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What comes Naturally in VermontWhat Comes Naturally - an article by Jane Herman for Vogue  The fog lifts from the fields on Luna Bleu Farm in South Royalton, Vermont, a little before 10.00a.m. Having already helped feed the chickens and harvest the last of the greenhouse zucchini, I am on my hands and knees combing a long row of delicate bush beans for hidden haricots verts. The plants are covered in dew, and the beans, slender as tulip stems, are delicious right off the stalk. I know this because every 20 minutes or so, I eat one.I have come to Luna Bleu, a certified-organic meat, vegetable and flower farm owned by Tim Sanford and Suzanne Long, to “wwoof” – willingly work on an organic farm – for one week. In exchange for my labour, Sanford and Long have provided me room and board; a mattress in the barn and daily meals, all of which are made from leftover crops (the best stuff goes to market first). Our exchange, made through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF.org), a global network that connects people who want to learn more about growing organic food with qualified host farms, is more than fair. I get to get my hands and clothes dirty harvesting chard, digging up fingerling potatoes and collecting heirloom tomatoes from Luna Bleu’s 42 acres of land; I eat the farm’s own grass-fed-beef burgers with cobs of sweet, just-picked corn at the end of a full late-summer day; I glimpse the sweat and science behind a perfectly manicured Saturday-morning market. The farmers, for their hospitality and instruction, get a free hand. There are four of us living in the barn at Luna Bleu; a recent Dartmouth graduate who double-majored in economics and environmental studies; a cheerful globe-trotter and nature enthusiast; a fellow New Yorker and wwoofer who does volunteer work planting community gardens in low-income neighbourhoods; and me, a fashion writer and hobby gardener with a raised bed in the backyard. We are joined in the fields and at the dinner table by Sanford and Long; their son, Lucas; Corey, who bunks in the tree house; Henry, a lovable rogue who “showed up one day” and stayed; and Owen, a guitar/mandolin/banjo player rivaled in character only by the occasional three-pronged carrot we pull up. To spend an hour chatting in the bean beds – pick a little, talk a little – with any of them is humbling. On the farm, you make fast friends. What I learned at Luna Bleu about food – that sweet potatoes are a member of the morning-glory family, that calcium-rich oyster shells fed to laying hens helps strengthen their eggs’ shells, and that those eggshells then make great fertilizer for tomatoes, among other things – was far exceeded by what I discovered about my own strength, physical and otherwise, during my stay. Can I push a wheelbarrow full of heavy, wet grass up a steep, cobbled path to the cow feed? Can I prepare dinner for ten when I’ve just finished weeding the leeks (a tough, bent-over-on-my-feet-for-three-hours affair that tested my patience, my stamina, and the strength of my sunscreen)? Can I care for 70 meat birds one day and then help catch them for slaughter the next? Turns out I can, because I did. “You should eat a pound of dirt before you die,” Long tells me when I notice one day that the water in my thermos is murky (the mud gets everywhere). She, an Ivy League-educated mother of two who can drive a tractor, play the cello, speak basic Swahili, and carry a bushel barrel with the sly power of a yoga instructor, wears her years of good, hard work with the great sense of farm humour. If a bit of dirt every day is what she’s having, then I’ll take some of the same. |
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