About the Farm: Next Generations
Chapter 17: The Next Generations
This is the last chapter I’ll post before a hiatus while I’m out of the country. Thanks for reading! As always, if you just got here, please start at the beginning for the best results: Chapter One
Chapter 17: The Next Generations
As the weeks go by, the drought rolls on. Our entire area is now considered to be in “extreme drought.” Peoples’ wells and springs are starting to dry up, and sometimes when Walker arrives at the community water spigot to fill up, there is a line and a long wait.
Still, the crops, lovingly tended and watered with the trucked in water, are growing beautifully. The markets and the Farmacy program are bringing in a few hundred dollars a week. If one were to calculate earnings vs expenses, Walker and Lily have spent much more on seeds, supplies and equipment than they have earned from selling vegetables. But they understand that a farm is not expected to make a profit in its first year. They are living on their earnings from their winter bartending and ski lesson teaching, and they are supplementing their summer income by guiding rafting trips with an outfitter on the nearby river. Their rent is paid with bags of delicious vegetables for me to cook and preserve.
July is when the grand kids come visit us. One flies in by herself (Addie, age 12) and the other, from just a few states away, gets driven to us by his mom (Logan, age 11).
They love being at our house, especially since there are two girls close to their age who live up the hill from us, and they’ve been meeting to play each summer since they were 3 and 4 years old. It’s definitely city kids meet country kids, and they have a blast together. The icing on the cake is that the girls’ grandmother, also up the hill, runs a petting zoo. There are miniature horses, sheep, goats, emus to feed, a turkey wandering free who loves to be pet, ducks, a pot belly pig, about eight dogs, a bearded dragon who will sit on your shoulder, and peacocks who regularly escape and come to our yard.
Even with the friends and the menagerie, Logan and Addie are still excited to see the farm for the first time. We pack up our bathing suits, some nice big hunks of (store bought) salmon and overgrown zucchini from my garden for the grill, and make the drive to the farm. Lily and Walker have made flat bread and dips, and we start with introductions and hors d’oevres.
The kids are both allergic to cats, but they still have to play with Bee, who enjoys every bit of attention he can get. Then we high tail it to the swimming hole to rinse off the cat hair.
The creek itself has dried up to almost nothing, but the magic swimming hole, in true magic fashion, is still five feet deep. And it is breathtakingly cold. With no creek water mixing in, this is all spring water from deep underground, and there is much screaming as the swimmers jump in. Jim manages a short swim, then he sits on the shore to warm up and watch the kids horse around. I tell them how this place will be theirs to swim in forever.
When we get back to the camper and picnic table, the salmon and zucchini are on the grill, there is more fresh flat bread, and a big bowl of cucumber salad with cucumbers and dill harvested from the field next to us. As Walker, Lily, Addie and Logan get to know each other, the conversation becomes even more flowing and jolly.
As I look around the table at these young people, two whom I’ve loved since the moment they were born, and two whom I have grown to love in the past year, I am so grateful they have been able to make this connection. If Walker and Lily decide to stay on the farm, and even buy some acreage from me, the wooded acres surrounding them will someday pass to Logan and Addie. They will grow up and hopefully bring their own children here to swim in the magic swimming hole and enjoy this place. These relationships, begun on a sunny day in July, will last until well after Jim and I are gone.
And the land will continue its adventure with new caretakers and new swimmers.
Bye y’all! See you in November after my trip to Italy. Arrivederci :)—Eli
Update: It’s November! Here’s Chapter 18
Help support the farm!
About the Farm is helping to fund a new Market Garden. All paid subscriptions and donations go toward the farm, to buy seeds, compost and other planting supplies and infrastructure. Also, paid subscribers get to spread the word about their own ventures in the Subscriber Spotlight, and will have a chance to ask questions of Lily and Walker in occasional Q &A’s.