As a family farmer I have had the honor and challenge of getting my work done with children attached to my legs. I’ve gotten quite good at harvesting one handed with a child at my hip. Sometimes I wake Aurora (our four year old) and we go directly to the greenhouse or the fields for the day.
Aurora, more than her older sister Karma, was raised in the greenhouse eating organic potting soil, bugs, and leafy greens. As I am busy working and Aurora whines that she is hungry I just pick something edible, raw and unwashed for her to eat, right there in the field, with a drink out of the hose to finish it off.
Aurora sneaking cherry tomatoes for breakfast in her housecoat!
Aurora could now be the poster child for the raw foods movement. She does not like the smell of food frying like the rest of us and don’t bother cooking that carrot if you want her to eat it. She would prefer chomping on a head of raw cabbage to a plate of spaghetti any day of the week! She’s a tough little farm girl who is not bothered by being wet, cold, or sick and she is the first to volunteer to help with any job. At four years old I can already tell that she will be an independant, hard working, confident woman who is in touch with Mother Nature. No matter where life takes her. These are the character building traits of farm life.
Family farming is a great challenge that forces me to be patient, to slow down and enjoy the work I’m doing rather than rush through it in a blaze of glory. My children remind me with their insistance to stop and look around at this beautiful life that we live as they show me a new flower or bug they have found. (Aurora had a pet slug for a few days living in a morel mushroom.) They help me to accept that the work will never be done and that’s part of the beauty of farming. Even though it is hard work I know that I will look back on these days, working with my children beside me, as the best days of my life.
We flow with the seasons, together, creating and recreating our life together, living off the land!
Keewaydin Family
