How COVID-19 Hit Us Here On the Farm

*This blog post is a submission to the New York Times asking for our response on how we were affected by this pandemic. There will be follow-up by the NYT in the near-future. Also, FYI, this description was quickly written over a strong cup of coffee at 3:30 am and won’t be winning any awards. It also does not fully touch upon our whole experience because it was meant to be brief. I promise the full story will come later. Perhaps with more coffee and a bit more editing.

As a farmer who chose a career in agriculture, rather than 'fell into it', it turns out I had been planning for an apocalyptic experience all along in my goals of achieving sustainability.

Of course, no one was prepared for the year of COVID, which started as just a season of the harshness life can present.

Going into Winter, my work is always to reflect on the year, do taxes, revisit my vision for the farm with gut-checks and decision making, and make plans for the upcoming year.

In addition, there are many hours dedicated to keeping our Winter crops growing, our animals well-fed and healthy, and our Farm Stand stocked for customers.

Then, I make smaller plans like gutting the office, re-organizing spaces to suit our needs, listening to podcasts, reading the books I've had to put aside all year-long, cooking & baking, hosting holidays, spending time with my family and friends. Re-setting. Re-grouping. Re-laxing, if such a thing is possible.

I was just beginning to get into some of those more "for me" things when the pandemic hit, blowing all those plans to smithereens. Ka-boom.

My focus quickly became identifying priorities and figuring out how to adapt to the times. What is needed right now? It took time for farmers to be deemed 'essential,' but I knew we were essential all along. So, I thought about our own food needs first and then I inventoried how much we could offer to our community. I thought about how much is in the tunnels, in the freezers, in the canned goods storage, in cold storage, and how to grow more, have more, offer more. I realized we were about as well prepared as all our storage and growing spaces would allow.

Once I sorted all of this, I began to put it on social media, make efforts to expand the Farm Stand offerings and our already in-tact delivery service. I suddenly had more work to do without enough help, and during a global pandemic, it didn't make sense to bring extra helpers on board, even though we needed them.

As a result, long days became longer. There was suddenly a lot more to do, a lot more to troubleshoot, a lot more demand for an otherwise quiet time in the year for local farm support.

We answered phone calls with questions on whether our year-round Farm Stand would stay open given the circumstances, to take food orders. We listened to hardships and needs, and expanded our offerings rapidly to meet those needs. It was an intense time with no allowances for 'tired.'

We had to sacrifice our own needs in many ways. The world was shutting down, but we were not. We were ramping up, working 18 hour days to feed our community. We were making deliveries to residences, stocking the Farm Stand several times each day as socially-distanced car lines formed down the driveway, and even down the road some days, to buy food.

I made a promise that our farm would remain open during the pandemic, that we would continue to plant seeds, raise our animals, and grow more food to feed our community. We offered support to other farmers who didn't have the outlets in place to offer their own products. We kept our workers working.

My husband, who works off the farm, works in a veterinary hospital, and was also deemed essential. There were fewer people working during the pandemic, and therefore he worked longer hours there, too. There were many days we barely saw each other, barely spoke. We just kept moving.

Due to the long lines forming at the Farm Stand, including the seasonal lake community of folks returning in droves from the cities with no working water to camp out in their houses, we had to take extra precautions to keep everyone safe. Among these, my own son, had to move in with his Dad, my ex-husband, who lived an hour away, in isolation, where it was safer during the heart of the pandemic. My son and I have barely been away from each other since he was born. Now, suddenly, my own farm, my own safe home, wasn't safe enough. It was a very difficult decision, but it had to be made. It was hard to believe. I could never have imagined it. FaceTime helped, but it wasn't the same. It was a terrible ache, but I had made a promise that I kept all this time. The effects have continued throughout the year with no allowance for 'tired.' By the time the main growing season hit, we were already burned out. It was like having 3 growing season in one, then the main season, and now we are gearing up again knowing the need is increasing again.

We are grateful to be in a position to help our community, and this pandemic has been a true test of our ability to feed a lot of people. It also tells me that our vision for the farm, and our future plans are right on track.