This blog entry, edited down, became an NPR commentary on the California Report, August/September 2010

Crisp apples at the farm
I never really planned on becoming an apple farmer. But thirteen years ago, I bought a rundown eight-acre organic apple farm in the Sierra foothills.
I had lived next door to the farm and had admired it for years-how the apple trees would change with the seasons. Bulging with bright red and green apples in the fall, stark and bare against the winter snow. And then glorious and abundant with pink and white blossoms in the spring.
I got to know the elderly couple that owned the farm, Willi and Maria. They were in their 90’s and had lived there for over 50 years, planted all the trees and tended the huge organic garden.
They reminded me of my Scandinavian grandparents, who were also farmers. I felt like I was visiting family when I’d stop by and admire all their work and the wonder of the beauty and bounty that the farm provided. They’d send me home with a box bulging with their harvest, bright juicy tomatoes, sweet corn, crisp apples.
Then Willi and Maria died, and there was a rumor that a developer was trying to buy the farm.
I was almost as astounded as my friends and family when I stepped forward and declared: “I want to buy this farm and carry on their legacy.” I did and the rest, as they say, is history.
A rich history, full of blood, sweat and tears, but looking back, I can’t imagine my life any other way.
That first summer, I fluctuated between awe at my good fortune and terror that I was going to ruin it all from my ignorance. I studied and read and called every farm consultant in the county to get help. That first fall, I harvested a bazillion small wormy apples. I made a lot of applesauce, apple butter and apple pies.
Since then, I’ve learned the nuances of pruning, watering and caring for organic apple trees. I’ve discovered that it is safer to climb the trees than to trust ladders.
I’ve also broken an irrigation pipe while riding my mower in tall grass, creating a fountain of water 20 feet high. After racing to turn off the water, hunting down a rusty wrench from a shed and unscrewing the broken pipe, I hauled it into the hardware store and, covered in mud and sweat, pronounced: “I need one of these.” New pipe in hand, I went back, screwed it on, turned the water back on and rejoiced in my triumph. No more fountain.
I grow a large organic vegetable garden, filled with luscious, juicy tomatoes, beans, melons, corn and too many zucchini. I send friends home with boxes full of our abundant crops.
Eight plump hens lay large brown eggs each day, still warm when I gather them, with a soft down feather stuck to them sometimes.
My apples taste crisp, fresh and delicious, though the worms and I are still battling it out.
I don’t belong to a gym—lifting 50 pound bags of chicken feed, raking, dragging hoses around, digging and reaching—all the movements mimicked by gym machinery, I do on a daily basis, outside in the fresh air.
I’ve learned the humbling reality that Mother Nature rules, when one night of a late spring frost can kill a whole year’s crop of fruit. I have to scrub hard to get the dirt out from under my fingernails to go out in normal society.
What I could not have known is how much I love it all.
There’s the satisfaction of having a first hand relationship with growing food—choosing the seeds, laying out the garden, preparing the soil, watering and watching the tiny shoots emerge.
Then the wonder as a patch of rich, brown dirt turns into corn, beans, melons, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, beets and too many zucchini.
It’s more than the thrill of how the fresh food tastes. I have a relationship with this land now that is as real as the ones I have with my friends and family. I feel a responsibility for the care and welfare of the small piece of earth that I have had the good fortune to own for just a little while.
The fresh food I grow nourishes more than my body. Living close to nature feeds my soul.
Watching the seasons turn and an apple blossom turn into a crisp, tart apple.
And at the end of the day, it’s magic.
Pure magic.