My First Year Farming

Recently, I have had a huge first in my life- having two beautiful baby boys. This experience is by far the most impactful event in my personal history, followed by losing a parent. Both experiences tethered me to love in a new, unexpected way. In both instances, I found myself in a bizarre vortex reconfiguring my mental and physical being to a new life, a new beginning.

‍

Yet, when I dive deep into the philosophies and skills that set me up for gracefully navigating both birth and death, I always come back to farming. To this day, my relationship to the natural world, to growing things, to the intimate observations of the ecosystem, is its own vortex. It's my own time where my whole self is always shifting and realigning with the rhythms of nature. So similar to what I have experienced with a new baby and losing a parent.

‍

My first year farming was unmatched. It was new, exciting, fun, incredibly physically demanding, lonely, awkward, and I felt like I had gone back in time. This wasn’t the lifestyle that my friends were living. The happy hours were gone. Bike commuting around the city quickly diminished because I drove so much. My whole grind was getting food to peoples plates, yet I barely had time to cook for myself. It was a perfect mess at just the right time of my life, and inevitably it set me up for many other life events.

‍

I often think back on the sensory experience of becoming acquainted with the land: the early morning field walks when the bees are still sleeping on the flowers. The birds and their ambient chatter at dawn and dusk. My sore back from lifting far more than I should have. I developed a new posture–literally and figuratively–as a woman farming in this country. 

‍

The language of farm life, the community that I was getting to know and study, was thrilling. I was dirty–very dirty. The depth of dirt, and the relationship to it, was fascinating. I could grow something out of it, witness the lifecycle and bring it to people. I was witnessing the way it wore on my clothes, my shoes, the mix of sun and sweat that created a paste of initiation, like I was part of something bigger than myself.

‍

In those first months of farming, I became a part of the ecosystem, wading and churning the soil’s tilth with my bare hands. I dove into my mind and my personal ecosystem, and asked big existential questions about humans, the earth, food and sacrifice. The first year of farming, like the first year of being a mother, still shimmers back and forth in my mind. With each new year, I lean harder into the juggle of being a mother and farmer. Each of these firsts continues to add a new depth of magic to the mundane, and I am still enamored with it all.

‍

‍

Kara is a mother, farmer, community member and friend. She has been farming in the PNW for the last 16 years. When she is not tending to a field of flower, garlic and dye plants, she is with her family finding any excuse to dance, see music, visit a local art gallery, or travel. She values connection and finds peace in working with others and the land. Her recent love is studying natural dyes and collaborating on projects and discovering her role and life as an artist. You can find out more about what she is up to: www.vibrantvalleyfarm.com @vibrantvalleyfarm