“Homelessness.  I think it’s a big problem.  But is it one we want to tackle?”*

The question appears on the front page of the March 7^th issue of the Times Journal, our local newspaper.  It was asked by a Lieutenant-in-Charge at a nearby village meeting convened to discuss a proposed affordable housing project at our former county jail.  Half of the project has been earmarked for those in need of supportive services (which includes housing for the homeless).

The officer’s question sticks in my craw as I read on to the next article, about a main street shop in Cobleskill that had three windows broken when three homeless people sat in a park across the street and shot BBs through the store with a stolen gun.

I’m wondering if the LIC is reading these same stories, pondering how his question weighs up.

Is homelessness a problem we want to tackle?

I can’t read about the Main Street shop, a small business selling herbal and nutritional supplements, without imagining deeply their fears.   I’ve fixated on their windows.  Those of us with businesses open to the public invest heavily in our windows —  financially, creatively, and emotionally.  We want the world to be able to see in, to take an interest, to feel welcome and drawn inside. 

I grew up with a deep love for windows and a hatred for blinds, shades, curtains, or anything that blocked out the natural world.  I wanted to see every sun rise, feel it’s rays across my body, watch the light play across the forests and fields, witness every rain drop, gaze as the sky morphed  from blue to orange and  pink and finally indigo at sunset; to watch the moon rise, to open my eyes at night and witness every twinkling star.  I even liked seeing the lights in my neighbor’s house down the road.  

That changed for me exactly two years ago, when a shooter drove through our hamlet in the middle of the night, firing a gun from his car, putting bullets in one family’s swimming pool, into the firehouse, and firing several bullets into Sap Bush Hollow’s Farm Store.  

The shooter is a neighbor.  His house is across the creek from the cafe.  When Saoirse and I pull in to start work in the pre-dawn hours, we can see the lights in his windows from our windows.  I had never had any problems with him.  But, I was soon to learn from the police, he imagined problems with Sap Bush Hollow, imagined deeply disturbing things about my daughters and me, and developed conspiracy theories about a number of other people in town.  

New York’s bail reform laws permitted him to continue to live at his home to await his trial.  After the shootings, we had to continue to live and work in proximity to him for the next year and a half.  Because of the damages to our business, I had to be a witness, and until the trial was over, I was directed not to speak or write publicly  regarding the matter except for the facts that were publicly recorded in the newspaper.  

During the 18 months when we awaited the trial, we and the other members of our community had to become better acquainted with the neighbor across the creek.  We learned that he monitored our comings and goings.  He’d drive by with his car with a hole in the muffler, or his motorcycle, and swerve toward the building if he saw us through the windows.  He’d pause in front and rev the engine of whatever vehicle he was operating.  He wasn’t supposed to have any more guns in his house, but if the girls and I tried to use our patio beside the creek and our voices carried across the water, he’d fire off explosives and guns.  They’d be hidden by the time the police could get there.  He scattered nails in our parking lot, dropped dead animals in front of our store.  That first summer we closed the creek side patio to our customers.  We paid to repair punctured tires on our vehicles.  We bought a nail sweeper and learned to sweep the parking lot during the week of each full moon (we began to notice that was his favored time for acting out).  I developed a habit of jumping in alarm when I heard a loud engine or motorcycle.  And I began to fear my windows — of being seen through them, of the bullets that could penetrate them.    One of my few comforts was the company I shared with the other residents in town.  Sit with any of them, and they will have stories to tell about what they endured.  Shared pain reduces pain, I guess. We are all working through our fears.

But this is not what small town life is supposed to be about.  This is not what farming is supposed to be about.  

I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I wonder if the Lieutenant-in-Charge’s comment sticks in my craw because of the cognitive dissonance it causes.  

I want to accuse him of being insular, of failing to open his eyes and see what’s happening in rural America:  homelessness and violence are just the tip of the iceberg.  Drug addiction is wreaking havoc, destroying loving families and robbing communities of wonderful people.  

But a part of me has to admit, the LIC touches on one of my own truths.  

I chose this life because I wanted to be on the land.  Because I love good food, and I cherish my connection with family and community.  

But did I not also choose an isolated, self-reliant path?  Fresh vegetables, meat and firewood are all within arm’s reach.  Family cooperation keeps financial strains contained.  It can be a good year for business, or a bad year for business.  We are never without a warm fire, a roof over our heads, and food in our bellies.  That security puts me in a unique, privileged position, right?  I can decide whether or not I want to tackle the problems of the big wide world.  

When we only opened the farm for business once per month, and kept the gate pulled across the driveway, I suppose that was an option.

But Bob and I felt drawn into the community of West Fulton.  We wanted to use our position as farmers to help build relationships and economic vitality; to give people a place to gather, where nourishing food and good conversation lightened the burdens of people’s daily lives.

We wanted to open our business to the world.  So we fixed up the cafe and the Honor Store, and like good Main Street business people (if you could call it that in West Fulton), we invested in installing windows that let the beautiful wide world know it was welcome.  But in moving the center of business off the farm and down into the hamlet, we opened ourselves up to the pain of the world, too.  

And the past two years have been painful.

In December, our resident shooter finally had his day in court.  We were reminded how he, too, was once a welcome member of the community — Part of the road crew, someone who could fix things, a set of helping hands.   But the drugs got him, too.  They wreaked havoc with his mind, creating a dangerous cocktail when mixed with his love for hunting and weapons.   

Ultimately, the jury found him not responsible for his crimes, by reason of mental illness.

And while the verdict seems unjust, it brings us great relief.  Many of us in the hamlet feared what jail would do to his already scrambled grip on reality.  We worried he’d only complete his sentence, return to his home, and be more dangerous than before.  

But this verdict put him into the mental health system.  If he is ever allowed out, there is a chance it will be because he is well enough to live safely among us.  That is a better outcome than a short sentence that merely punishes for a crime.  

I hope. 

The cafe re-opens for the season this Saturday, and the creekside patio will once again be available to our customers.  I still shudder when I hear a motorcycle or car with a whole in the muffler, but I’m getting better at walking past windows.

Still, I think of those shopkeepers down in Cobleskill, with those fresh bullet holes…how fragile  everything must feel for them right now.   

And this is what I realized in the past two years:  

Yes, motorcycles, loud mufflers and windows sometimes make me nervous.  

But going through something like this, I grew keenly aware that I love what I do.  I love my customers, I love growing food and cooking for them, I love welcoming them.  

That love has given me courage to keep showing up, to keep trying.  

But when you’re on Main Street (if you can call it that in West Fulton), you don’t get to decide which of society’s problems you want to tackle.

Because they come to your door, or through your window.

Every farm stand owner, shop keeper, baker, barista, bar keeper, and restaurant owner knows this.  

The lights in the windows force us to look at our society’s problems head-on. 

But it’s also the lights in the windows that keep a glow in a community, that help the members of a locality recognize what it means to feel at home.  They remind us all that, even when there are problems to tackle, whether it’s the heart of Harlem, downtown Cobleskill, or Main Street in West Fulton (if you can call it that),  there’s a village life worth fighting for. 

 

Shannon Hayes is Chef & CEO of Sap Bush Hollow Farm, and the author of several books, including Long Way on a Little, Radical Homemakers, & Redefining Rich.  The Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow airs for 20 weeks each year during her farm’s growing season. 

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