Dog, Rabbit, or Octopus?: Veggie Share Week #2 – 6/14/23

It is nearly impossible to explain to non farmers the explosion of work that happens in the month leading up to the solstice. I find it most akin to child labor. Not that it is painful, but that at a certain point there is nothing more one can do to prepare. There’s nothing one can do in say, April, to ease what happens in June. June is just June – an explosion of work. Each year I try to get better at just riding the wave of intensity and not getting pulled under by it.

Sometimes it can be hard to focus on a manual task when my mind is running through to do lists, answering radio calls from staff, training new folks, and just generally worrying about whether we’ll get it all done. (Answer, no. But it’s always okay). In those moments, I often notice my brain scanning through animals, trying to figure out which animal I feel most like. Not sure why, but my brain likes to make metaphorical connections.

An octopus comes to mind often. I’m constantly multi-tasking and it feels like I’m doing 8 things at once. Then I realize I can’t really do 8 things at once and just begin wishing that I was an octopus (with opposable thumbs), so that I could do many things at the same time!

Other days, particularly Monday and Tuesdays when we are racing to harvest and wash and pack for both wholesale orders and for the veggie share, I often feel like that rabbit with the clock in Alice in Wonderland. Or rather, I feel like that little white rabbit with the clock is running around inside my brain screaming about how things might not get done. (But this rabbit uses more profane language.) I have to try and QUIET the voice of this rabbit down, so that I myself can stay calm and focused and keep our team feeling both supported and on track.

After a brief bok choi harvest training in the fields, I asked some of our newer staff members if they had any animalistic impressions of me. Most were too shy or nervous to say much (they are in their first and second weeks at the farm and don’t know me yet), but one person said I seemed like Pepper. Always herding. Always coordinating where people are. Always making sure I know where everyone is, what they are doing.

I have already written a newsletter about how Pepper and I share energetic tendencies. But I had never quite thought of myself as a herder. It so fits. I’m like a herding dog that can teach!  Recently, someone close to me said that I seemed to have a brain that likes to have a purpose. That too sounds a lot like a working dog who does best when it has a job.

So in summary: I am a human. I feel like a herding dog that wishes it was an octopus that has a very annoying, stressed out bunny running around in its head.

Enjoy the bounty!