2022 From the Field View
*Farmer Domenika’s note: Each year we ask our crew to candidly reflect on their past season and talk about the highs and lows of farmwork. Empowering a new generation of land stewards and seed keepers is a vital aspect of Good Rain Farm’s mission. We are grateful for young farmers!*
Written By Field Crewmember Ezra (they/them)
This 2022 season at Good Rain Farm was a nosedive into new experiences! I had minimal agricultural experience beforehand, and I definitely dove into the deep end. I knew there would be a learning curve, but nothing could have quite prepared me for just how much learning there would be. I'm extremely grateful to have had my first real farming experience with Good Rain Farm! I feel really lucky to have landed with a group of honest and understanding people to learn from. It's been refreshing to work alongside people who think critically and deeply about their relationships to the land and people.
I've felt more raw earth, seen more new plants and animals, stepped on more slugs, and learned more skills over this farm season than any other year of my life. Despite an exceptionally cold and wet spring, I watched some plants struggle, and then thrive. I watched some thrive, and then bolt. I saw some perish under the unusually sudden early summer heat wave. I watched many plants bypass people and go directly into the bellies of the insects.
There is a lot of value in seeing the duality of a farm, much like life there is a mix of good and bad, difficult and miraculous, rotting and thriving. I watched the land push and pull our crop plans, and I saw Michelle, Dexter and Domenika find creative solutions to complicated problems. I've felt devastated to watch climate change so closely, seeing it demolish swaths of our crop. But I’ve also felt hope, learning from people who see that a better future for our world is within our hands.
I wanted to learn about farming to build skills that could serve my community and myself in sustainable, equitable access to food. Food is such a basic part of our lives, but we have lost touch with its origins in the capitalistic and power imbalanced society we live in, here in so-called America. Colonization tried to remove the true keepers of this land, and working on the farm I saw firsthand how our society’s approach to land, people and food has harmed us all. I'm humbled to be able to watch and learn from Michelle in her mission to bring Indigenous wisdom back to the land and the food we grow on it.
It has by no means been an easy journey, fighting against a capitalistic & white supremacist society never is, but all good fights are worth the work. There is true bravery in the (seemingly) simple act of taking a plant from seed to table. This season has permanently changed the way I see the land and my relationship to it. It's been a true demonstration of the power of the land, and the costs we all are paying for the generations of disrespect our society has shown it.
Despite the challenges of the 2022 season, I'm thrilled to walk away with so much knowledge, and a new fire within me. I've met countless new creatures over the past several months, harvested and cooked with all kinds of new vegetables. I still catch myself thinking about the spring snap peas and imagining new ways to cook a zucchini -zucchini, spinach, parmesan fritters? ummm yes please! I'm excited to see where this new knowledge takes me, and to bring as much of it as I can to the land and community I share with others in the future.
