BlueLand Farm
local, sustainable, regenerative
Teamwork makes the dream work
Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody. Heee-eee-eee-eeelp! Farming is so hard ya’ll. Ive said it before and I’ll say it again! We live this life because we love it. But sometimes, you just need some help! But the good kind, the kind that just knows what they are doing already and you don’t have to explain a million things to. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not those kinds of helpers. 
Our lovely friends over at Little Leaf Springs Farm were in the middle of their garlic harvest several weeks ago, and we were so excited to help them out!! Alicia was at the farm digging up garlic by hand all day, while we were on babysitting duty. Then in the afternoon, she would bring all the garlic over to our house and we would clean and scrub and scrub and clean and sort and grade by size.
By the end of the week, we were all so exhausted, but we had fun!! And we had huge boxes of beautiful garlic ready for drying and selling at farmer’s markets this summer!! What a blessing!
Maybe this is a good time to talk about how farming is truly a community activity and no one farmer is an island. What would you do if you neighbor’s cows get loose in your hay field? #askingforafriend #jk # thisactuallyhappenedlastyear. You don’t just call him and say “Hey dude, your cows are in our hay field”. I mean, you do call him, but then after that, you put on your muck boots and you help him round up those cows!!! And even if they end up smashing up your hay feeder in the process, it’s ok! Because that is what you do for each other!
Because sooner or later your Guinea Fowl will get too adventurous and end up way up their driveway and they will round them up and bring them back for you. You are there for them when it’s all hands on deck, and they will do the same for you. Because there are some jobs on the farm that you need lots of people for. Ask my husband about his childhood growing up on a dairy farm and he will surely tell you about all the summers that he and his brother were “loaned” out to the neighbors to help them stack hay in their barn. I can hear him complaining now “We had to ride our bikes 3 miles to their house, work like dogs all day, and then ride our bikes back home to do evening chores at home. And we never got paid!”. Don’t be too sad for them though, their parents did an excellent job making sure their kids had lives off the farm and relaxation and play time.
That is just one of the things that I really love about farming. You BELONG to the community. It’s such a wonderful gift to belong like that anywhere. And these people are unlike anyone else on the planet. They are kind, optimistic, hardworking, dark humored, never give up and never surrender people. I feel like I could break in to song about it “that will give you their shirt and the back to go with it…if you crop should happen to die!!” Ok no seriously. I am lucky to call them my friends. Which is why were happy to raise our hands and jump in to learn how to clean garlic in the small hours of the morning.
Got any community coming together stories? Share them in the comments!!! I love to hear them!
BlueLand Farm 