resource management

When people ask if I am doing the farm behind the Bakehouse, I say yes, but what I mean to say is that the farm is doing me.

Last week I stabbed myself in the leg with a utility knife. I was cutting pipe for irrigation. It was around seven in the morning – I had already been at work for an hour or two, watering the greenhouses and assembling drip tape components. I was tired and blurry and frustrated. I was using my leg as a cutting surface.

Any eighth grader who’s been to shop class can tell you not to use your leg as a cutting surface. But there I was. And then the obvious thing happened.

I knew right away it was bad. I hobbled to my truck and went to the er, where the doctor on call supervised a visiting medical student as she put three neat stitches in my left thigh. By ten am, I was back in the field, frustrated that I had lost most of the morning. I didn’t bother to change my jeans.

I couldn’t believe I did that. I just wasn’t thinking. Being beyond exhausted is a profound impairment, and it can make you do some pretty stupid things.

It’s hard to accept that my body is a resource with limits. There’s so much I need to do, so much I want to see done. But if I want to have a life in farming, I have to farm in a way that is sustainable not just for the plants, but for myself, and that’s hard to sit with.

Last night I cancelled my plans, stayed in and drank tea and slept. It’s a start.