so today is the first day of fall for me and i think i'm not the only one fall
is somewhat of a time of reflection it's so crazy in the summer
there's so much work to be do there's there's so much
there's so many fires that are always on so that when the fall arrives and then the weather kind
of slows down cools down it's just it just creates more space to kind of breed and think and for me
at this time i'm a lot with the you know the people that we have at the farm and
they're thinking about what their next steps are are they coming back for a next year or they're
starting their own project and you know my role is really to be with them and accompany them and
i always kind of start about you know you know what do you want to do and why and so
i go to the process myself of asking myself why why am i still farming why
am i you know why am i doing this why am i going through these summers that are crazy and
you know they're exciting but they're tiring and and there's a lot of
there's some discouragement sometimes but for me that question of why we
farm is really important and i i have this reflection that
you know farming allows us in many ways to live an alternative lifestyle
it allows us to be you know who we want to be in a space that is ours to define and ours to construct
even the social construct you know there's so many things about farming that relates
to how we are together on the farm and and we get to decide how this is going to be
you know what how this is going to be designed for us you know because we've been having
people over on on our farms for so many years food and eating together is a big part of
of that um spending time outside of our farm duties either doing sports or having dinners
or going to events not all the time but that's part of that's part of it but in the end you know
it's really about it's really about that that alternative way of living and
that's what i appreciate a lot about us doing this and not sure if
you guys listening to this are all on farms and and you stop to sometimes think about it but
you know it's not just you know when people fantasize about farming and farmers
they're like oh yeah it'd be great to be out of the city and not have an office job
but it's a lot more than that it's about being in a space that was you know that was designed
to live differently and i feel like today in our day and age with everything being so formatted
and supermarkets and it's just like there's so much standardization in everything
it's great to be able to live off the land of you know selling veggies that you grow and you know i
think i think the word that when i think about it the word that describes this best is freedom
i really think that we're farming for freedom
freedom to live a life differently freedom to
to design it so that you can play outside
freedom to you know live with others on a piece of land
so i really like that word freedom when i think about it
obviously for me especially in the last years you know i've started another farm project i'll tell
you guys about that eventually fqt and training young farmers and really developing a lot of
resources about how to farm that's really important how to farm is really important
because that allows you to have the good life that you want but the why you farm is really important
and i think we should all be asking this question not just for farmers and for farming but
you know why why are you doing what you're doing you know is this the life that you want to live
and if so why and if you're a challenge and thinking that perhaps you're not living the life
you want to live then why and write it down and so yeah i'm going through this process now
fall really does it come back to school and again if i ask myself the why question
i think that's what i like most about my farming life is that i've created it me
and modeling we've built the farm we've raised our kids in the fam you know in the countryside
it's never easy and you know i'm never going to be the one that say oh yeah market gardening is just
you can get rich and do whatever you want it's not that it's
it's never easy there's always challenges but it allows you to live a life that is that you're
setting up for yourself and that's definitely what i think for me is what's most important
i choose this life and i like this life
and i think what we're doing is really important we're feeding people
we're taking care of a piece of land we're stewards for sure
and we're connecting with so many people in the community so a real example of what i'm talking
about is this is the communal aspect of our of our farm life you know we when i was at university
i lived somewhat in a commune it was like a political commune an anarchist commune
and we would have you know one person cook for everyone we were 10 of us living in a
big big apartment there's like two apartments in which we all
ganged up together and then we had one person that would cook for everyone a lot of dumpster diving
a lot of a lot of cool stuff was happening and that person we would alternate that person would
cook for everyone and the meal was really when we would all get together and and chat debate discuss
challenge ourselves with our beliefs it's very for me i was like life changing because i didn't
you know i grew up in a suburb and it was very classical there wasn't any debate at my home
and we weren't talking about politics and we weren't talking about you know social affairs
or you know feminism or you know the role of you know social justice and that really wasn't part
of my equation when i grew up but when i went to university and i was surrounded with people that
that was what they were questioning and the status quo of how society is run food
came was the glue even if the people you know weren't on the same level and that's what really
i think in our farm that's really true like the fact that we eat together modelling cooks lunch
for everyone uh you know every every working days and it's a simple meal it's fresh from the farm
it's it's you know mostly no animal proteins and and you know it's quick and dirty one hour boom
we have a coffee and then we're back to work but once every you know once in a while we also have
friday night friday night pizza and for me friday night pizza is where i get to celebrate with them
and just take the time to tell them that i appreciate what they do for their work
drink a few beers and then just chat chat about whatever what's going on about covid about
about you know vaccines about social justice about politics like we just had an election
here in canada it's like what was that all about why did we do that like i it was just so
silly and random and feels like nothing came out of it it was the same government that got elected
with the same number of seats at parliament and it's just a lot of a lot of bs so food for me
is is the place to kind of come together and talk about these things and i just feel that on farms
having a time where we are together to eat a meal not all the time and not not not always
because we all we also have a family but it is important and that's a big part of
of coming together as a as a team as a community
okay
what so that's it for this week hope you liked the episode uh i sure enjoyed making them so
if you like what you see make sure to subscribe to the channel if you want to learn more about
how we farm check out the market gardeners master class if you want to be part of our
community check out the work that is done at growers and co this is it for me for this week
hope you're well hope things are growing and i'll see you next week farm on jay i'm out
you