Punk Rock Farmer

..a lot of people won't get no supper tonight

a lot of people won't get no justice tonight
the battle is gettin hotter
in this iration, armagideon time..

"Armagideon Time"

~The Clash

I was born in 1974. Probably at the tail end of really bad disco, before the whole scene imploded. I remember camping with my family and my beloved BeeGees transistor radio. Thankfully, my mom had some great musical taste so at home my earliest memories are listening to the Doors, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, and the Beatles on our record player. As a young child I used to study the cover of Rumours incessantly.

I was raised by a mom who was, shall we say, accommodating and allowing of our various pursuits. She was (is) an artist, a child of the sixties, and as a young girl growing up in Redmond I recall we had quite the Fourth of July bashes on the ranch. It seems we were the Counrty Mice, and all the Seattle City Mice friends of theirs would show up in droves, Rainer beers in tow, looking for a good, relaxing time. There were a lot of motorcycles in the driveway, and all the guys walked around in cut off Levis with their bellies hanging out. My swingset was popular, and my treehouse was a real hit with all the folks who slurred and talked funny. Sweet Home Alabama and shit.

As I got older, my musical tastes veered toward the foundations of guitar rock (Hendrix, Zeppelin), then briefly toward the hairspray metal of the day, then through Metallica and such, on into bands like The Clash, The Dead Milkmen, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies, The The, U2, The Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc. Rebel music. Some with a great message, some just pissed off.

So back to farming..

I think on the tree of life, I fall into line just before the branches of biker and hippie split off. On the one hand I could totally see myself turning away from this conventional life and moving my family (not so sure about Vic's opinion on this) into a commune. I love egalitarianism, the idea of a free society where we all raise eachother and take care of the planet. Christ, I am a yoga teacher. On the other hand, I could also see  just putting on some leathers, hopping on my panhead Harley and riding with a mean pack of folks whose main message to the world is something like "Big middle finger to the Establishment". Maybe when the midlife crisis hits..

Hence, I am a punk rock farmer. There are many others like me; of this I am sure. I grow because there is a side of me that is so instinctively connected to nature that I have to. I love coaxing plants to make food for us, providing food for others, and I am hellbent on expanding operations to fed more people, teach others how to come back to the land and all that good stuff. But if I am across a table from you (purely hypothetical, wink) as I present a plan to start a community garden in the ghetto, and you mumble to your crony something about growing pot, then fuck you. I mean seriously. Get out. Of the way.

In addition to my main work here at Magnolia, I also intern at Wild Willow Farm and Education Center. I have had the outrageous fortune of meeting and hobnobbing with several key players in the agricultural and culinary world, as well as those revolutionaries who are all about food justice and human rights.

A while back I attended a USCD/Sheepless screening of the film "The Greenhorns", followed by a discussion panel made up of various prominent people (see above). Lucila from Suzie's Farm was up there, and the discussion veered toward the industrial food model, and institutions like Walmart selling groceries. She said, and I am definitely paraphrasing so don't sue me, "If Walmart wanted to sell my produce and I could provide enough, you're damn right I would. I have a business, I want to succeed, and I have my own family to feed."

There was a brief, but impregnable silence in the room as we all pondered our relative position to that controversial statement. The conversation moved on.

I am not going to dissect what was said and categorize it into good farmer/bad farmer.What Lucila said is not as important to me as the fact that she said something relatively unpopular and averse to the mob foodie mentality in the room. There was reality in that statement of hers. There was even an undercurrent of " I am free to choose." Maybe even the tiniest smidge of fuck off.

Hello, punk rock farmers.