My wonderful friend Kate runs a small organic farm, makes incredible soap, raises two children with her husband Brad and is my go-to straight-talking therapist/girl friend. Tonight we worked in her shop to get ready for the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning. Actually, I think I got in the way a lot and slowed her down but it was fun. I labeled soap and lip balm (some of it upside-down) while we girl-talked. Kate can smack some sense into me -- in a nice way. I was sure I needed to start a business right now selling locally-made products. Kate was not so sure...and she was right. At about 10:00 tonight, Kate went outside the shop and we realized how cold it had gotten. I guess that hard frost is coming tonight. She realized that the garlic braids she made today and all of the season's onions were hanging in her huge barn. After we got the garlic braids back into the soap shop building, we went back for the onions. They were hanging high up in the rafters of the barn. Kate got her ladder out and handed down bunches of big, beautiful onions. She pushed them in a cart back to the shop and we put those inside. While we were doing this, I realized if I had not been there Kate would have been out in her barn at 10:00 on a freezing October night doing this herself, I can't believe how much work her small farm takes. (Her husband manages another organic farm for Washington State University.) We joked a little about how glamorous and rewarding farm life is. I know Kate wouldn't trade her small farm existence and artisan soap making, but people should also understand how much work she and other small farmers do. The financial rewards are small. The work is difficult. Organic and micro-agriculture have become so popular, I am not sure people really realize what life is like for the farmers.
Tomorrow's market will be cold and I don't know that Kate will make much money there. I wish I could pay her for all the valuable lessons she shares with me -- like what it is like to freeze and climb ladders multiple times for properly cured onions. I hope she charges extra tomorrow for those and that everyone in Moscow buys some. She deserves it.
No comments:
Post a Comment