heard him say, on his last day, that working on our farm had, in a short time, “made me more comfortable with my own mortality.” “Yup, well said,” I replied.
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Reading this weekend: the Louisiana volume in the American Guide Series (1941)
Your opening few lines I thought were hysterical! Totally grabbed me. And whenever I hear something is gluten free, I have the bad habit of saying, Nope, can’t eat that, I love gluten too much! But I do fear for our young people, why are so many of them such snowflakes? None of my four children are, they have had to work too hard in their lives.
But thank you for a good laugh, Brian, but I fear for that girl.
Glad to have brought a smile to your face (it did to mine as well). We get plenty of young people who volunteer and are nothing but terrific. So let’s give them credit for representing the younger generations with honor.
Yet…there is that increasing portion who feel that they need to issue a list of demands. Such as the woman who wasn’t comfortable getting down on her hands and knees, couldn’t stand for any period of time. But, otherwise she could do most anything. Or, the couple who had allergies and requested we deliver their meals to them in the guest apartment. Sigh. None of these were accepted as volunteers.
“Jeez, what do I do now…?”
“Okay, just straighten up and tell him you can’t eat chicken feed, either, but would like to learn how to shoot a rifle. And that you don’t like the Dead, either.”
“Great! Can I mention Kahil El’Zabar?”
“No.”
Ah, my across the pond commenter, I need clarification.
I don’t know how that conversation with my imaginary mentor leaked, but yes, it is true: The granulated food is something I’m avoiding because on it, I’m capable of making everyone around me quite miserable.
There, I’ve turned it into an altruistic deed.
Tell you imaginary mentor that you are welcome anytime, Michael.
Not a Dead Head? Who could possibly have predicted?
And though the cognoscenti would frown on my own credentials – so humble as they are having never been to a Dead concert – I can at least say I’ve been to Haight-Ashbury (and have the photo to prove it). And just now the melodies from ‘Touch of Grey’, ‘Sugar Magnolia’, and ‘Uncle Johns’ Band’ run through my mind. My interest leans toward the lyrical and melodic – off stage antics do offer cause for concern.
AS I’ve already killed a couple chickens, a couple pigs, saved a feeder calf from an early demise… and have no fear of gluten, I’ll likely not be applying to help this summer. But the best of luck finding some who are more suitable. I can spare a Dead CD if would help your recruitment. 🙂
And, it might help in the recruiting. Truth be told, I don’t dislike the music so much as the vibe of the followers. Getting a little too fuddy-duddy in my dotage. Not that the true followers of the GD are not even further along in that journey.
So you won’t be changing from Winged Elm Farm to Woke Oak Farm? The saving grace is that your woofing candidate led with her ill-conceived demands, allowing both you and her to move on without hesitation.
Damn, we never even thought of that name. Of course, back in 1999, Wokeism was just a glimmer in the eye of the privileged.
I’m also 58.
This is a great entry. For odd reasons, this entry brings to mind the old song “I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore”, and yet, at the same time I feel that you (we?) are both behind the times. . . and ahead of them.
Pat, I like that sentiment, “possibly ahead”. History moves in cycles and as someone said (Twain?), “It doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme.”
So you may appreciate this older piece (http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2015/06/27/the-south-is-a-neolithic-fort/) on the immovability of some. I’m sure out in Wyoming there are more than a few that fit the same mold.
Cheers,
Brian
I have become so cynical, that my first reaction was that this was someone trying for a gotcha moment. Either a rightwing nut looking for “woke” farmer’s, or a left wing nut expecting a diatribe in response that could be used to “cancel “ you!
Sadly, it was neither. And I still hasten to add that we get plenty of volunteers, left and right of the totem pole, who are hard working and respectful. Still….