I can't talk about my life today. I have to talk about some one else's life: Farmer John's.
Have you seen this movie: The Real Dirt on Farmer John? It's wonderful. I've read so many books that examine the lives of American farmers. No question it's so hard it's a wonder any one does it. What's lovely about this movie is it takes this one real farmer, talks about how his family starting farming the land, and all the ups and downs he himself weathered when he took over the farm in his own right. Not surprisingly he tried to quit farming after going into to debt and having to auction off most of his land, livestock, tractors -- just about everything but the kitchen sink. It frankly examines the turmoil and depression he went through at his loss, as well as over the malicious rumors spread about him in his rural Illinois farming community simply because he was more creative than your average farmer and hung out with artists and hippies for a time. At its core is his relationship with his mom -- an inspiring woman, to say the least -- the one person who stood behind and had faith in him. I don't want to be a spoiler, but I will say it ends on a high note. And if you ever are thinking about dropping out of your CSA program, watch this movie before you do. It will make you a believer.
As for my personal life, I spent most of the weekend sucking gallons of water molecule-by-molecule out of our basement carpeting using one of those wet-vacs. The water had seeped into the basement via some unknown crack or crevice after Portland got drenched with 3 inches of rain on New Year's Day. Perhaps I merit the EcoFreak label if this is the only way to get me to shampoo the danged carpet (Surely this is taking gray-water reuse way too far...) While this rated fairly high on the "this sucks" scale, this too shall pass. And there were some good things that came out of it, which I'll post about later. But put into perspective, it ain't nothing in comparison to how hard Farmer John works even on a good day.
Great movie! Check it out. More about the good parts of having our basement get flooded later this week. Stay tuned!
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