Corn Chopping aka The Rat Race

The past few weeks my Nutritional Therapy class work has revolved around the themes of Sleep, Stress and Movement.  

It seems the world around me has too.

A few days after a nice day of work in my garden where my husband was kind enough to put up a fence for me while I worked to clear out some weeds from my garden, I noticed a rash on my arm appear.  A week later, arm swollen to the point of almost not being able to move my wrist, oozing through my long sleeve shirt & had spread to my stomach. I finally went to the urgent care center & got on a 21-day tiered prednisone treatment.  After learning of my ailment, in classic fashion, my dad sent me a link to https://biggeekdad.com/2015/07/how-to-prevent-poison-ivy/.  

Rather than being afraid of poison ivy, Dad’s message reminded me of the way we should come to deal with all things we fear: SIMPLY.  [In this case, forget all the fancy poison ivy cleaners, just give any areas that have come in contact with the plant’s oil a good scrub!]

 Fast forward a couple weeks, my Dad sends me an email, “The Rat Race begins Thursday.”

He’s referring to this hectic, beautiful, time of year where many dairy farmers find themselves racing against the clock to harvest the bounty of the season in between milking, equipment failures, and all their other day-to-day obligations… it’s called…

CORN CHOPPING [aka THE RAT RACE]

Being a part of a seasonal vegetable farming (and cooking) business for a few years now, I’ve learned that what some might call "CORN CHOPPING" is in fact what I might diagnose as fall seasonal affective disorder that bleeds into almost all other crop growing and farming operations.  For now is the time where the corn has never tasted as good, peppers never looked so vibrant, and heirloom tomatoes never so sweet.  As my grandmother put it the other day, “Love these days but not looking forward to what’s coming…”

This feeling has permeated my September days lately, in spite of having the privilege to ignore the prevailing fear-mongering news coverage of the Climate Strike in favor of painting a calendar I’m working to sell locally, stacking wood, roasting vegetables, freezing peppers, and cutting sunflowers to sell roadside on a no-till plot that we did on the front lawn for fun this spring.   My sister has accused me of having my head in the sand before, I've been known to go a couple weeks without listening to the news.  I’m trying not to be ignorant, but I usually learn what I need to from my co-workers and my lessons in the day-to-day which give me some space to reflect on the issues of our greater world.

A perfect example of this is our sunflower plot.  It started as a fun idea that my husband and I laughed about early this spring as an effort to minimize his lawn-mowing time, but has recently turned into a bit of a bone of contention between us. He insists that adding manure, tilling it up, and following up with a pre-emergent spray will be the best method for sunflower cultivation next year. 

Because I have been graced with the time and space to “do my own research” while he’s busy baling hay, processing milk, milking cows, feeding chickens, splitting wood, driving truck, working with his family, (and catching part of the most recent Patriot’s game before Sunday milking while also trying to keep up with his wife’s to do list)--- and because I have slowly been working to become “brainwashed” by books like Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown--- I’ve become convinced that there must be a way to plant a cover crop with the sunflowers to improve the soil health of our front lawn AND also making the need* to spray obsolete. 

[*in this case, there is no need to spray, as the sunflowers are simply a hobby anyway!]  Blame it all on my Nutritional Therapy studies, but it seems to me that this plot is a perfect test site to uncover some new methods that my husband’s family might be able to employ on a larger scale as they work with growing their assorted other crops, which they’ve really diversified lately (hip, hip hooray!)--- sorghum, rye, alfalfa, oats, wheat, corn (and others which I’m forgetting).

I don’t feel I can honestly argue whether Greta Thunberg’s trip across the ocean had a larger or smaller carbon impact than a plane.  I can’t say I felt emboldened to march as part of a climate strike. I can’t name all the effects of climate change, nor can I predict how it will affect my immediate world in the future. 

What I do know is this: the agricultural systems that I am a product of, and working part of, employ many outside inputs- chemicals and equipment- to control weeds and pests which give me the privilege to sit here and write this while I down my blueberry smoothie.

I know that I would love it if less outside inputs could be used with increased profits and nutritional density of the final food products.

I live directly next to a corn field that is sprayed annually. 

I have worked with and eaten conventionally grown fruits, vegetables and meat my entire life. 

There is mounting evidence that some of these conventionally grown foods have residue left in/on them after they are sprayed. 

There is also evidence that soil health is best when left intact, and planted in a diversity of crops, rather than tilled or sprayed.

The immediate questions I find myself asking are:

Who am I to tell the beloved, well-meaning, hardworking farmers of my world how to grow their food?

How can I expect my family and friends to change the way that they grow our food when it is feeding our community well right now?  

And, circling back to Dad’s old poison ivy tactics, the existential question I find myself asking is: 

What will be the least fear-inducing, most beneficial ways for us to grow food and move forward in supporting the well-being of our planet and the people on it? 

I hope we can move forward with a unified intention to help support one another in this process, rather than become more divided that we already are.  Here’s to starting by asking the hard questions!