(See below for info on this photo.)
It wasn’t always like this.
This is what I think as my pen taps the yellow pad on my desk, waiting for someone to pick up at the Schoharie County Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. The opioid crisis is hitting closer and closer to home, wreaking havoc on the lives of friends and neighbors, and we’ve decided that, as a local business, we have a role to play in overdose prevention. We want to help with the distribution of fentanyl test strips and Narcan kits.
It wasn’t always like this.
This is what I think on Sunday evening. We finish chores and sit down for supper on the back porch with Mom and Dad — Roast leg of lamb; broiled zucchini, summer squash and field tomatoes; salt potatoes smashed with lots of butter. Dad pushes the local paper at me. In the first section is a report that the shooter who targeted our business last spring has been found with more guns. Earlier this week I received a subpoena to appear at his trial in December.
It wasn’t always like this.
This is what I think as we finish our food as Mom scans the news for reports of the hurricane in Southern California. We count how long it has been since our last hurricane, and consider our preparedness. The season is upon us. We pray for a gentle one.
We didn’t used to worry about hurricanes. Or drug overdoses. Or shooters. Or court subpoenas.
When did this become farm life?
We sit back on the porch as the sun dips below the western hillside, showering golden light on the eastern mountains. The girls are out with their friends. A group of them made an excursion to a giant antique fair. They won’t be home ’til later.
Our conversation is slow and relaxed. Mom, Dad, Bob and I drink in the light and share the paper between us, just resting after a full day and a good meal.
I relish the pleasure that comes with surrendering to a comfortable chair after a day on my feet, quietly joyful that my place of work is also my childhood home. But I have to admit:
It wasn’t always like this, either.
I remember coming out here to eat supper in summer as a kid, nearly always as the evening grew dark, we never got meals on the table when it was this light out. Sustenance was an afterthought, thrown together in haste because the work of the farm stretched too long. We shoveled food into our mouths, trying not to let our fatigue drive us to quarrel. (We didn’t have much success.)
I remember maintaining a cheerful countenance on the front porch, busily serving customers as they came to buy our chickens, then slipping out to this back porch, where we took turns weeping tears of exhaustion and frustration: never enough money, never enough time, never enough rest.
And before that, I remember what the farm crisis did to Schoharie County: the alcoholism, the child abuse, the shame, the suicides.
I remember when I worked as a hired girl for the farm up the road, I remember the stories my elderly neighbor told me of her life, of being forced to leave school, then handed off to another family like chattel, where she worked day and night to “earn her keep.” I remember the shunning she endured, even as an old woman, from the sexual gossip (and, most likely, abuse) that ensued about her. “It’s the way it was,” she used to tell me with a shrug when I came in from shoveling her barn. “Ya gotta work ta live.” And so, my pay for a day’s hard work would be nothing more than a home-cooked meal. (Admittedly, considering how my life unfolded, that probably contributed more to my future than any dollars she could push at me.)
I remember the way it was acceptable for older farming neighbors to talk about my developing female body as though it were public property, detached from my soul, an open topic of conversation. I remember their laughter as I flushed pink in confusion and rage as people I both loved and loathed made sexual jokes about me, drawing me to them by the waist, planting unwanted kisses on my cheeks. It’s the way it was.
So it wasn’t always like this, either: Where a farm family can quit work at 5 o’clock and sit down to a leisurely dinner; Where a girl grows up owning her body and mind, and men generally understand to keep their hands to themselves; Where the farm kids are remunerated for their labor, get days off each week, have time and resources to go to college, can take a day out with their friends, or pursue adventures for weeks or months at a time; Where we can take vacations; relish creative endeavors like music and sewing and knitting and basket weaving and writing and art and theater; or spend hours lost in a book.
We feed our supper scraps to the dogs and carry our plates into the kitchen, just as we have since I was a child. And I recognize that there is more that is the same than what has changed: a life by the seasons, the reliance on family, and the core of the job — which is very different than what the farm does to earn money. The lamb crop and the eggs and the sausages and the cafe meals are just one part of what we do. But being a presence in a community: showing up day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, generation after generation, and engaging with whatever the times are asking of us — that’s the core of the job. That’s what a life on the land has come to mean to me.
And right now, the opioid issue is painful. Dealing with gun violence is scary. Climate change is distressing.
It wasn’t always like this. But it is the way it is. These are our times. But also, these times times come rich with family dinners and cocktail hours and theater rehearsal and music nights and jazz band practice.
Some things get better. Some things get worse. We have to just keep showing up.
And it is an honor to be able to do that. I am grateful to be here.
And that’s a wrap for the season, folks! The height of the harvest and the frenzy of back-to-school is upon us. We’ve got a few more months to push hard before it’s time to rest and recharge our batteries. So I’m putting down my pen and turning my attention elsewhere ’til next spring. Until then, there are four seasons of podcasts in the archives, and sixteen years of blog essays you can peruse to amuse yourself at TheRadicalHomemaker.net, or SapBush.com. I’ll also be periodically posting photos, news and updates over the fall and winter at that same site, so come find me over there! Be sure to sign up for the newsletter when you do, and have all the creative updates sent directly to your inbox!
Remember: it’s your patronage that brings these weekly stories back every growing season. If you enjoyed this year’s chronicles and lessons, please be sure to hop over to the
Shannon Hayes page on patreon and throw some proverbial coins in my hat as a thank you, or send a check, payable to Shannon Hayes, to 832 West Fulton Rd, West Fulton, NY 12194.
This week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons James Aitken and Anne Parziale. Thank you, folks! I couldn’t do it without you!
About this week’s photo: This snapshot was taken by my college roommate and best friend, Sonia Gomez, who lives in Argentina. I am 18 years old in this image, standing between Ruth and Sanford, my “surrogate grandparents,” for whom I was “the hired girl.” At the time, I thought Sonia was being silly, insisting on taking this photo about a mundane, normal part of my life. I had no idea how extraordinary it was, and I remain grateful to her for recognizing a memory that would feed me for the rest of my life.