The Goddess of Gumbo

Lately on Face­book, sta­tus updates from friends who are play­ing Far­mVille have become as ubiq­ui­tous as Mafia Wars updates were back in the sum­mer. I’ve been mildly curious–not enough so to check the game out. Mostly I just click past and keep on rolling.

Not so much lately though. I mean I click past, but I can’t stop chew­ing on the idea that we need many fewer peo­ple play­ing Far­mVille and many more peo­ple will­ing to get their hands dirty … will­ing to grow some­thing … will­ing to farm …

See, that’s where I am. I don’t want to play Far­mVille. I want to farm.

I know this desire has to do with my family’s land in South Carolina–land they pur­chased right after Eman­ci­pa­tion, land that was farmed through the 1960s, land that’s been handed down gen­er­a­tion by gen­er­a­tion, with­out the loss of a sin­gle acre, to me and my cousins … none of whom have the first idea of what to do with it because our par­ents steered us so firmly toward edu­ca­tion, good jobs, pro­fes­sions and pro­fes­sional achievement.

See, it’s OK with my folks if I have a nice lit­tle gar­den, grow some nice lit­tle roses. A nice even emerald-green lawn–achieved with pes­ti­cides and monthly appli­ca­tions of fer­til­iz­ers? That would be the pin­na­cle of out­door achieve­ment to them. The thought that I want to farm… That hor­ri­fies them. Red clay stains, chick­ens pump­ing out fresh eggs in the back yard–those are emblems not of food secu­rity and self suf­fi­ciency but just of poverty and dirt. My father loves a home-grown tomato as much as anyone–but sees no ratio­nal rea­son why any­one should spend hours pick­ing bugs off the let­tuce when you can get it bagged and pre­washed from the gro­cery store.

I’ve stopped try­ing to explain and just try to keep my mom from sell­ing off her share of the land to her sib­lings … so it’ll be there wait­ing for me when I’m ready to go back home.

But I do not plan to go home with­out skills. That’s why I’m farm­ing right here this summer–in the city lim­its of my lit­tle town in cen­tral Vir­ginia. With my part­ner in plants.

This is our land.

Looks wild doesn’t it? It’s not. We’re less than half a mile from down­town, one block off the main north-south route through town and brack­eted between two major east-west arter­ies. It’s just the prox­im­ity to the ceme­tery that makes the spot seem so secluded and far away from everything.

Of course, it’s not all ours–not all by our­selves. We’re shar­ing with a non­profit and a lit­tle com­mu­nity of enthu­si­as­tic vol­un­teers. More on all that later. Here’s what counts.

Tomor­row, the prop­erty owner comes with a bull­dozer and knocks down all the trees. (Our ances­tors would not have had it so easy!) We’ll keep you posted on what unfolds over the course of the spring and sum­mer. But remem­ber, you don’t have to have 12,000 square feet on a south-facing slope to make Far­mVille blos­som under your feet.

All you need is a plas­tic to-go con­tainer from that lunch at Applebee’s you weren’t able to fin­ish plus some nice soil, seeds, water and a sunny window–a heat­ing pad to get things jump-started and an old towel to go on top of it are optional.

It’s two months pre­cisely before the last frost date in our zone. The per­fect time to start… get­ting your hands dirty!