01/17/2020
Winter Newsletter from Sun Moon Farm:
In 2018 our friend Jim Murphy rebuilt the south door on our barn. It was a big and heavy door that poorly slid on a rusted, old roller track. For too many years the door would get left open -- because it was big and heavy and hard to close -- and that let water in when it rained or snowed. Floor boards warped and rotted (making it even harder to close the door) and eventually I didn’t feel safe driving a truck or hay trailer through the barn. Jim rebuilt the floor, rebuilt the door, and then he re-sided the back of the barn. His good work highlighted other parts of the barn that needed attention -- including the north side sliding door that usually requires two or three friends to open or close. But I’ve been reluctant to plan for that repair because we would have to remove a full door mural that I love so much.
The image is the Apollo 8 “Earthrise” as photographed by astronaut William Anders in 1968. It's such a powerful picture, welcoming the viewer to make such a fundamental shift in their perspective. I love that such a bold image is a central and “ordinary” part of our farm -- its how I give directions, its where I stand for photographs, it’s what neighbors see when they drive down Thomas Road. But it’s also always this beautiful and gentle invitation to try seeing or feeling things differently.
We inherited “Earthrise” from The Meeting School -- one of the many gifts that came with this property. The Meeting School has been front in my mind since Thursday when I was interviewed for a local writing project about alternative lifestyles in the Monadnock area. Honestly I don’t think I was a very good interview -- my winter farm tour is short and I felt stiff in my winter body. 2020 will be our 10th season offering CSA shares but when I tried to explain what we’re doing here and why we’re doing it, I realized I just wanted to talk about The Meeting School.
I first visited the school on May Day of 2003. The school sang labor songs at their morning meeting and danced a maypole in the evening. Megan’s sister Elizabeth was my host and I slept in the house where Megan, Fox and I now live. I remember that dandelion greens were served with dinner and that we ate on the Aurora lawn. I was concerned because I’d just learned that first year hires weren’t offered health insurance but a staff member named Bean convinced me that it was a community that would take care of me -- and then he showed me how he had fit a cast iron bathtub into an old stone wall so that he could light a small fire and have the heat held by the rocks. I was a little anxious that I wouldn’t be a good fit -- and that my parents and peers would think I was crazy -- but I had no doubt that this is where I wanted to learn and work.
So many of my Meeting School memories feel like this -- a little bit silly, maybe ridiculous and really sentimental to me. At The Meeting School we practiced restorative justice and we sang the “Song of Peace” from well used copies of Rise Up Singing. It is also where I learned to cook, where I learned to live in community, and it’s where I met my wife. The Meeting School is where I first learned to farm, and to worship with Friends, and how essentially entangled life, work and spirit need to be. My perspective shifted in so many ways here and, like with “Earthrise,” I could appreciate how a place can be so small and vulnerable but also so full of significance. like the song says,
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine
2020 will be our tenth CSA season. We might build one (or two!) new greenhouses, I have a few new dahlias varieties to trial and Megan always makes some changes to the seed order. But mostly I want to continue the current field plan with only minor adjustments. Hopefully that will make us more available to develop other parts of our farm vision. Farming has always meant more than food to me and Megan. In 2011, when I wrote to the Meeting School’s board to express our interest in purchasing this property, I wrote “ to farm as we intend is to make a life and lifestyle commitment that is also a spiritual discipline. We understand farming as long-vision activism that nourishes a peaceful and good future through the work of feeding people” That still feels true.
I don’t want to minimize the work of growing good food -- it is certainly physically hard and full of inherent risks -- but I hope that our continuing vision for the farm can almost assume that part. I want tomatoes and basil, garlic, kale, peppers, shiso and anise hyssop. But I also want to build a community scale solar project here in 2020. I want to bring more of our food and flowers to the food pantry and spend more time staffing that pickup (just like I do in the barn or at Cornerstone Cohousing). And I want to spend more time rethinking the ownership and organizational structure of the farm so that we are financially stable, clearer about our mission, and sometimes encouraged to be wonderfully inefficient when that is what is best for the community. I hope that when you think about supporting our farm, you are valuing all of this work too.
Community Supported Agriculture is only possible with strong community support. If you like the work that we do here at Sun Moon Farm there are many ways that you can support us:
* Purchase a CSA Share. It’s not just about buying vegetables -- you can use your consumer power to support small farm preservation, the local economy, food & environmental justice and a vibrant community. CSA shares make great gifts -- to a young family, a new neighbor, a favorite teacher, or really anyone you’d like to say ‘thank you’ to.
*Tell your friends about us. Fittingly, word-of-mouth has been more successful than any other marketing for our farm. We are so grateful for the connections that ripple out from our supportive member community.
*Pay what you can, not what you have to. Consider the value you might receive from CSA membership -- the fresh, organic food you get each week, and more. If you have the means to pay more, you can make this experience more accessible to others with less. And certainly, let us know if membership is an economic hardship for you. We do our best to work with families wherever they stand financially.
*Work. For some members, contributing their time and labor to a regular work-share is a joyful commitment that serves them and us both! We also share our farm with a few apprentices who live and work with us for the CSA season. If you know anyone (often college students or other young people interested in the life-affirming experience of a season's honest, hard, outdoors work) who might be a good fit, again, we always love to make those word-of-mouth connections!
*Ask me about our Community. Sun Moon Farm is just one part of the community that we are building here. The South of Monadnock Community has 4 houses available and we’re looking for good neighbors. Help us get continue the next part of this project.
your farmer,
Craig Jensen
