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Morning light on cover-cropped fields at Riverhill Farm.
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My wife Jo and I had the great pleasure of going away for a short vacation at the end of the farm season in late October. I worked for a week up until mid-morning of the day we left, broadcasting by hand the cover crop seed of rye and vetch and harrowing it in by pulling a heavy chain across the surface of the soil.
When you’re covering every square foot of 5 acres, it’s a labor-intensive method to be sure, but it’s well worth it. After all the pressure of getting things done, starting in March and continuing unabated through the end of September, it’s an almost indescribable pleasure for me to slowly walk across these growing fields tossing out seed to the rhythm of my step, returning to an age-old method of doing things.
It’s a quiet method, too. I take a handful of seed from a bucket I carry under my left arm, toss it out ahead of me in an arc that falls about twelve feet wide, grab another handful and so on, timing each toss to every other step forward. No tractor noise, no diesel exhaust, and I can do it alone. I listen to the birds sing, hear the seed fall, observe the quality of the soil after a season’s service, and relish the satisfaction that comes at the end of another successful year.
When you’re covering every square foot of 5 acres, it’s a labor-intensive method to be sure, but it’s well worth it. After all the pressure of getting things done, starting in March and continuing unabated through the end of September, it’s an almost indescribable pleasure for me to slowly walk across these growing fields tossing out seed to the rhythm of my step, returning to an age-old method of doing things.
It’s a quiet method, too. I take a handful of seed from a bucket I carry under my left arm, toss it out ahead of me in an arc that falls about twelve feet wide, grab another handful and so on, timing each toss to every other step forward. No tractor noise, no diesel exhaust, and I can do it alone. I listen to the birds sing, hear the seed fall, observe the quality of the soil after a season’s service, and relish the satisfaction that comes at the end of another successful year.
Once the seeding is done, it’s up to the rains to do the rest, and this year the timing was perfect. Four inches of rain fell while we were gone, a bit more than one might like all at once, but it did the job. By the time we came back the first blades of grain were showing. Now, the transformation is nearly complete. Instead of a farm, it’s beginning to look more like a low-budget golf course. Where fruits and vegetables grew, lush green rye grows from top to bottom.
As much as we love this place, going away for a vacation wasn’t that hard, and it was easy to choose a place to go. After working as hard as we did all summer, you probably picture us lying on a beach in Mexico, or in Chile or Italy or some such exotic spot. But what we did was to return to the high country of the Eastern Sierras. Even though we walk several miles a day crossing these growing fields, it was all the more a simple pleasure to wander the high alpine meadows where it’s not likely that one would start to fantasize about having a farm. After less than a day’s drive, we really were away. Time to wander, time to read, time to think. Every soul needs that once in awhile.
While wandering the sagebrush and pinon pine hills high above Mono Lake, we came across a Native American grinding rock used to process the pinon nuts. It was a substantial stone with circles of large and small indentations where the grinding was done. In spite of my vow to avoid thinking about farming for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t avoid considering its opposite: hunting and gathering.
If you spend time in the Eastern Sierras, you quickly lose the impression that it is barren and inhospitable desert. There is abundant water, and where there’s water, there’s food. After all our labor of the summer, there was a deeply romantic appeal to the notion of meeting our physical needs without tilling the soil.
As much as we love this place, going away for a vacation wasn’t that hard, and it was easy to choose a place to go. After working as hard as we did all summer, you probably picture us lying on a beach in Mexico, or in Chile or Italy or some such exotic spot. But what we did was to return to the high country of the Eastern Sierras. Even though we walk several miles a day crossing these growing fields, it was all the more a simple pleasure to wander the high alpine meadows where it’s not likely that one would start to fantasize about having a farm. After less than a day’s drive, we really were away. Time to wander, time to read, time to think. Every soul needs that once in awhile.
While wandering the sagebrush and pinon pine hills high above Mono Lake, we came across a Native American grinding rock used to process the pinon nuts. It was a substantial stone with circles of large and small indentations where the grinding was done. In spite of my vow to avoid thinking about farming for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t avoid considering its opposite: hunting and gathering.
If you spend time in the Eastern Sierras, you quickly lose the impression that it is barren and inhospitable desert. There is abundant water, and where there’s water, there’s food. After all our labor of the summer, there was a deeply romantic appeal to the notion of meeting our physical needs without tilling the soil.
It’s been less than a couple of hundred years since Native Americans flourished as hunter gatherers along the eastern side of the Sierras. It’s remarkable that a culture that subsisted well for thousands of years left so little behind. Obsidian flakes from point- and tool-making, occasional arrow points, a grinding rock. But they knew their landscape and had made peace with what it had to offer. They were truly home in their place.
These days, there’s much talk of doing things sustainably, and well there should be. It’s unlikely we’ll be doing much of anything if we don’t change quite a few things about the way we meet our needs, including how we grow our food. But, to make the point clear, farming sustainably is not just about farming organically. We may achieve major advances toward farming sustainably by reducing or eliminating our use of petroleum products, by not spraying toxic chemicals. But that’s just the beginning.
It may take us several generations of farmers farming here in Nevada County — not just farming, but farming with the conscious intent to observe and pass on those observations — to arrive at a truly sustainable practice that is well adapted to this place.
While we may all easily agree on a basic definition of sustainable farming, that is, that the same set of practices could be repeated year after year without any decline in productivity, it’s obvious that meeting that definition in, say, Brazil, in Kansas, in China, or even in Fresno, is going to be different in practice in a particular place — like Nevada City, for instance.
These days, there’s much talk of doing things sustainably, and well there should be. It’s unlikely we’ll be doing much of anything if we don’t change quite a few things about the way we meet our needs, including how we grow our food. But, to make the point clear, farming sustainably is not just about farming organically. We may achieve major advances toward farming sustainably by reducing or eliminating our use of petroleum products, by not spraying toxic chemicals. But that’s just the beginning.
It may take us several generations of farmers farming here in Nevada County — not just farming, but farming with the conscious intent to observe and pass on those observations — to arrive at a truly sustainable practice that is well adapted to this place.
While we may all easily agree on a basic definition of sustainable farming, that is, that the same set of practices could be repeated year after year without any decline in productivity, it’s obvious that meeting that definition in, say, Brazil, in Kansas, in China, or even in Fresno, is going to be different in practice in a particular place — like Nevada City, for instance.
In the current economic crisis and with rising fuel costs, there’s much talk of staying home, using less fuel for travel. It has even hit the mainstream popular media, and is called a “staycation.” What we may need to consider, though, while we are staying home, is how we might come home. How do we live appropriately in this landscape, meeting our needs in a unique, local way? Local poet Gary Snyder said it clearly many years ago: “The most radical thing you can do is stay home.”
To be sure, he wasn’t talking about not going out on Friday night. He meant coming home to a life of modest dignity, with a sense of balance and proportion which bears a fundamental and profound resemblance to home as a place we know: pine-covered slopes, oak savannah, river canyons, seasonal creeks.
As a farmer, it’s a wonderful thing to observe and to benefit from the current interest in local food. Shifting away from factory farms and away from transporting food an average distance of 1,200 miles from producer to consumer are important steps in the right direction towards a sustainable future. As farmers we do what we can to encourage the interest by growing and providing the highest quality, freshest food for our home town.
To be sure, he wasn’t talking about not going out on Friday night. He meant coming home to a life of modest dignity, with a sense of balance and proportion which bears a fundamental and profound resemblance to home as a place we know: pine-covered slopes, oak savannah, river canyons, seasonal creeks.
As a farmer, it’s a wonderful thing to observe and to benefit from the current interest in local food. Shifting away from factory farms and away from transporting food an average distance of 1,200 miles from producer to consumer are important steps in the right direction towards a sustainable future. As farmers we do what we can to encourage the interest by growing and providing the highest quality, freshest food for our home town.
It’s fair to say, though, that the benefit is not all one-sided in the direction of the farmer. Along with farming this land comes a familiarity with the place we all call home. Familiarity is the reward that follows from observation over years of practice.
And, it’s a reward that accrues not just to the farmer, but to the community as well. As long as we have local farmers intent on growing good food in ways that allow the next generation and the next after that to farm the same soil, we’ll find ourselves learning more about what works here, what makes sense here. And it’s in the doing what makes sense here that we truly come home.
Alan Haight farms with his wife, Jo McProud, at Riverhill Farm near Nevada City. For more information about Riverhill Farm, go to riverhillfarm.com. For more information about Nevada County agriculture, go to localfoodcoalition.org.
And, it’s a reward that accrues not just to the farmer, but to the community as well. As long as we have local farmers intent on growing good food in ways that allow the next generation and the next after that to farm the same soil, we’ll find ourselves learning more about what works here, what makes sense here. And it’s in the doing what makes sense here that we truly come home.
Alan Haight farms with his wife, Jo McProud, at Riverhill Farm near Nevada City. For more information about Riverhill Farm, go to riverhillfarm.com. For more information about Nevada County agriculture, go to localfoodcoalition.org.
