Bully Pulpit: Seasons of Seasons


Since the early 1980s Walnut Hill Farm has been growing and delivering veggies to restaurants and markets in the Portland, Ore., metro area. A year ago a TV crew came to my farm to film a Public Broadcasting episode of “Chefs A’Field.” Philippe Boulot, acclaimed executive chef at the Heathman Restaurant, arrived with his daughter Chloe, to tour my farm. The cameras rolled as we browsed among tomatoes, basil, lettuce and other crops. I rode my ATV while Philippe and Chloe walked, and the three of us picked, sampled and chatted, as part of episode 10, “Oregon Organics,” which will air early this month on PBS [for video highlights, visit www.chefsafield.com, Episode 10].

It was gratifying to have my farm get this kind of recognition, but afterwards I began thinking about everything the camera did not see, those moments when my wife and I were learning hard lessons on the farm by trial and error. It’s kind of like learning to live with a disability. What at first seems too much to deal with gradually becomes doable, even fulfilling.

I’ll never forget Walnut Hill Farm’s modest beginnings: selling snow peas at restaurant back doors to tight-fisted Chinese chefs; paying teenagers by the bug to squish cucumber beetles in the field; my wife doing a crazy jig while picking lettuce (a shrew had run up her pantleg); me dragging my legs through fresh cow poop as I scooted on my butt in the pasture to help a cow give birth; running out of diesel while plowing a field, stranded on my tractor, my cries for help disappearing in the wind.

What has kept me farming for nearly 30 years is my relationship with the seasons. Now, in fall, the crisp air and dying crops are connected to something in me that dies as well. One hard freeze and the growing season is instantly over — and I wonder if I will farm another season. Winter is a time of reflection and rest. Then, just when it seems I can’t take another overcast day, the sun appears, bulbs push through the soil, buds form on trees. I experience a slow rebirth. My thoughts turn to seeds and planting. Bound to nature’s rhythms, soon I’m checking the greenhouse daily in hopes of witnessing spring’s first sprouts. The rest comes automatically: tending young seedlings, planting more seeds, and when the danger of frost passes, transplanting into the field.

In the preview of the PBS episode that will air this month, I see myself saying, “The best way I can define my disability is, if I’m doing my job, my disability will be invisible.” In other words, my farming accomplishments can be measured by the product in the box — the tomatoes or beans or basil — not by anything about me. The truth is, without nature’s cycle of rest and rebirth, all my efforts come to nothing.

Is learning from the seasons as a farmer any different from learning from the seasons of disability, or for that matter, life? Can we connect with a nurturing life force — like getting into sync with the rhythms of the seasons — that will help us adapt, cope and hopefully flourish?

I think we can.


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