Has your life ever been fundamentally altered by a moment in time?
I had one of those moments at Jubilee Farm, and the memory clings to me like dust on a dashboard. We’ll say it was the autumn of 2016, although that is an approximation (give or take a year). 2016 was a few years before I owned a “smartphone” or carried around a camera in my pocket, so I lack a timeline of photographic evidence, but the memories are more vivid than any pixels on a screen.
By this time, I was a well-known workshare member at Jubilee. The regular 20-week summer session already ended, but the owners were nice enough to let me continue worksharing through the autumn season. I remember it was a Tuesday, the first week of November because the annual Harvest Festival just wrapped up the weekend prior.
As the seasons change from summer to autumn to winter, the Snoqualmie River reliably brings flooding to the valley. It becomes a question of when NOT if. However, this particular year, it was uncharacteristically warm and dry through all of October and into November. In the first week of November, there were still plenty of pumpkins left over in the fields, especially in the “homestretch” field down around one of the bends in the Snoqualmie River. Due to the unseasonably dry weather, the cows were still grazing in the fields. (Normally during the wet season, the cows must be moved to an elevated barn because it would be unsafe to keep them in the pasture during flooding. Not to mention, large animals grazing on wetlands is damaging to the soil because heavy hoofs trudging through mud create divots, ruts, and soil compaction).
But this year was special because the weather conditions allowed the cows to stay in the fields longer than normal. It was a perfect fall day, a crisp and dewy dawn, leading to sun and blue skies by mid-morning. This year was exceedingly special because the cows got to reap some of the autumn harvest bounty.
The fall farm crew was smaller than the peak season crew, just the normal few paid employees, and a couple of workshare members. When we arrived to shift that day, the owner David handed us some machetes and told us to follow him. We marched out to the “homestretch” field beyond one of the farmhouses, where the cows were grazing on grass at the edge of the pumpkin patch. Our job for the day was to slash the pumpkins in halves or quarters with the machetes so the cows could come behind us and eat them. At this point in my life, I had never held a machete. Also, I knew next to nothing about cows. As a workshare member, we were more involved with the vegetable operations and less with the livestock, so I only admired the cows from a distance. This was my first time being up close and personal with the cows, and I loved it. I had no clue cows could eat pumpkins and I was fascinated!
At first, I was intimidated by handling the machete, but I learned fast. I held on with two hands like a baseball bat, swung it over my head to gain momentum, and then slashed it downwards as swiftly as I could until the blade slammed into the pumpkin skin and cracked the flesh wide open. I quickly fell into a rhythm; this machete became an extension of my arms, and we danced among the pumpkin patch… hack, slash, bash... as the pumpkins eviscerated open, spilling their insides out, exposing the darkness of the pumpkin’s womb, and cooking it in the bright, crisp autumn light. As soon as we cut the pumpkins open, the cows followed behind us and devoured them… flesh, membranes, seeds, and all. They loved it!
The paid crew was diverted to another job, so it was just me and another workshare left in the pumpkin patch, and we spent the entire four-hour shift hacking pumpkins. Most of the time at Jubilee we worked in larger crews of 5 to 10 people and there was a lot of chatter and camaraderie among the crew, which I enjoyed. But since there were only two of us, we spread out far across the pasture and got lost in our own rhythms and thoughts.
After all the hustle and bustle of the summer season and the October Harvest Festival at Jubilee, it was such a relief to slow down the pace. It was a quiet time to introspect and reflect. I remember taking a few quick breaks from smashing pumpkins, to look up and admire my surroundings. I thought in awe, “How did I get so lucky?” It was so peaceful in the valley on that day. Idyllic. Serene. I could look 360 degrees in every direction and not see another human. Occasionally a car or bicycle would pass by along the farm road, but for the most part, we were very much alone. But I never felt alone on the farm. It’s true, farming can be isolating, but solitude is what I seek, it’s what refuels and rewards me. I felt incredibly fortunate to be a human sharing this space with the cows, the birds, and the rest of the natural world down by the river.
This was the watershed moment for me. For the first time in my life, I felt like a real farmer. Despite only farming one day per week and living/working in the city the rest of the time, something happened to me that day. I knew I had to be a farmer, I discovered what I was meant to do. I knew I had to grow pumpkins and work with cows, and I knew I had to recreate this experience for myself and others.
Copyright, all rights reserved, 2022, Kayla McCarthy.
(Author’s whereabouts upon publication: Town House, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, making the most out of garrison life).