An Update: Upstate NY

Hello all,

A very few of you know that I have moved temporarily to Tivoli, NY, where I am apprenticing as a farmer at a small organic farm called Heermance. I've been here for just over a week now, and I thought I'd say a little about it. Work has been one of the very few experiences that have gone swimmingly so far. Here is a little about it. The first day was a mild introduction, and then the intensity kicked up. Though I think "the intensity" may just be what I'm coding as repetitive squatting and bending, to which I'm adjusting. Some daily tasks consist of watering the greenhouse, collecting and cleaning chicken eggs (being pecked in the process, so I got some simple gloves for that task), laying irrigation hoses, direct-planting an array of vegetables, transplanting vegetables—which means taking trays of plants from the greenhouse and putting them in the fields one by one by hand—hoeing the ground before transplanting to break up the top soil and remove the weeds, and much more that I may mention later. Thankfully, even though we've harvested so little at this point and are early in the season, I have had plenty of fresh eggs and pretty good onions from the farm to eat. Omelets find their way into my diet daily right now. The work is often a pleasure in nice weather and still pretty enjoyable when it rains. I work with two other people, the farm manager and assistant manager. It's an intimate working environment, and discussions can become deep and meaningful quickly.

I made it through Friday before I experienced any back pain or blistered hands, and hammering poles in the ground brought that on. The process is the following: pick up an eight-ish foot long metal pole, stick it in the top soil—which is poor, heavy soil here—take the solid end of the tube hammer and nudge it into the soil enough to reach the top of the pole, slide the tube over the pole, grab a handle on each side of the hammer, and being lifting and slamming it onto the pole. It's metal on metal for thirty-five to forty hits depending on the force applied, which weakens over the hours of work. I put forty in the ground in about three grueling hours. I walked away with seven oozing blister and an aching back, which caught more agitation after lunch transplanting beats. As I went to pick off the dirt from my hand after the task, I found it difficult to decipher between blistered skin and dirt until I felt the pain of a snag. The blisters later drained and made dirt into mud spots along the creases of my palms and fingers.

I stayed in a remotely located cabin for a mere four nights before moving into a room. The cabin was around 14x12 inside, featured a covered porch, a cot, on which I laid a sleeping pad and sleeping bag, a cabinet, some corner shelves, a table and two chairs—one for a visitor if they had rain boots high enough to get them to the cabin dry and comfortable—and a 6x6 room for storage The solitude at the cabin was a pleasure, but hauling water through a wetland was not. Of course, I had no electricity or running water, the latter being the only real pain. I had a camp shower, but the temperatures stayed in the 50s and 40s in the morning and at night and proved too cold for a shower. After sleeping all the way through the first night—catching up from an 1100-mile drive—I was awake a lot of the second due to scurrying mice. I expected to wake up in the mornings to streams of sunlight to enjoy brushing my teeth, cleaning my face, and cook in (on a propane camp stove), among other parts of my morning routine, but the windows were positioned in a way that the eastern sun was blocked, not to mention the cabin sits in a dense part of the woods where it is shaded most of the day. Moreover, the light inside was low even when the sun peaked. Regular tasks took almost twice as long, and getting my dishes washed before time for work was an achievement in itself. As far as that goes, I didn't have as much time to sit and read and write as I expected, given how long it took to complete daily routines. I also want to note that just in the knick of time when I was wearing down I received a care package from a friend in the mail, and don't ever forget that all of you mean more to your friends than you may think. That gesture was an immediate pick-me-up. Moving on, so after I would boil water for coffee and oatmeal, clean my dishes with camp shower water, and gather my things by a lantern I would set off on a fifteen minute walk through a swampy trail to the farm where I worked a full day, returned to the cabin, and took the evening to eat again. After a couple of nights I realized that I had a big temptation to just eat out in the evenings, which is a major problem because every restaurant in this area doesn't offer a cheap page on their menus and eating out sort of defeats the ethic that comes with living in the woods Henry David Thoreau style (or maybe not since he went into town as well). One might say that is was more intense than his experience since his momma was around and mine isn't. After scavenging Craig's List for housing I realized that I couldn't afford anything in the area. So I told my co-workers my problem and they informed me of a room ten minutes away for a somewhat reasonable price at a flat rate. A little too over eager to leave the cabin for a hot shower, hot meals, and a bed, I took the room on the spot.

A passage from my journal while in the cabin: 5/18 10:17 a.m.

"I can hear the ricking of my alarm clock and birds outside, somewhat like you might at your grandmaw's house in the country, except there is an un-imitable silence here. I'm going to funnel water into my camp shower now before heading out of the wood and exploring town. Mental state—confident."

That mental state has waivered from disillusioned, excited, scared, anxious, back to confident, angry, and relatively calm. Right now I'm feeling it all at once in a cyclone.

That house is where I'm writing this. The place isn't exactly in pristine condition. It isn't charmingly old either. There is an invasion of stink bugs, many of which I have killed flying around my two exposed light bulbs in the middle of my white-walled barren room that I have not decorated on account of my hope to get out of here soon. I started cleaning immediately upon arrival. After my first shower I stepped out and felt unidentifiable filth sticking to my wet feet. There is a light switch in the bathroom and none in the others. Other than that there are only hanging whisks from the ceiling (the woman renting me the room is a chef) tied to light bulbs, so I have to wander around the rooms at night feeling for a hanging whisk. In order to cook without suffocating from the gas stove, I must open up the kitchen windows. It's because of faulty screens in the windows, I think, partly, that the bugs get in.

There are perks of the area. I can see the Catskill Mountains most places that I go, and there is a tiny skatepark nearby where I have already met some people. My hope is that meeting people and forming relationships will change my perspective of the area. This experience will benefit me in many ways, I believe. I just have to get through this period of adjustment and that I am more or less paying to work right now. There really is so much more that I'm leaving out. There are a couple of friends keeping me sane right now, and knowing that some benevolent friends in Brooklyn and my family aren’t so far away doesn't hurt either.