Not Everyone Can Be a Farm Kid, But Every Kid Needs a Farm
On Monday morning, Katherine and I were picking arugula for
the CSA in the field that is right next to Beulah Road. We were inside the deer fence, and therefore
we felt sort of invisible – even though there are houses looming on all sides
and cars zooming past constantly. We
were focused on collecting up the arugula, sorting out the yellow leaves, not
cutting ourselves with our sharp knives.
We saw a minivan pull up to the gate. Unusual.
A mom and two little boys got out of the car. Hmm. Where
were they headed? They eventually made
their way over to us – they were CSA customers on a field trip, coming to see
the farm before the season ended. They
were very respectful, they didn’t step on the beds, and they watched us pick
for a few minutes. After the excitement
of watching someone pick leaves wore off, they went to visit the pigs and the
chickens.
This got me thinking about another one of our missions on
this farm. Of course we have many
missions – from the mundane (growing vegetables) to the sublime (changing the
world through our efforts). But since
the very beginning of time, this farm has been about kids. Teaching kids, feeding kids, having kids,
raising kids, making memories with kids.
If you expand the definition of kids to include people who don’t yet
know what they will be when they grow up, then the population includes the
people who work here.
Every Sunday, a parade of families visits the CSA room. Some of the young ones have been coming since
they were in utero. I remember watching their moms’ bellies expand each week,
and then they began to arrive asleep in car seats, and then they approached
with the very slow walk of the newly upright, and then they come in running, crashing
through the plastic strips.
I love listening to the kids as they are helping to choose
the week’s vegetables. They are just
like any customer – they go for color and beauty. They tell their parents that they WILL eat
it. There are cabbage lovers and carrot
mongers, and kale chip aficionados. They
are such sophisticated foodies, even at age four.
These parents are consciously bringing the kids to the
farm. It is part of their
education. Sometimes unexpected
opportunities come up – like the day that I wanted to till up the beans in the
stand garden but there were still too many nice beans still there. I decided the CSA customers should get the
beans out of the patch, so that Sunday afternoon they did. Since they didn’t know they would be in the
field, most people were not dressed for the occasion, but CSA customers are
adventurous by nature – they got a
little dirty.
We have had school groups visiting the farm for the last 45
years. Occasionally the mothers of the
preschoolers tell us that they remember when they came for a hayride as a toddler. I guess
pretty soon someone will introduce herself as a grandmother who came on a tour
of this little postage stamp of a farm.
It will happen.
And now we have a few CSA customers who can walk to the farm
from home, without going on any big roads.
There is a family that pulls a little red wagon all the way to the CSA
room, and after they gather up their flowers and vegetables they go to visit
the pigs. In the heat of the summer,
they often had to have a drink from the hose (such a novelty) before making the
long walk back.
One of our biggest missions is just to be here, really. In order for all these children to stomp
through puddles and taste celery straight from the field, we have to be
here. We could have moved our entire
farm operation to Loudoun years ago, or somewhere even further away, but when
you really think about it, it was the kids who kept us in Fairfax County.
We are making a point that no one else has decided to make
in this area. Food is part of everyone’s
life, and the more that you know about your food, the better you will be as a
consumer. Kids who see a carrot coming
out of the ground will never forget it. Petting a chicken is a memorable
experience. Farms are not a thing of the
past. Food comes from farms, and kids
need to know how that works.
Changing the world is a long, slow job. We take it seriously, as we talk to small
people wearing rubber boots decorated with ladybugs and fireflies.
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