An Essay: Winter Whispers Soft

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Vic Gravel-RGF Staff

The collective breath is slowing here on the farm as we exhale toward winter. A surprise snow last week blanketed a garden half-asleep, dusting the coats of our ever-fluffing sheep and peppering the noses of Jack and Thor in a most delightful dapple. Our final fall bits are nearly complete-garlic has been planted, garden beds turned and tucked in to sleep, stray animal fencing has been retrieved from wilting pastures and the wood stove warms our frozen fingers and toes at the end of the day. As days turn cooler, nights frozen, I am on a mission to glean as many tactile skills as possible before donning gloves that make knot tying and carpentry a bit more challenging. In these days of deep autumn, swooning toward winter, I strive to emulate the garden beds we worked so hard to clear; I am absorbing skills, philosophies, and techniques, enriched by the compost of good company, great teachers, and meaningful work. These past few weeks have been defined by transition, something I often find myself struggling with. And yet, here on the farm, this thing so commonplace and so challenging feels a bit more gentle. Let’s talk about why. 

We start from a place of utter joy. Just a few Fridays ago we had a very special evening here on the farm: the moon hung luminous and eerie over the landscape, a warm evening breeze tousling wigs and rippling robes. Jack-O'l-anterns flickered all over, mottling pastures and walkways with creeping shadows. Kiddoes and their families arrived in droves to enjoy an evening of games, treats, and a properly spookified farm. Adorned with all the appropriate Ms. Frizzle trappings, -an emerald green dress specked with insects of varying varieties, bee-patterned socks, magic school bus earrings, and a curly whirly up-do secured by mushroom and butterfly-patterned hair pins-I was prepared for an evening of jolly good fun. It was time for farm Halloween! 

The night was as perfect as could be for our farm Halloween celebration: evening temperatures in the 60s, a moon one day from fullness, tables decorated with my hand-crafted “spooquets,” games galore and snacks abounding. Costumed kids and their families enjoyed a night chalk-full of delights-fresh cider pressed from the Clark’s local apples, hay rides, a campfire and marshmallows, donut-on-a-stick, arts and crafts and so, so much more! The night was magical, the most wonderful way to bid October a warm goodbye. And a few extra special shout-outs: to all the volunteers who came out that night, to the Clark’s for the apple press and all those delectable apples (especially after the dismal year we’ve had for fruit trees!), and to Pioneer Valley Grower’s Association for their donation of the pumpkins so central to creating our spookified farm ambiance- we truly could not have pulled it off without you. Thank you for everything, y’all. We continue to appreciate you beyond words.  

A mere week after that unseasonably warm day a snow shower arrived, bespeckling the farm with crystals unanticipated and, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyed. After a week of planning, prepping, and going-going-going for farm Halloween, it is almost as if Mother Nature herself sensed we all needed a bit of a break…and a good snowball fight. Transition in good company, whether it is the changing of the seasons or the departure of those held dear, becomes the soft blanket you long for after an unexpected snow storm. Red Gate Farm is a constant reminder that we as humans are only as strong as the container that holds us, and the people we choose to surround ourselves with fortify that vessel. I am honored and proud to be enveloped by the warm blanket of the Red Gate Farm family, a group of strong, kind-hearted, passionate, endlessly caring, hilarious, authentic, extraordinary people. In this time of transition, I cannot think of a better group of humans to share space, smiles, and serendipitous snowball fights with.

Then came garlic fest 2023! On October 25, 2023, Red Gate Farm staff came together to collectively complete a feat so enormous your socks will be permanently knocked off…pretty inconvenient for winter, sorry about that. We, with smiles on our faces and fingers in the dirt, planted 600 CLOVES OF GARLIC!!!! 600!!!!!! Singing and laughing with every dibble, we plopped single cloves into their new winter caverns, sprinkling a little Red Gate magic in with every teeny garlic baby. Planting garlic humbled me-in the enchanting alchemy of the garden, one tiny clove becomes 8,10,12 cloves all wrapped up in a papery bulb; green flags wave in the warmth of summertime, beckoning our hands to unveil the magical transformation that has unfolded over the winter and spring. I see this transformation as a vital reminder that the seeds of kindness, love, compassion, and joy, once planted with care, increase exponentially, especially when experienced and shared in community with others. 

This week has seen us finishing bucking up our logs and organizing our firewood to keep us warm this winter, chipping our final pile of leaves and spreading them as mulch atop our sleepy garden beds, collecting garden signs and de-trellising tomatoes and beans, and breathing deeply as we watch the farm’s diaphragm slowly but surely contract. This month and the next we have/will also be saying goodbye to two of our incredible farmer-educators. With the new year approaching, the new season approaching, the new flow of the farm approaching, new educators on the horizon, I am once again firmly planted in a state of bittersweetness. This place, these people have become my family in so many ways. It is a strain on my heart to say goodbye to the people who have come to mean so much to me, who I admire so much, who have been mentors and friends alike. And, because I care about them so much, I am elated to see them embark upon new and exciting adventures. Red Gate Farm is also a place that has underscored the importance of holding two seemingly opposed things-emotions, facts, etc., at once in my mind and body. To be a fully embodied person is to hold space for these paradoxes, allow these emotions to flow through you, colliding and entwining to create a dynamic landscape of ‘aliveness.’ 

Transition is hard, yes, and it is always happening. Working at the farm, watching change unfold so constantly and being among such special souls makes holding these sticky feelings just a little less painful, a little less destabilizing. With some pretty massive transitions coming up in my life,-graduating undergrad chief among them-I am deeply grateful to the farm for strengthening my ‘getting through, and even appreciating, transitions’ muscle. I end today’s blog with a heart both aching and glowing. Seasons change, people come and go. Blanketed by the warmth of community and meaningful work, these facts feel a little more tender to my soul.

An Essay: Falling Fast and Fleeting

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Vic Gravel-RGF Staff

Days creep cooler, nights threaten that icy dew every farmer dreads. Somehow it is already mid October and leaves from vibrant orange mute, blanketing the garden and pastures in sun dappled showers. These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about the impermanence of things-autumn school groups have come and gone. Fall is the long breath exhaling gently into the slumber of winter, everything lulling toward rest. This mid October I am thinking about the passing of time, how sweetly we savor it all when we recall that time is limited, and how life on the farm lends itself to all this reflecting. Let’s talk about it. 

In early September I reflected on the energy buzzing about the farm in anticipation of our first school group of the season. In so many ways kids are the vivifying force of this space. “The wind is blowing,” I wrote, “the asters and goldenrod frame the scene-the rams are grazing on fresh, lucious pasture grass. Moths and butterflies are flitting by, swallows and meadowlarks swooping side by side. The garden is lush, technicolor and bursting with life. The trees have lots to say today, anticipating the buzz of tiny humans back on the farm. Clovers quiver, aspens quake, Red Gate farm vibrates in wait for all the kiddoes to return.”

In September those kiddoes arrived, vans and buses packed to the brim with stuffed duffels and giggling tweens. We welcomed Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Mary Walsh Elementary School followed by Wellan Montessori School just last week. Together kids and staff co-created spaces of compassion, kindness, hard work, and resilience utterly bursting with so, so much laughter, music, and smiles to melt your heart. We hauled wheelbarrow upon wheelbarrow of weeds from the garden to the compost, several tenacious students earning their spot on our renowned “Epic Wheelbarrow Journey of Epicness” leaderboard. We walked oxen and cracked bulbs and bulbs of garlic, enjoyed delectable meals featuring garden produce whipped up by farm cook Theo, listened to stories by firelight, and surveyed our towering sugar maples. 

I had the honor and pleasure of leading my first work block during Wellan’s visit, a time when kids and staff collaborate to complete various farm work tasks. It was pure magic-we caked our hands in soil harvesting carrots, beets, tomatoes, and scallions, the perfect chance to teach the kids a few of my favorite words: Amaranthaceae, Apiaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Solanaceae. I’m a sucker for -aceaes. We chatted about beet thinning and debated the merits of tomatoes as fruits, eventually moving to garlic bulb cracking-a time to sit and gather, sharing stories and laughter and tenderness. These are the moments most precious to me-being together with the kids in moments of vulnerability uniquely brought out by our collective work and play and humility in this place. This is the magic of Red Gate Farm.   

Now it is October and our fall season is quickly coming to a close. We are weeding the garden and turning beds, prepping to plant garlic, nestling our animals into their winter enclosures, preparing for our annual Halloween shindig, and trying to get our last bits in before the frost arrives. All the while I have been acutely aware of just how quickly these weeks, our time with the kids, and this season are passing. While collecting hordes of massive dahlias and the last of the season’s marigolds, snapdragons, and zinnias with the kids, I had a moment of clarity about the gift of the impermanence of things. 

Part of what is both so challenging and so profoundly meaningful about this work is that we as educators only spend three(ish) full days with visiting student groups. You are attempting to create an experience for each child that will enrich their life far beyond the bounds of the farm, instilling values and experiences that shape them as a growing individual in vital ways. All of this is to be done in three days, -relationships cultivated, bonds formed, memories made- and yet, by another stroke of Red Gate magic, it happens. Kids leave changed, educators are moved and made better by every child that comes through this farm. We are constantly learning from one another, kids and adults, humans and animals and plants (though I suspect we are learning a lot more from the animals and plants than they are from us). I firmly believe it is the brevity of the school group visits that hones our intentionality as educators, that allows us to embody in a focused way the values and behavior and emergent moments so important to us. Passion and intention are infectious, and school groups give us the chance to lean into both of those things. Everything is impermanent, and so we make it all mean something. 

I watch as marigolds melt to brown, withered goop, as oaks and maples shed themselves bare, I watch as kids arrive at ten a.m. on a Monday and leave by noon on a Wednesday, as raspberries ripen and fall from the cane. I watch as the world never stops, only inhales and exhales, made all the sweeter by the impermanence of things. How short this fall season was, how short and how utterly magical. Here on the farm and as an educator I find myself so much less inclined to wish autumn just a little longer; I can sit with the bittersweetness, savor the moments as they pass. With this budding ability to let the fact of impermanence and ephemerality simply be, I leave you. This too cannot last forever.

An Essay: First Snow

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The days before the first snow at the farm are full of activity. The staff scrambles around the farm tucking away tools, winterizing machinery, and stacking firewood. The animals need to be moved to their winter homes, old barn windows need to be sealed, the last leaves need raking, and every last hose needs to be located and drained and wound up and put away and we rush to get it all finished before dark! And then everything is done. The first flakes of the season fell last night. They were welcomed by a farm ready for a winter’s rest.

I arrived early this morning to a peaceful, snowy farm. Jack and Thor the oxen are in their winter quarters. They don’t seem to mind the snow. They are much more interested in who will bring them breakfast and just how soon it will arrive. The sheep are in the next barn over. They have all spent the night inside and their fleecy bodies have made the barn toasty. The majority of our ewes are pregnant and the barn will be full of bouncing baaing lambs come March. But for now, the sheep barn is still and quiet.

The Garden seems quiet too, but beneath this first sprinkling of snow a few crops still think it is summer. When I peak under a plastic tunnel, I find lettuce still lush and ready for harvest.  If I wanted to, I could dig down in the soil and find carrots sweetened by the cold (I do not want to, it is too early in the morning to eat carrots). These and other hardy vegetables I expected to find still thriving in the garden. But I am surprised and delighted to also discover some cheerful pansy faces in new winter caps, undaunted by the cold.

The promise of new growth is hidden everywhere in the garden right now: buds have already formed on blueberry branches, garlic bulbs beneath a layer of straw are sending tiny roots down into the soil, and sturdy, smooth raspberry canes promise heavy yields in the coming year.

The path to the pond tells a story in footprints of animals exploring in the night. One of the farm cats took a stroll across our new bridge to the pond. A bird took off from the ground here, someone was digging with little paws there. The pond is a beautiful mirror of the gray sky and leafless branches. The stream that runs from the pond into the forest is low, exposing rich green mossy rocks.

I could follow the path into the forest, up the hill and down the road, all the way around to our sugar bush. The sugar maples there have feasted all summer long on  sunlight and now they are fat with sugar. They are waiting for the bright and chilly days of February and March to send that sugar running up to their crowns. I am waiting too, sugaring season is one of my very favorite times of year.

As I make my way back towards the farm, I look up and find our new program buildings framed by the opening in the trees. They are nearly complete, the last details coming together just in time for this first snow.

For now, these buildings are empty. Unscuffed, flawless and bare but full of awesome potential. In the spring, they will be filled with children. Bunkbeds with blankets thrown back, boots and jackets dripping in the mudroom, a kitchen bursting with dishes and snacks and joy! We have never had heated sleeping facilities before at the farm, our programs had to end when the warm weather did. Next year, for the first time in Red Gate’s history, school groups will be here to help lambs be born, to tap maple trees and boil syrup, to witness the blueberry buds burst into flower and the first green shoots erupt from the soil.

It is a quiet, snowy day at the farm. But I feel and see nascent potential all around. The animals, the garden, the forest, and the new program building and dormitory are all whispering about the year to come. A year full of growth, and discovery, and hard work, and fun.