Here's to real Autumn weather and real food!

I remember feeling cheated by fall as a kid. School was in full session, the city pools closed for the season, and paper pumpkins and autumn leaves adorned the open windows and doors of my classroom--doors and windows open because it was 93 degrees outside. It wasn't enough that the discord between the visual cues of decorative hay bales and swimming weather felt deceptive to my 8-year-old little brain, but that clothing stores also seemed to follow that same crazy logic. Gray wool trousers and button-down-shirts deemed as "in season clothing" didn't cut it in ice cream and watermelon weather, no matter what reality manufacturing and sales tried to apply.

In college, I had the same disappointing realization about food. Food, as I knew it at the time, was not what it seemed. To make a very long story short, an affair with A Tomato is what tipped me off. And who here hasn't experienced the disappointment of a supermarket tomato? Even worse, who here has but didn't know at the time to be disappointed? Always available, beautiful in the market with its shiny, taut skin and bright red color--what's not to love? Oh, the flavor. Does bland and grainy count as a flavor? But the store was selling the tomato. The signs said "delicious, vine-ripened tomatoes!" Nothing indicated that the tomato was bred to withstand shipping, rather than bred to taste delicious. Oh, but wait, it was suppose to be delicious. Delicious can be a relative term, but I think you have to draw the line at some point. Point being when the tomato doesn't taste like a tomato. And then there's the tomato's long drive across the country (California tomatoes in Missouri, in August!!). What was I paying for, really, and did any of it make sense?

That reality of not even knowing what we deserve from our food with regards to quality, source and safety is most disturbing to me. Our odds as informed and deserving consumers have improved over the past few years because of the recent surge of interest in the environment, obesity and food safety, but there is still that discrepancy between what authorities say our food is (safe? organic?) and our expectations (how safe is they're definition of safe? what does it mean to be labeled organic?) . This is why Lucinda, and farmers/food suppliers like Lucinda, are so important. They are the people who are there loading hogs at 3am for processing and can explain why happy pigs are so important just before they are harvested. They are the experts on the phone, constantly trying to find us a good deal with organic produce, and who can tell us "Hey, that peach, it's not so organic and here's why." Sometimes, they are the people who give us the answers to questions we never knew to ask. For them, transparency in growing practices is the rule, not the exception.

So, here I am. And who am I, you might ask? No one in particular, really. I was a customer of Clark's Organic Market for over a year before Lucinda "Went Farm." Like you, I'm here because I support Lucinda and her purpose, as well as enjoy the food she once distributed, and now grows. I thought it would be interesting to bring a consumer perspective, and admittedly, have my vicarious yearnings for my own farm (currently not a practical endeavor) addressed through real news and real experiences from the Clark Farm.

Here's to Autumn weather and real food! No fake tomatoes allowed!
Jennifer Basuel

No rest for the weary in Farm Town.

When I gave up my “busy” lifestyle in the outskirts of Kansas City to live in a town of 600 hundred and be a full time farmer, I had visions of long expanses of time that I would be able to read, play and relax. In fact, I was slightly concerned about boredom. (All farmers giggle now)

To give a taste of farm life, I am going to give you a rundown of the last 24 hours of my life.
A week ago I started to get a slight cold brought on by ragweed, not enough rest, and probably a host of other variables. By yesterday when I finally went to the doctor it had become full blown pneumonia, requiring a steroid shot and antibiotics (I declined the antibiotics out of stupidity or the very real fear that I may someday become immune to them if I take them to often – I am not sure which).
At any rate, this morning I was up at the crack of dawn to milk my cow. After I milked her, I brought the milk back to the house, strained it, and put it in the refrigerator. I left a note for the hubby on what to feed Fiona for breakfast and was off to pick corn. One might wonder why my husband was sleeping in, while I was up and at it with pneumonia, but for those of you that know him you will understand that milking a cow is not his forte. Furthermore, Fiona was starting to feel under the weather and does much better with co-sleeping than she does in her own bed, so I wanted to make sure she got plenty of rest.

I didn’t buy my own land until later in the summer so I planted 5 acres of sweet corn at my sister’s house 5 miles up the road from us. Since I had an order of over 300 ears of corn to fill for FreshConnectKC, I had to get to picking. What I was not prepared for was the amount of dew I was going to encounter, and therefore became soaked to the bone by the end of my little corn adventure.
I borrowed some dry clothes from my sister and headed to grandma’s house to pick pears, once again for FreshConnect, 100lbs of pears and a few lbs of tomatoes later I was ready for the next part of my morning.

I headed to my mother’s house to shuck my corn. I did this for a few reasons-
1. The hogs love the husks so there was no sense in chancing that a family without a compost pile would end up with them.
2. I am proud of the corn I raised, and wanted to make sure that I checked every ear of corn for quality.
3. We didn’t use any chemicals on the corn so a few worms had their fun with the tops of them. I don’t mind it, because I prefer to share a bit rather than poison the poor creatures. However, I understand that most people don’t want a creepy crawly on the top of their ear. So, better me to clean them up than send them to an unforgiving customer.

After the corn was shucked, cleaned, and packed it was time to get Scott (my dear husband) on his way to Kansas City to deliver the produce and head to work.
I headed back to the house, had a quick bite to eat, did a bit of paperwork and put Fiona down for a nap. After she got up we headed to mom’s farm to check the daily family report, have supper and then off to our own farm to check on our cows.

Thankfully, we have an adopted bottle calf so I only milk once a day giving the calf fee access the rest of the time.
Although we do use rain barrels, we don’t yet have a pond so we are currently hauling water from my brother’s house to the cows. The process is quite an art form as the water barrels are heavy, and you have to tip them over into the water trough. Since it is my brother’s 21st birthday I decided to take the nightshift solo. I tipped one over, and was ready to start on the second one, when it fell out of the truck. I got out to try and lift it (not sure why I thought I would be strong enough to do this), and the new mama cow (just had her baby today) decided to let me know she wasn’t that into me tonight.
Unable to pick the barrel up and not wanting to test my running ability on bad lungs against a new mama cow, I opted to head back to Cole’s and fill up an additional barrel of water to bring back. I did, and when I got back, it was dark, and I am deathly afraid of the dark. So, I climbed from the cab of the truck into the bed, and tipped the barrel over. Finally, the chores were done!

I headed back home, got Fiona into the bath, myself into the shower, and am finally ready to get some long overdue rest!
What I am finally starting to realize is that being a farmer is like being a parent. It doesn’t matter how tired/sick you are, you can’t call in!

This is a story, a story about a girl.

This girl was walking along the road marching to the beat of her own drum on the way to a place where farmers farmed, and people ate. A few people decided they liked where this girl was going so they followed her. Then one day, another group of people approached the girl and told her they were going to the same place, only they had a boat, and would be able to get there faster. So she decided to get her people together and get on their boat. It wasn’t that long into the journey on the boat that she realized that they weren’t going to the same place at all, so she confronted them. They did not deny that they were going somewhere else, but explained to her that she didn’t have a choice now that she was on the boat… because she couldn’t swim. So she did the only thing she knew to do - fight for her beliefs and control of the helm. However, in the end she was outmanned, out moneyed, and outmaneuvered and lost the battle. As punishment, they bound her, gagged her, and threw her overboard.

As she was fast sinking to the bottom of the water, stricken with grief over her inability to have seen them for what they were in the beginning, and ready to give up all hope.. the most amazing thing happened. A group of friends who had watched what had happened jumped in after her and pulled her ashore. She was bewildered as to why they would save her when she had inadvertently led them to evil, and lost the battle. They explained that they still needed to get to the place she was going, and she would need to find a new way.

So in the end the girl realized it was never a story about a girl, but a story of hope, friendship, and the ability, in times of trouble, to never give up..