My fingers and joints have felt the growing pains of farming this past week. Well, my whole body really. My lower back had never been so tender. It's not that I didn't expect fingers and ankle joints to be achy, I just never imagined them to be the most achy. I guess after transplanting over a thousand baby pepper plants into bigger pots, so they can grow into sturdy young adults before they can be transplanted into the field, anyone's fingers and feet would feel the same ache. I did this last Friday, for about 7 hours: pulling out baby plugs, gathering soil and mixing fertilizer, then potting empty pots with the soil and then planting the baby plugs into their new homes.

Pepper Plugs

Pepper plugs re-potted into pots. 

One Woman Show of Pepper Potting...Woot! Woot!

Into the greenhouse they go until they get big enough to go outside. 

Yes, it was tedious, monotonous work, but a very important process of farming. Listening to an eclectic array of music from Jacob's Ipod added some fun and lessened the loneliness. I find it challenging to maintain a sense of mindfulness when doing repetitive work for long periods of time, and found myself working more from muscle memory...weakening muscle memory, towards the end of the day. Scoop, tamp, level, pull, plant, scoop, tamp, level, pull, plant...get more soil, fertilize, mix, scoop, tamp, level, pull, plant...for seven hours. I'm not complaining, really, despite the monotony, I still found myself challenged, and I love challenges. It was most challenging to stay mindful. This will have to be something to improve on, for mindfulness, as in yoga, is foundational in farming.

You have to be so alert, so aware of a thousand details, always moving, always beating the time, the weather, and a plethora of other daily tasks with unexpected challenges to meet. Ironically, in my farm clogs and dusty clothes, I felt like a city business woman, sans the stilettos and business suit. My business was getting these pepper plugs (baby peppers), into their new pots, in a time efficient, yet gentle manner, while peeking over at the pen of baby turkeys (called polts instead of chicks) every once in a while to make sure none of them flew out, ushering the ones who perched onto the fence back into the pen, making sure to always keep the door closed when going into and out of the shop, or any of the buildings for that matter, so that Frida the cat does not enter to make a buffet out of the polts (that's my worst nightmare).

I think I'm doing pretty well so far. No baby turkeys have been eaten by Frida, and the baby transplants were healthy and green when I left the farm to begin my weekend of R & R. I'm really enjoying my time on the farm and with the family. The Cowgills have been incredible hosts. I've had the privilege of meeting new family members each day so far. I've met Courtney and Jacob's parents, who are all so warm-hearted and welcoming. We've all sat down for amazing lunches of homemade breads, soups and salads, foods you could taste the love they were made with! Simply bucolic!

The fact that families sit down for lunch on a regular weekday wonderfully astounds me! In the City of Angels back home, many people eat meals in their cars or on the go in solitude, and if you're lucky and still between the ages of elementary to high school, you still sit down for at least dinner with family; otherwise, family meals are reserved for holidays or special occasions. The Cowgills are the picture perfect all-american family in my eyes, almost too perfect to be real, like they came out of a magazine of the American Dream. I feel so welcomed and appreciate their continual gratitude for my work. I'm the lucky one.

Through yoga I've learned to find the divine in the mundane. When you look at it, our lives are full of moments considered mundane when compared to those ecstatic monumental few. If we only sought those monumental few moments to be happy or inspired, I think we'd be missing out on so many possibly monumental moments hidden in the mundane veil of everyday events, like transplanting peppers. For me, I did more than transplant peppers, I learned that like yoga, farming will make my fingers stronger, and also like yoga, hopefully break me down to build me back up again.








*Photos and Video by Tiffanie Ma