Maybe it’s because I am one generation from farmers, on one side, and two, on the other.
Maybe it’s that I was raised traveling north to my grandparents’ and great-grandmother’s farms in rural Indiana, going south to my great-grandfather’s and great-aunts’ farms in south Georgia.
Maybe it was the mystique of soft whispers from the soybean and corn fields, of the giant pecan trees that dropped delicious gifts for us to gather, of ever-ripening pear trees, of the grapefruit and lime trees in the back yard of my grandparents’ Florida home, of miles of sweet-scented orange groves in the sandy plains surrounding.
Maybe it was the grove-side stands that sold the sweetest orange juice I’d ever tasted, the road-side shacks with delicious, hot boiled peanuts, fruit, corn, honey – even a few miles from our Georgia home.
Or maybe it’s the simple honesty of farmers I encountered that instilled in me an eternal love, respect and gratitude for those who till their acres, plant and tend their crops, offer food for sale in humble ways, gift them to neighbors and friends.
In Ontario, years later, I had the opportunity to work at a few farmers markets, selling freshly-baked artisan breads, pies and muffins for the restaurant where I worked. I didn’t make much money doing it; I could have easily earned thrice what I earned while setting up and standing for hours on a large patch of grass or in a gravel driveway, repeating, tick-tick-tick, the seven or eight varieties of breads and pies to inquiring passers-by. But it was beautiful; I loved every minute.
I’d sell out regularly, our bread was that good. When I’d sold out, or nearly so, I’d walk the patch and visit the other sellers: farmers with tables laden with fruits and vegetables familiar and not-well-known. I was a child, standing at their tables, as childish as the small ones who’d come to my table, eyes wide and excited at our fruit pies and apple-cider muffins, at our bountiful breads. For me, it was the colors, the piles of leaves and rolling mounds of fruits, tomatoes, tomatillos, corn, squash, varietals of mushrooms – all things I could put together, cooked or raw, and create something to make my imagination and my palate explode with something new, delicious.
I was as shy as any other customer, perhaps more so, since I was a neighbor and understood the value of their precious time, when I knew I’d pay less because I was a neighboring vendor in this community, and that is what is done. But I wanted nothing more than to stand, as any regular customer, admiring their bounties, loving them for the time they’d spent caring for these plants, for nurturing their soil despite the difficulties, despite the minimal pay.
I wanted to buy everything they had and knew I had neither funds to do so nor mouths enough to feed. So my mind would race as I stood spellbound, letting others pass before me as I let my palate choose for me, salivating over the ground cherries this week, the tomatillos and onions and garlic in a dream of fresh green salsa the next.
Only a few truly understood my great love and respect, I think: the apple farmer who always looked a touch grumpy, who sold his apples for $5 a pint and always had so many left, whose fresh, thick apple cider he sold for $6 a gallon and was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted – all the sweet, honeyed goodness of a freshly-picked apple pouring endlessly into my mouth, with none of the time lost on chewing. I bought apples and cider from him every week; I’d look him in the eyes and tell him “Thank you” and he’d look on to me curiously from beneath his disappointed shroud and thank me back.
And Russ, Mr. Happy-Farmer himself, founder and owner of Hamilton’s Backyard Harvest, who befriended me on one slow afternoon filled with the vigorous-but-friendly banter of my libertarian views while I challenged the German cheesemonger’s more liberal ones; Russ of the always-naturally-grown vegetables, of squash and melons and tomatoes you’d never before seen that tasted as good as the prices you’d pay – which were not too much, but were never “cheap.” I always felt I was getting a steal, walking home in the early Thursday evenings, laden with $50-worth of vegetables and fruits in re-usable bags from Russ and the other two or three farmers, most of which was organic.
Russ would teach me about growing while he could, between pleased customers whose names he always knew, whose hugs he’d always earned. Russ is an entrepreneur and a musician, complex and freshly antique in his reserved openness, in his beatnick-hippie ways and bright, observant eyes – as complex as the flavors of some of the fruits and vegetables he grows in the city’s neighborhood backyards, working the soil for people who want vegetable gardens and have no time to tend them, earning his keep from the harvest he sells as his only payment for tending them. Novel, beautiful, I thought.
There is a stillness in the minds of farmers, a grasp of things that no one seems to see. These are the plant whisperers, who urge a seed to grow, to take itself upon green wings and fly into the sky though rooted to the ground, to bloom in fragrant flowers and carry heavy loads of plump fruit upon thin stalks and vines. These are the ones who know the sun and the wind, the clouds and the rain; who know the many bugs in the ground and the animals around; who feed all of humanity with more than sustenance. These are the friends of chefs, of cooks, of mothers and children; these are the founders of society and beginning of art and beauty. These are the original creators – these farmers who take neither too much nor too little upon themselves to deliver up to us their bounties, but work from dusk til dawn, from the beginnings of civilization through to today.
It is no wonder they worship, so many of them; that they give thanks to whatever spirit blesses their fields, for their gratitude and humble care is translated in every stalk of heirloom wheat, in every fat and multicolored tomato that tastes as good by itself as the most exquisite dish, is evinced in the makings of masterpieces.
They worship the sun and the rain, the soil and the seed; are grateful to spirit and land.
And I feel the same, once removed: my gratitude, my heart is with them.
Oceans of Mine 