Atina Diffley's Blog: What Is A Farm? A Synthesis of the Land, People, and Business., page 5
March 20, 2012
First Spring Flush Of Weeds
We go through the motions, planting like we expect a good soaker, but it is too dry even for weeds to germinate. The first corn sets tassels on two-feet-tall stalks. We keep plants alive with water from a tank, but only the watermelons and tomatoes grow—nothing else thrives. Irrigation is a meager substitute for the real thing. I offer deals to the rain gods: “Just give us enough to sprout weeds and I’ll never complain again about hoeing.” But nothing changes.
Life returns! Last night rain and lightning. Today the first flush of weeds. Good-bye winter, hello spring.
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The morning comes in cleared out and screaming fresh. In the melons I find thick green vines covered with a third set of tight blossoms—a testimony to the importance of crop diversity. Before the day is over, it rains again. A few days later every field has a flush of weeds. Spring flowers in the desert, glorious sight—weeds. The world is green again—just like that. The magic of a good shower sprinkles life through its drops. It is too late to save the rest of the crops. But at least it can rain.
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First, the mighty soil builders, with long taproots digging deep and bringing minerals up from the subsoil, the annual weeds with their short and simple life cycles busting the clods and plow pan. Then the perennial grasses, the soil coverers, the verdant guardians and protectors. The soil would grow a complex system of multiple species. There would be no straight rows or naked soil. But we humans interrupt this natural process—we want to control what is grown here. We name the crop. Choose the cultivar. Add the fertility.
Farm soil is a wild animal held in captivity. Living in the soil are more undomesticated species than can be found aboveground on the entire planet. This soil life has simple needs: food, air, water, and shelter. Just like every other species. Prevented from caring for itself, it lies at our mercy, dependent on our long-term vision and integrity. Its future capacity is determined by our judgment. Anytime we open up the land—when we remove its protective cover of grass and forb, brush and tree, when we lay the soil bare, exposed to the elements— we embezzle its ability to command its own wellness.
Opening land is a covenant.
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That’s close to never. I gotta spray today. These weeds are getting away on me.”
“It’s illegal to drift.” Minnesota has a strict liability legal standard for enforcement of cases involving pesticide drift: if drift occurs, the applicator is responsible, and no showing of negligence, carelessness, or intent is required to bring an enforcement action against the applicator.
“Oh ya. Well it’s illegal to piss behind a bar.
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© Atina Diffley 2012
March 13, 2012
Stepping Into The Perspective Of Another
During a recent interview, I was asked why I choose to write Turn Here Sweet Corn as a personal story. I explained that I wanted the reader to feel the characters’ experience. The intellect is involved with understanding the issues, but the heart needs to be engaged for behavior to change.
The interviewer then commented on my referral to myself as “the character.” I told her that during the writing process I would objectively separate myself from the character “Atina.” I would collect information about her and all the major characters in the book, what they cared about, what their favorite color was, what made them happy, and much more. I grew to know them intimately.
Most importantly I would ask what each of the characters wanted and needed.
It’s helpful not only for memoir writers to step without bias into the perspective of another, but also for farmers.
Meeting a Buyer’s Needs
As farmers, many of our management and marketing decisions were based on meeting the buyer’s needs; from cultivar selection and planting schedule, right down to pack-out and delivery time. Our goal was a satisfied buyer and a non-fungible relationship. We accomplished it by providing a steady stream of highest quality produce, from as early in the season as possible, and going non-stop until as late as possible.
Yes, we brought our needs to the table as well, everyone’s needs are important for a relationship to be healthy.
In The Field
Objectively stepping into the perspective of another can be applied to the growing process as well—think like the plant. What is it like to be a plant in the ground, or a seed? What does it feel like to push roots through compacted dirt, how about loose well-aggregated soil? Does the plant care if a field is roto-tilled versus prepped with a field digger? What’s for dinner down there? A nutritious whole food meal, or high calorie fast food?
We want healthy, high-yielding plants. By seeing to the plant’s needs we maximize it’s ability to meet ours.
We can practice the same thinking for pest control. What does a beneficial insect need to colonize a field? Food or pollen or nectar; what about nesting and water?
We want to also think like the pest insect, but with the opposite goal. In this case we strive to understand the pests’ wants and needs so that we can “stress the pest.”
Planting crops that host the same pest in the same area, year after year, meets the pests’ want for easy access to food. Rotating crops stresses the pest making it more difficult for it to find and colonize the crop.
There are many effective ways that understanding pest insects’ wants and needs can be applied. We know potato beetles will wake up voraciously hungry and need to eat before laying eggs. We met this need by providing “eggplant trap crops.” The beetles flocked to eat them, and could be quickly captured—before they laid their eggs—meeting our needs.
One female potato beetle can lay 500 eggs. Multiply 500, times two generations in one growing season—assuming half are female—if each female laid 500 eggs that could result in 125,500 potential beetles from one. In real field conditions, some eggs may be eaten by insect predators or could be affected by other factors such as weather. It’s easy to see how effective capturing a few beetles early in the growing season can be.
Relationships
Remember your partners too. Imagine if you woke up every morning and said to each other, “What do you need or want from me today!”
I’ve found that just being asked often meets my human need to be heard and cared for, and then, I don’t need anything more.
© Atina Diffley 2012
February 9, 2012
“I Wish” No More–Study For Skill Development
Before I could read, I was a “writer.” Flashlight, paper, and pencil in hand, I’d drag my favorite blanket into my bedroom closet and hide away, covering countless pages with fantastic swirls and lines. I had no doubt—I was a writer.
Learning to read Dick and Jane posed no threat. Even Nancy Drew I perceived as achievable. It wasn’t until high school and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, that I succumbed to self-inflicted intimation. Seemingly over night, I decided I could never be a writer, because I couldn’t write as good as John Steinbeck. Thus I was inflicted with the toxic virus of “I Wish.”
Sigh, “I could never be like that.”
True. As long as I engaged in magical thinking—wishing—my dreams wouldn’t come true.
What I failed to realize in high school is that Steinbeck most likely wasn’t born just writing. He likely spent hours at the craft of it and wrote numerous drafts and rewrites. He probably suffered “bad” days and “writer’s block” at times. From a history of Steinbeck I find, He traveled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write. When he failed to have his work published, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker at the fish hatchery in Tahoe City.
In my own life it took decades of time and the best public speaker I’ve ever heard, Michael Brandwein, to turn “I Wish” into “What Are They Doing, How, and Why?” This is a question that once learned I ask to this day.
“What Are They Doing, How, and Why?”
1) Write a list of people with skills you admire, whom you “Wish” you could be like.
2) Study them. What, how, and why are they doing that which is causing your “I Wish?” Be as specific as possible.
Simple. All I need is a notebook and a pen and a person I admire. Once I figure out what they are doing I have the knowledge and can practice the skills myself. It’s not magic; there are specific steps by which we get from A to B to C.
Be specific and write it down. These skills are not inherent. Identity the traits you want to develop. Mr. Brandwein told us, “I see no more than you but I have trained myself to notice what I see.”
When I learned this it profoundly changed my life. All of a sudden I had a powerful daily system to become what I wanted to be. At first I was busy making up for lost time. I’d be with someone and out of seemingly nowhere would come that awful sinking stomach feeling of If only I could and, . . . I wish.
The first person I “wish mapped” is subscribed to this blog: Audrey. I was fascinated by her skill as a facilitator. I wished I could be the same. Out came the pen and notebook, what was she doing, how, and why? – She includes everyone, makes it safe for everyone to say their thoughts, praises people for speaking up, values the opinions of others, doesn’t try to control people’s thoughts or speech, keeps her ego out of it, allows others to shine, keeps the focus on the greater good, gives others credit, stays flexible . . . I filled pages. Once I had this knowledge I could start to practice the skill myself.
I don’t get that sinking feeling anymore. Now instead my mind says, “Hmm, how are they doing that.” If you ever catch me watching you with a reflective look on my face, I’m probably studying a skill you have that I admire.
Mr. Steinbeck would be pleased to know . . . my first published book will be released in a few weeks by the University of Minnesota Press. It’s a powerful page-turner, not just fantastic swirls and lines etched in a closet . . . and only because I stopped wishing and started asking.
© Atina Diffley 2012
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January 27, 2012
Taking Care Of The “Me” In “We.”
I am preparing an all day workshop for Land Stewardship Project called Quality of Life Workshop: Systems and Communication Tools for a Healthy Farm Partnership.
This workshop was inspired by common themes that have challenged many of my clients as well as my own experiences running Gardens of Eagan with my husband Martin. The bottom line—farming is a demanding lifestyle; good communication skills, farm systems, and personal care are crucial to balancing family, farm, relationships, and self.
The class outline begins with 1) Having The Same Vision: For a partnership to be successful, all parties involved must agree on the same goal and direction—set a clear agreed on course for the farm that meets and allows for the needs of both partners.
Holistic goal setting is a crucial strategy for farmers and I strongly encourage you to explore it further at Whole Farm Planning with Holistic Management. We will in the class. The focus of this post is the last part of this vision—meets and allows for the needs of both partners.
So often I see one or both farm partners struggling with unmet personal needs. They give the farm and family their all and have nothing left to sustain themselves. When I present farming workshops it doesn’t matter what the topic is, fertility, pest control, weeds, or marketing—the organic system always includes rotation. Rotation includes diversity, time for renewal, and breaking of patterns. It is a crucial element of every Organic System Plan and healthy relationships are no different.
We know that over-cropped soil becomes starved. We need a little rest time, green manure, a little soil building, and some organic matter to hold the soil together. Without it our soils become powdery, droughty, erosion prone and weak. Even the best soil cannot be pushed indefinitely without times for renewal. Add a drought, flood, or hailstorm, and the system can be in severe distress. There are no short cuts. We must let the soil rest. We plant and incorporate the green manures. We don’t sell the fertility off. There is no other way.
Balancing our personal needs is the same. It is common to have periods of intense productivity, hard work, giving and care-taking—especially for farmers dealing with the vagaries of crops, weather and markets. That’s fine—but we must plan in the rotation of “organic matter of the soul” and schedule time for renewal and rejuvenation. If we don’t, we become droughty and weak—a system in dysfunction. This is true for everyone—not just farmers. Without time for renewal, resiliency is lost and life’s challenges become insurmountable barriers.
There is also something else, much deeper, that I am starting to understand about balance. I grew up with the knowledge that a farmer’s time is dictated by the seasons and the weather, by the needs of the soil, the crops, and customers. But I didn’t understand the role of years and decades in evaluating balance. We can’t just appraise from the perspective of exhaustion at the end of a growing season. Martin said it well, “We were able to do work based on our beliefs.”
When we are looking backwards at our lives, living our values will be our brightest star. Balance doesn’t mean that we will never work too hard or be too tired. We’re doing exactly what we need to be doing. It’s fine if we choose to work until we’re exhausted as long as recovery is possible in the relative present.
That’s what present time is, the balancing point between the past and the future. It is when we steal from our future or burn up the past that balance is out of control. That future and past include our health and the wellbeing of our crew and children and land and nature.
Balance requires not taking more than can be returned or recovered. It is about loss and renewal, both human and environmental. Our crops take from the soil, causing degeneration. A renewable fertility system returns, regenerates.
Nature is inherently capable of renewal. Balance is the prevention of the tipping point when too much has been taken and health cannot be readily restored. Environmental balance includes preservation, protection, and precautionary principles. Personal balance is the same. We are not outside of the ecosystem. We are part of it. Balance is all about relationship, which is all about respect.
– Excerpt from Turn Here Sweet Corn © 2012 Atina Diffley
Here is a chart I use to illustrate timing options for growing soil-building crops between vegetable cash crops.
If you drew your personal “soul-building” rotation chart, what would it look like?
What do you need and when will you schedule it?
Mine includes meaningful work balanced with vigorous exercise, healthy food, writing, and social interaction balanced with alone time and playing with the grandkids. It has changed over the years. Playing music used to serve my need for creation and spiritual search; now writing is the avenue that meets this need for personal growth and expression. I need more alone time than when I was younger. In my 20s and 30s I could farm hard for months on end with little personal time during the growing season; winter rejuvenation was sufficient. Now in my 50s I need to “soul-build” more consistently. My resilience and renewal is still strong but I need more frequent recovery periods.
It would be an unreasonable expectation to think we can ignore our personal needs forever without paying a high price—same as our soil. This is a key element of a healthy relationship. “We” is a combination of “me” plus “me.” If one of the “me’s” is not healthy . . . it affects the “we.”
To sign up for Systems and Communication Tools for a Healthy Farm Partnership taught at Eastside Food Co-op, Mpls, MN. on Feb. 4, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m Contact: Parker Forsell, LSP, 507-523-3366; parker@landstewardshipproject.org
To arrange for the class to be taught in your community, email me.
I’d love to see what your ”soul-building” rotation looks like! Happy drawing!
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Coming soon in a future post . . . more of the class outline.
2. Defining roles, responsibilities, and decision making
3. Weekly and monthly work plans
4. Good communication skills are a key component of creating a healthy partnership
Listening to understand
Using “I” statements and advanced – “I sandwiches”
Using Healthy Anger© Atina Diffley 2012Subscribe to Atina Diffley’s Blog
What Is A Farm? A Synthesis of the Land, People, and Business.
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