what's the like tongue twister thing to say Peter Piper picked a patch of pickle
peppers my name is Lucy Fink and I'm a Johns Hopkins University Premed Neuroscience major
turned YouTuber who's fascinated by the world's endless career path options I'm
a full-time content creator but I love discovering other people with cool jobs
learning how they got that role in the first place and seeing if I have what it takes to
work a day in their shoes my curiosity has led me to the stage at Radio City Music Hall
deep inside a cranberry bog to Ben and Jerry's headquarters and so much more and today I'm at
Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett New York to try my hand at becoming a farmer let's go on the
job for my entire life my perception of work includes sitting inside at a
desk beneath artificial office lighting hammering away at a computer until the
wee hours of the morning and whenever I meet people who don't fit into this
category I'm intrigued imagine if your office was the Great Outdoors your desk
a field of zucchini your computer a tractor for Amanda Maro that's work
life my name is Amanda Merrow and I am the co-founder and co-director here at Amber Waves
Farm we exist in downtown East Hampton right on the sidewalk and so people find us on purpose
they find us by accident here at our home base we have our market and kitchen our farm fields
The Outdoor Classroom the public open space and really the purpose of Amber Waves is to welcome
the community onto the farm we have 35 acres under cultivation of mixed vegetables cut flowers herbs
baby greens and then we have a small flock of laying hens that's just for eggs for our crew
and then three farm cats so what exactly does a farmer do turns out when you're a co-manager of
an operation like this many of your tasks wind up being managerial people come to me when we have
to fix something so a cooler has gone down or a vehicle has gone down I also handle our books and
payroll and kind of like the operational logistics of the organization but I wanted to explore the
dirtier side of farming so Amanda took me out into the fields okay we need two Gators so I'm going to
give this one to you and I'm going to hop in the other one and I'll lead the way out to the field
okay I'll follow you oh gosh don't forget to take off your emergency break this yep so you push the
button and you're going to have to pull push it down um push it hard like like you mean it with
your thumb push it like I mean it you really mean it I got it I got it wa okay I got it all
good don't get hit we started by harvesting some of the farm's most popular produce zucchini squash
and cucumber zucchini is an important crop for us we throughout the season plant it every 14 days so
we constantly have fresh plantings that we're picking from so this is the newest round that
we have that we're harvesting so if you look at the plant there are male and female blossoms the
male blossoms here are just on a stem whereas the female blossoms are a fruit themselves so
the female ones are the fruiting ones just like people yes and the men ones just stand
there just like people no offense to our camera operator who happens to be a man Amanda explained
how important it is that these vegetables are harvested carefully by hand to avoid disturbing
the fruit and blossoms that are still growing wow you have four and I only have two I better
hurry up I have been doing this for more than 15 years if you were faster than me we would be
having a problem look at this big guy big girl it is a girl a major perk of harvesting vegetables
you're never too far from a snack can I just bite into it right here yeah just give it a wipe
that is fresh does not get fresher you picked it 45 seconds ago and this how the farmers do it mhm
on a farm the day is pretty rigidly structured everything operates around the seasons and the
sun's path throughout the day so we swiftly moved along to our next harvest the beets would this be
big enough this bigger one yeah I would say that's great it's not that big but yeah but like people
who needs an enormous beet Dwight Shrute would approve I definitely feel a little dwighty out
here oh that is a beautiful bunch here I'm going to let you band it I think I'm hired beets for
sale $3.99 how much uh $5 a bunch $5 a bunch get them fresh in addition to annual and perennial
herbs Amber Waves Farm includes 2 Acres where there's a sprawling spread of Splendid flowers
one of the Market's main offerings is these cut flowers so I met with Hannah the farm
production manager and had a chance to cut some of them myself while being a farmer and running
a successful Farm in the Hampton seems like a dream it was a long road to get here Katie and
I had almost no experience when we started this Farm we had just finished a single year farming
apprenticeship and we just decided to go for it and we're vastly underqualified to do that but
it worked anyway it kind of it never occurred to us that it might not work and so we just pushed
through it Katie and I started the farm with $2,500 each from our savings account we were
really kind of starting at zero and so that first year we you know we put in money from
our own savings and paid ourselves like something less than $3,000 each for that whole year so we
were just kind of maxing out our credit cards and living in debt the second year I think we
paid ourselves $8,000 each the thir third year $14,000 each and then we went up to $25,000 each
so we slowly chipped away at it it was a long stressful haul next up it was time for the most
exciting part of the day at least by my standards riding the tractor Amanda hopped onto a tractor
and got to work attaching the cultivator to the back this process alone took almost 10 minutes
of hammering kicking and jamming I have to say it was pretty incredible to watch a woman do the type
of manual labor that in our society we most often see men doing I hopped aboard strapped myself in
and away we went woohoo this is the best day of my life bye most of the Farm's crops are planted
into a raised bed that's covered with an organic biodegradable mulch film tilling the rows is very
important but anyone in the farming Community knows that tilling by hand is a labor intensive
process for this reason Amber Waves invested in this tractor mounted spider cultivator which
allows you to till the aisles and get extremely close to the plastic ideally without ripping the
mulch film it only takes a team of two people to do but it needs to be done every 10 days or so on
the back from my seat I was using levers almost like a video game controller there was a lever
for each side of the cultivator and pushing the lever forward moved it to the right while
pulling it towards myself moved it to the left I had to maneuver the levers appropriately to
keep the spider cultivators perfectly in their lanes as Amanda drove the tractor forward my
goal was to get the Machinery to till the soil as close as possible to the biodegradable film
without puncturing it it was a process to get the hand motion down but Amanda was incredibly
impressed not to brag or anything but my rows were extremely straight and I did not rip the plastic
even once not even after four passes up and down the aisles when the fields were tilled we went
into the greenhouse to sort some garlic what we're doing is separating seed garlic from sell garlic
so when we plant garlic you're planting the very largest cloves in the ground um and they clone
themselves to form a new head it's like how so garlic is the it's the coolest so a clove of
garlic that you use in your home is also a seed so we want to sell the large heads and set the super
super sized seed seed heads aside for seed it's a nuanced difference and it's kind of like a b curve
this seed seed as we worked with the garlic all of the dried dirt flew into the air it's dusty should
I be wearing a mask um it's more just like breathe through your nose filter it with my nostril hairs
mhm sorry I'm so dramatic and after this task it was time to hang up my boots or in this case my
rain gear and head into the Market anyone in the Hamptons knows that Amber Waves is an incredibly
popular market so if I was going to be put to work I needed a quick crash course to orient
myself the basic rundown of the store is that all of the seasonal produce of things that are coming
out the fields right now are in the front cuz we're trying to like sell as much as we can so
melons that come from a nearby Farm all of our zucchini which you know about eggplant Tomatoes
all of that's in the front this is fruit that comes from also in the front back specialy right
our grab and go items Island do you feel ready I think so I need a shirt okay let's get your shirt
okay my head was spinning but there was no time to waste it was a weekend and the market was as
busy as ever I put on a piece of Amber Waves merch so that people knew I worked there and
I got down to business I spent a little bit of time up front restocking shelves and cleaning
up aisles that had gotten messy looks good one customer even came over and asked me where she
could find the sweatshirt I was wearing all in all my final takeaway from working as a farmer for the
day was that this job is equal parts meditative and Incredibly hectic just when you're standing
out in the open Fields taking in the sounds of birds chirping and enjoying the fresh air you
hear on your walkie-talkie that the chickens got loose just when you think you understand
the cycles of Mother Nature there's a major storm that wipes out your biggest crop of the Season by
the end of the day I was completely exhausted my day involved being up on my feet for hours
bending over repeatedly and baking in the hot summer sun but if nothing else I got to check
off a major bucket list item of mine riding on the back of a tractor and tilling the soil
I was even able to bring the zucchini and beets I had harvested home for dinner and let me tell
you there is nothing more rewarding than eating freshly picked food that you harvested yourself
let me know which role you think I should try next and I'll see you then on the job are you
coming back tomorrow do you need me I'll have to check my schedule employees only please do not
come