Newsletter Signup »
HERBSTALK
  • Home
  • Mission + Values
  • Event Info
  • About
  • Press
    • Kind Words
  • Blog
  • Community Partners
  • Contact

Meeting the Land

5/7/2015

 
by Jenny Hauf of Muddy River Herbals

A few days ago I met my land. I’ll call it mine even though it’ll only be in my fingernails and on my nose and knees for three growing seasons. Just three—three unfurling springs, three emerald summers, three golden falls, three wild winters.


The assignment of the land, in my business partner’s words, was a gift; the walk of it, where I gamboled like a lamb, a blessing. We collected fragments of soil to mix and bag for a soil test, and every step, each probe into the earth, held an exaltation, a desire, a promise, and a prayer. A prayer to the mud: let us love you and be loved back. Let us give to you and gather what you offer. Let us build you up with minerals and straw and compost. Let us take from you leaves for tea and flowers for love.
Picture
Time moves unbelievably fast. I know that I’ll blink my eyes and beat my heart and turn to find the land in another’s arms, filled with crops I never sowed. But somehow the days occasionally slow and ooze like honey. Snow was covering the land—my land, our land, the land of all the creatures without and within—only a week or two ago. But it’s a new day, and this sweet quarter acre of earth is aglow with clover, its blessed leaves reaching everywhere and catching sun. What was white now seems as if it was forever green. What was amazingly soggy is now just muddy. Soon we’ll be able to create beds and plant the little lives that we’ve been tending to, those lives coaxed out of seeds or received in the mail, tucked into cardboard and swaddled with paper. So many of our hopes have broken through the darkness and now wait in the greenhouse, basement, and backyard, longing for the embrace of a field.

I’ve worked on a lot of farms but never so intimately. This will be my first time being with the same plot for so many years. It’s also my first time coddling life under grow lights and working them into a crop plan, considering their relationships to each other and the soil. We pair plants that can live together happily, making sure that they won’t take each other’s sunshine or argue over nutrients. We plan for flowers, for the bees that will come to them, for the birds that will sing beside them.

To be a farmer is to be a conductor. We arrange the plants in their proper sections, placing everything in its right place. When all is well everyone is dressed up and striking chords of transcendence. When there’s a flat note or a loss of melody or, heaven forbid, a silence when there ought to be a gold tone, we go back to the practice room, scratching notes and figuring out what’s missing. Maybe the worm section is lacking. Maybe the brassy iron is lackluster and needs to be replenished. I yield my wand of a hoe and try to figure it out.

Seeing this green land, laying my hands in it, knowing that, for a while, that this will be our symphony hall; nothing I’ve ever experienced feels like this. Never before have I stood upon the conductor’s platform. Nothing has been so humbling or so full of possibility.

My land, our land, no one’s land at all: I can’t wait to grow beside you.

Picture
After creating the medicinal herb program at Allandale Farm, Jenny is excited to be embarking on the first season of her own herb farm, Muddy River Herbals, with co-owner and grower Barbara Lenes. They are thrilled to be offering high quality, sustainably grown herbs to the people of eastern Massachusetts. For more information please visit their website or contact Jenny directly at muddyriverherbals(at)gmail(dot)com for ordering inquiries and herb availability. Muddy River's herbal CSA is currently accepting new members so please visit the website for details.


Comments are closed.

    Archives

    October 2021
    July 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Angelica
    Anxiety
    Aromatherapy
    Artichoke
    Autumn
    Ayni Institute
    Ayurveda
    Bath Salts
    Becoming An Herbalist
    Beltane
    Bitters
    Black Cohosh
    Blue Vervain
    Botanical Crafts
    Botanical Dyeing
    Cacao
    Calendula
    Cancer
    Canine Nutrition
    Cannabis
    Chaga
    Chamomile
    Chickweed
    Chinese Medicine
    Cleavers
    Climate Change
    Community
    Connection
    Cultivating
    Curandismo
    Dandelion
    Deserts
    Digestion
    Doshas
    Earth Healing
    Ecological Herbalism
    Eco-printing
    Educational Gardens
    Elder
    Eleuthero
    Elixirs
    Energetics
    Essential Oils
    Ethnobotany
    Events
    Evergreens
    Fall
    Farming
    Flax
    Flower Essences
    Folk Traditions
    Food Plants
    Free Clinics
    Fungi
    Gardening
    General
    Gentian
    Ghost Pipe
    Gifts
    Goldenrod
    Groundwork Somerville
    Growing Herbs
    Guide To Herbstalk
    Hawthorn
    Healer's Path
    Herbal Education
    Herbal Energetics
    Herbalism
    Herbal Marketplace
    Herbal Oils
    Herbal Salves
    Herbs For Pets
    Herbs Of The Enneagram
    Hibiscus
    History Of Herbstalk
    Holidays
    Holy Basil
    Honey
    Imbolc
    Immunity
    Interviews
    Lammas
    Liver
    Living With An Herbalist
    Local Classes
    Local Plants
    Lyme
    Marshmallow
    Meadowsweet
    Medicinal Mushrooms
    Medicinal Uses
    Meet The Herbalist
    Meet The Herb Farm
    Menstruation
    Milky Oats
    Mimosa
    Mint
    Motherwort
    Mugwort
    Mullein
    Mutual Aid
    Natural Dyeing
    Nettles
    New England
    Nourishing Herbs
    Oat
    Passionflower
    Permaculture
    Phytochemistry
    Pink Lady Slipper
    Plant ID
    Plant-of-the-year
    Plant Profile
    Podcast
    Poisonous Plants
    Psychological First Aid
    Queen Anne's Lace
    Recipes
    Reciprocity
    Reishi
    Rhodiola
    Rose
    Rosemary
    Russian Herbalism
    Samhain
    Schisandra
    Seasonal Cycles
    Seasons
    Seeds
    Shen Tonics
    Skullcap
    Snow
    Social Justice
    Spring
    St. John's Wort
    Summer
    Survival Herbs
    Tea Blends
    Tincturing
    Tonics
    Traditional Chinese Medicine
    Trauma
    Travel
    Tree Medicine
    Tulsi
    Urban Gardening
    Urtication
    Vata
    Vervain
    Violet
    Water Hemlock
    Wheel Of The Year
    Wildcrafting
    Wild Edibles
    Winter
    Wintergreen
    Yarrow
    Yule

    RSS Feed

Copyright © Herbstalk 2021