The Dignity of Manual Labour

Here's a little exchange I had with a friend of mine over email recently about returning to the city for school and that sort of life in the next few weeks:

Me: I think we're all looking forward to the winter simply for the chance to slow down a bit.

Him: Heh -- *your* winter isn't going to slow down at all, lad ;-)

Me: Yeah, I'm certainly aware of that. Although I think I'll enjoy being able to lay down at night and not have my body hurt. ;-P

Him: The dignity of manual labor wearing a little thin? ;-)

The dignity of labor. It's an album by the Human League, but knowing this fellow, it's a phrase that has some historical import. Can anyone point me to something which describes it?

There's a lot going on in that last line of his, isn't there? The phrase "the dignity of manual labour" suggests to me the idea that manual labour isn't inherently dignified, or often seen as dignified, but that also in some ways it actually is... you know, the whole shtick about "a life of quiet contemplation, a job in the fresh air, hard labor" (see other comments on that blog post for more examples). It's as if manual labour is both seen as something undignified -- maybe because you get dirty or sweaty whilst doing it? -- and simultaneously honest and wholesome.

The thought that the dignity of manual labour could be wearing thin suggests that seeing manual labour as dignified is illusory; that whilst one might believe the labour is honest and wholesome, in reality it isn't (maybe even suggesting that it isn't either, it just is).

Personally I find it irrelevant to think about the dignity of work in such generalities. I'm sure -- wait, I know -- a lot of manual labour is soul sucking and awful (sweat shops, in the extreme). But so is a lot of white collar work (see the song "In Tall Buildings", sung by Gillian Welch, or the movie Office Space). The work I'm doing at the farm is manual labour and happens to be wonderful and something I'm proud of, and certainly something I could see anyone doing with honest dignity. But so was the work I was doing in Toronto as a computer programmer working to revamp a reporting system for a not-for-profit health-care insurance company.

I suppose I could turn slippery and suggest that the dignity of the work really depends on how you view it -- that any job could be dignified if you take pride in it, and such. I could do that, but I think when we talk about "the dignity of manual labour" we're talking about the general societal impression of manual labour, not one's own feelings about one's work. I suppose what I'm saying above is simply that dignity can probably be found in many types of work, manual or otherwise, and so can undignified work. In part I think it does depend on how you think of yourself in the job. If you think your job is soul-sucking and awful then I doubt that job is going to be seen as generally a dignified job. But I think the dignity of a job also comes from how you are treated as a human being, how you treat yourself, and how you treat others while doing the job. If your job requires you to do damage to yourself or others, or you are damaged because of it, then it's hard to see it as dignified.

But that's all for now. I'm off to take a nap.

Weather and Picking Green Beans

Today was the usual Friday harvest routine. Only, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Before I started working with farmers I never really gave thought to why we have this stereotype of farmers always talking about the weather. I mean, I suppose I knew it had to do with their concern for their crops and all. And it does, but I suspect it also has to with being outside so darn much. Compared to living in the city, the weather gets so much more of our attention during a day. I mean, we're constantly feeling the sun or the wind, seeing the clouds pass, putting on or taking off clothing and hats, and gauging how the rest of the day will unfold. Because it's on our minds all day it just naturally becomes something we think and talk about. I reckon it's just like in high-school, where the image is of high-schoolers' conversation dominated by gossip about other students; for farmers, weather is gossip.

So what does absolutely gorgeous weather mean to me? Well, it means 23 C (23.5 C in Newfoundland), sunny and partly cloudy with 20 km winds from the north. With a good night's sleep at my back I could probably work an entire day and still feel up for more. At least, that's how I feel today.

Today we started picking green beans. Picking these guys is very much like picking peas, in the sense that it's relatively slow (compared to the other crops), and requires careful attention to find the beans amongst the clutter of leaves and stalks. It's also not as gustatorally entertaining because eating green beans raw gets really old, really fast.

I spent an hour or two yesterday searching for recipes for the next CSA newsletter. I came across the idea of roasting green beans with garlic and oil and salt. "Ugly Green Beans" the website called them. Yum. I'm really looking forward to trying them.

More on Sleep Schedules

You know, I don't think I really gave enough context for why I've been so concerned with my sleep schedule. Of course it's to do with feeling energetic and sane enough to work hard for twelve hours a day, but the reason for my interest in that is because I'm curious as to how sustainable this sort of job is. That is, I'm trying to figure out how, if I were to make a living as a market gardener, to keep up with all the work whilst not burning out. Figuring out how much sleep I need is all part of that.

Anyhow, I've returned to the original schedule of 4:30 - 9pm. Going to sleep at 10pm worked out for a few days but then I started to feel like the days required so much more effort than they had been. Once I had returned to a 9pm bedtime... well, I'm just surprised at how much more easy the days are. This week I've sort of been staying up late again and it's a real drag -- at times I've had to push myself to keep awake, or to keep moving, and it's no fun.

Anyhow.

Taking Photographs

So I'm leaving the farm in about five weeks. I realised this a week or so ago, and since then I've noticed a bit of a shift in the way I regard myself and my work during the day. I guess I mean to say that I'm starting to notice that I will sometimes pop out from behind my eyes and see myself and everything around me as if I were another person standing near by. I end up taking mental photographs of all of us working, or of the fields and horizon, of the animals. It's sort of like I'm mentally documenting things so that later I can have the appropriate fodder for the bit of my brain responsible for nostalgia.

Eat the World

Rain. We finally got some today. I think we've only really had about 6/10ths of an inch over the past month and a bit. Today we had 7/10ths in two bursts. It's a beautiful thing to be standing in a field while the rain pours down in a steady spatter. It's cool and smells clear and really... present. I mean, you can't help but feel entirely situated in the world when you're standing in the rain, you know?

Anyhow, the harvest routine is still driving the days forward. We harvested the last of the broccoli today, kohlrabi, turnips, and cabbage finished up last week or the week before that. Just today we started harvesting fennel, and earlier this week we started on the zucchini. There's talk of harvesting the first of the green beans tomorrow, and possibly carrots and new potatoes next week. Holy.

Preserving

Yesterday we spent the morning harvesting cabbage and kohlrabi for a wholesale order. In the afternoon we preserved some of the left over vegetables from the previous day's CSA harvest.

We blanched and then froze broccoli, snow peas, and garlic scapes. We also made 33 bottles of pickled scapes. I think the prospect of me actually enjoying pickled scapes is rather dubious, but I'll give it a shot -- they're so good when they're fresh, they have to get better once they've soaked in salty acid for a week, right?

Anyhow, it was a great day. And a busy day. My head felt quite full on the way home. I thought a day of preserving would be rather relaxing and enjoyable because of the change (and the extreme lack of bending over to lift things). Maybe it was the pacing of the day and how much focused attention it took. Everything we did involved coordinating the timing of things: making sure water was boiling, keeping track of how long something had been boiling or sitting or cooling, making sure things didn't get too hot or too cold, etc... I felt more tired after a day of that than I have been feeling after a day of transplanting.

I'm glad we did it though. Knowing that each of us will be able to eat our amazing broccoli and peas in the winter... well, it's just great.

An Experiment

This week I've been running a bit of an experiment on myself. As I've explained, for the past three weeks I've been keeping to a sleep schedule of waking at 4:30 AM and going to sleep at 9:00 PM. My old routine was to have no routine, which meant really late some nights and others really early. So far, keeping this routine has been great. I've had plenty of energy during the day, and just enough time to get done anything I need to in the evenings. Well almost. I've been finding it a little compact of a life, since I usually don't arrive home until about 7:00 PM at the earliest, and so by the time I had cleaned up and had something to eat I would have about an hour to myself.

So this week I've pushed my bedtime to 10:00 PM. See, I've found that getting 7.5 hours of sleep a night is sustainable but the question is, is 6.5? The results so far: promising. This week the weather has been rather cool, which makes it hard to compare my energy levels to previous weeks when the weather has been particularly warm. I don't do so well in the heat; I sorta loose a few of the middle gears so that I'm only able to operate sluggishly or in frenzy.

In any case, I've felt fine when we're working and only noticeably more tired in the corners minutes of the day -- when we're walking tools back to the shed, sitting after lunch, or if I lay down when I come home.

I figure next week I'll try going back to my previous routine of a 9 PM bedtime and see happens. I'm sure you're all looking forward to the results!

Pictures

At the Georgetown Market

Our stall. Note the beautiful sign. Note the fact that I'm standing on my knees.

Our broccoli is incredible! If only you could have so much fun, huh?
(l to r: Amanda, Ali, Me, Jarrod, Jeff)

Weeds

Here's a little extract from the 'Notes from the farm...' section of the CSA newsletter I wrote. I think it sheds some light on why we weed:

We harvest for your baskets as near as possible to the pickup times so that your veggies are as fresh as they can be. We harvest on Tuesday morning for the farm and Oakville, Thursday for Guelph, and Friday for the Georgetown market and drop-off.

On the other days of the week we spend most of our time in the fields and the greenhouse tending to the crops. One of our main tasks is weeding! A weed-free garden is essential because weeds steal nutrients, light and growing room from the crop, plus they can provide a home for pests and make harvesting more difficult. Conventional farmers use herbicides, pesticides, and genetically modified crops to manage weeds and pests. These chemicals have harmful or unknown health effects on humans and the surrounding ecosystem, besides which the weeds or pests that do survive are generally more resistant to the toxins -- making this a never ending escalation of attack!

Organic farmers choose to use other methods to control weeds. Day to day this often involves mechanically uprooting the weeds. A surprising amount of the weeding on our farm is done by Jeff on the tractor. With his sharp eyes and lightening fast reflexes he maneuvers two blades or claws to within one or two inches along either side of the rows of plants. This quickly kills most of the weeds. Any weeds that remains are pulled out by hoe or just simply by getting down on our knees and pulling them out by hand. Quite a task for the six of us in the ten acre garden!

But the result is worth it: superior fruits and vegetables grown without using chemicals!

Catch Up

Well now, let's catch up. It's been the regular pattern of harvest days and fields days. The garden is looking amazing. New crops popping up all over the place (hint: beets soon, and also zucchini!). Our field work has been mainly removing row cover, hand weeding, and hoeing. Maintenance work really.

One piece of news, the massive brassica planting we did last week was entirely ruined. We covered the seedlings in floating row cover after we planted them, and then left them for two days before coming back to have a look.

Bad idea.

The farmers think it was a combination of the extreme heat last week, row cover, and not irrigating. We pulled the row cover off on Thursday to discover that almost every seedling was burnt to a crisp. This is a bit of a shame because we had planted the cabbage and half of the broccoli that was intended for the winter.

This week we managed to plant a few trays of left over cabbage and cauliflower, but I think the farmers are going to ask other CRAFT farms if they have any transplants to spare. Okay, I have to say it: it's amazing how quickly things can turn from promising to disastrous with crops.

The market went really well on the weekend. I think partly because of the variety we had, our increasing skill at displaying our veggies and engaging the customers, and because we had a newly painted sign. I'll see what I can do about posting some photos of it tomorrow.

This week Jarrod, Jeff, and I worked on making a better device for rolling up the row cover. I could explain, but I think a picture would be more helpful.

I've also still been fiddling with the cool room. Last week the thermometer outlet arrived. It's working wonderfully; it's keeping the temperature at 10 C within 1 C, without frosting up at all. This week I'm working on tracking how much power it's consuming and comparing it with the power consumed by the old cool room (i.e. the entire farm store).

Finally, snow peas. We harvested snow peas today for the Oakville and farm CSA pickups. Delicious. I like snap peas a lot, but I get pretty sick of them after munching on them for an hour. Not so with snow peas. There's something infinitely satisfying about them. But they have to be perfectly ripe, otherwise they taste either like masking tape or potting soil.