The Off-Farm Job

While our ultimate goal is to have a farm that provides an income we can live on, every business needs a boost in the beginning. We spent last summer in Alaska saving up enough money to build our modest house and have a little start-up capital for Cedar Creek Farm. But we will need one off-farm income for a few more years, and as the less Cantankerous of the two, I started my job search when we returned this fall.

I spent several months applying for jobs I didn’t really want and/or wasn’t qualified for, without any luck. So, after three months of fruitless efforts, I applied for graduate school. What a difference. The people in the graduate school office were actually friendly! They took me out to lunch and gave me a free t-shirt and miniature stapler just for visiting the campus. I wish applying for jobs was that pleasant an experience. I knew I couldn’t go back to school without an assistantship with a stipend, and as it turns out, that’s just what I got. I am going to start in May at the Crop, Soil, and Environmental Science Department at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Until school starts, I am working at the Squash Blossom, a small natural foods store on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border. I have spent many years working at natural food stores, and love so many things about it. Opening a box of apples to stock and getting hit with that sweet, floral smell. Tasting foods I’d never tried before—kombucha, kimchi, coconut milk ice cream. Dried mulberries, sprouted tofu, ginger jam. Talking with customers and getting to know all kinds of people from the area.

It is not all sunshine and daisies, of course. There are customers that treat us like their personal peons. There are tasks so tedious as to be absurd (we have to inspect each egg individually with a special egg-tapping method). There is the discomfort of being on my feet for nine hours. But it is a joy to be around good food and people who love good food. It reminds me of what we’re trying to accomplish on our farm, and it reinforces my desire to do so.

So I have a few more months in the most pleasant of retail environments until I begin my career in the soil sciences. Dirt, seeds, plants, food, apples, ginger jam. It’s all part of an elegant continuum.