As WWII raged across Europe, at his seaside farm in Maine
E.B. White wrote lists. White was a sheep- and chicken farmer, as well as a
columnist for the New Yorker. It’s hard
to imagine the minutiae of life on a “saltwater farm” a day’s drive from the
nation’s largest metropolis could hold any cosmopolitan reader’s attention,
never mind get past the editorial red pen that would today bypass the trouble
of redlining by simply scrawling “Rewrite” across the first page. And his list
did run to pages. It ran to such lengths not only because White’s readers had
decent attention spans, but because this list included every footstep, every
nail and board, every intermediate errand White anticipated in accomplishing
the noted tasks. Reading it took as long as accomplishing it might; writing
undoubtedly must have taken longer (as his wife may have pointed out to White
at the time).
That list is as comforting, and satisfying, to read today as it must
have been to the throbbing, war-sore metroland of ’42 New York. Comfort comes,
now as it did then, in the solidity of now,
of What Today Requires for Tomorrow. The future today looks similarly murky to
what it must have felt in those ‘42 days of foaming demagogues. My daughters
tremble and chafe at the distinct possibility that all the hopeful, progressive
changes they’ve witnessed as they and the new millennium have grown up together
will be crushed in a few short executive orders. All I can offer them is this:
Be kind. Keep questioning, thinking independently, and learning. Do all you can
to make this world the world you wish it to be, starting with the day you have
and the people you have around you. Because this is what I believe, my labors
and my laundry list haven’t really changed. Getting the dog his rabies vaccine,
keeping the fences in repair, painting the peeling red trim on the chicken
house windows, remembering to turn the bread I set to rise beside the wood stove
an hour ago… Lists order the day. They keep me calm as well as humble in a feet-out-of-bed,
get-to-it way. There is less to juggle in my brain when it is down on paper. I
wish I were even half the writer White was, so that my lists could be a gift to
others as well. Still, so I feel less alone in this world, and so that you know
the season still launches itself regardless of Washington, here is my own
End-of-Winter, First-of-Flowers list of chores. So begins a second year of
First-Flower Farm...
1: Business:
There will be business taxes to figure for the year past. This may be the one time when the
paltriness of my pathetic earnings will be a positive, expressed
as a (laughably small) sum called “earnings” and a positive as regards the
financial impact from me to Uncle Sam. (I want all my money to go towards
funding Obamacare.) To get ready for taxes, I’ll have to update last year’s bookkeeping through Dec. 31, including in these figures
expenses that will not become at all profitable until much later this year (see
“cyclical nature of farming” and “why CSA?”). There sit those 100 iris bulbs
under a foot of fresh snow, the 100 tulips guarded by garlic nearby, the six
peonies each marked with a stake (thank goodness I took my own advice and
marked them, for a change, since I would have forgotten not only their
placement but their very existence by now otherwise). There, now: the
bookkeeping has given me something pleasant to daydream about.
There will be newer receipts, dated after Jan 1. Also, seed,
paid for last year but to be planted in the coming months and arrived
mid-January, so presumably that goes in this year’s expenses, despite the fact
that to report that money spent last year when I spent it would give me $0
taxable income after expenses for 2016 and a farm-for-free by all accounts for
this year. Hmm. Best to put last year in a shoebox marked 2016, despite the mobius strip that is farm
accounting. Then I’ll need new spreadsheets for this year, populated with my in-the-red-so-far
2017 season. (Patience, Scotswoman—patience!) Receipts for this year’s seeds
then go into a new binder in the
file marked “seed starting/planting plans”, backed by last year’s records which
continue to become more and more useful as I try to avoid making the same
mistakes starting this year’s crops.
There’s less hustle to this year’s work of applying for
farm markets and licenses. Since I’m
already on mailing lists and not an end-of-March latecomer. Now those four
markets are known quantities. Market managers have friendly familiar faces. I
really look forward to seeing them again, and I’m not so nervous about exactly
what insurance I need or how many ounces my tent weights should be. While it’s
a bit of a dream-crusher, I also have a realistic idea how much I’ll sell, how
much I can make at each market, and how long it will take to earn back my
investment (October). If this season isn’t going to be a drag through the
bitter truth, I’ll have to come up with some new schemes, and that means
deciding how to tighten my focus.
I’ve signed up for a $10 Marketing Class from local-foods advocate Berkshire Grown. I’ve sent flattering
letters to new markets in hopes
of tailoring my market appearances to a more appropriate customer population.
And yes, I’ve perused the want ads and
applied for a real job. I should
do more of that.
 |
| February 25, under the Japanese maple beside the porch |
Meanwhile, happily, I don’t have to take the serve-safe
exam, the allergen awareness test, pay off the Pittsfield Board of Health, or
freak out about the rigors of my annual home kitchen inspection, though I do need to schedule that despite the fact
that my updated 2017 license already hangs from the inside of the cabinet over
the stove. That means scour the kitchen. I’ll also have to renew insurance and board of health
licenses, but this year I know who to
call, how much it all costs, and (perhaps most importantly of all) that I
really do have to do all this stuff but it isn’t, ultimately, too big a deal
despite how official and scary it seemed at first. (Thank you, Lia, for loaning
me your courage!) That reminds me: how I do rely on all my family! To have
another year at all, I need to be a good mom and maintain my marriage to the Patient Spouse (who has already done more for
First-Flower than I have by starting the burn pile and building a gate). Those
interpersonal to-dos involve me remembering to enjoy life outside of canning, growing and sewing, so my
stress doesn’t fill the family’s days and nights with its abiding
overabundance. This may also involve planning in a three-week absence from
markets and earnings for a trip to Wyoming, though the P.S. points out correctly that “a vacation shouldn’t be
part of your list of jobs to accomplish.” Would that my mind operated with the
calm seas of his own. Instead, I scramble in the frozen soil for a better year
than last, ponder advertising
(what?), reviving the blog,
looking for sources to place paid ads and defining the business (already
on the list) so I can expand in the right direction. It’s a good thing I like
farming, huh? Next time: The Fun Column of The List, and Why I Get that Part
Done First. (Hint: none of it involves money or happens at a desk.)
Bloom Where You Are Planted.
