On Women Warriors

We were two drab birds in a sea of pink feathers. It was "Race for the Cure" day, and hundreds of women had convened, along with the occasional spouse or offspring, in the city park on a bright September morning to run, raise awareness, and raise funds toward "the cure" for breast cancer.

Many of the women--and men--had race numbers pinned to their shirtfronts. Most also had pink placards pinned to the backs: "I run in celebration of... Aunt Sibyl." "I run in memory of...my Mom." Some had multiple names on their backs, or stitched on their pink baseball caps, or painted with glitter-glue on their running shoes. It was clear that each person there had some history of suffering or loss, some painful connection that they were determined to honour, to remember, or perhaps even transform with the beating of their hearts and the pounding of their feet. The joyful silliness of their various decorations was an understandable attempt to inject some levity into a serious remembrance.

We were there because my partner, The Piper, had taken this on as an annual volunteer gig. She was in her usual tartan gear, pleated wool in dark greens and blues, befitting the job. No-one would have expected otherwise. I, myself, had dressed to go off to church afterward, and I'd chosen a blouse and pants of earthy brown. As we walked into the pink-balloon-bedecked park full of colour-coordinated racing and walking teams, I hesitated. I felt like a wild moorhen who had blundered into a flock of migrating flamingos.

The park periphery was lined with booths from event sponsors. The Dunkin Donuts booth was mobbed, race-goers squealing with delight at the thought of unlimited free donuts and coffee. Across the way, the Hannaford supermarket booth workers were handing out healthier fare: apples, granola bars, and bananas. They had far fewer takers. (I admit I helped myself equally: one donut, one banana. They both looked perfect but tasted, well, somewhat less than that.) I looked around at the piles of "bling" arrayed in each booth: magenta shoelaces, pink ribbon temporary tattoos, treats and whigmaleeries of every description, all of them dyed or emblazoned or bedecked in some variant of rose, fuchia, blush, raspberry, carmine, cherry blossom...

The brightest display was at a booth near the stage. A banner above the booth declared "FORD CARES." Three pert young blonde women stood in the booth, each sporting a bright batik scarf tied in a uniquely fashionable style. Two men flanked the booth, handing out bling-bags to everyone who walked past. I ventured up, curious. One of the men flashed a smile and handed me a bag. I opened it to find the same scarf, with a "made in China" sticker and two brochures for Ford's charity line of Breast Cancer Awareness clothing: "Warriors in Pink." Above an array of abstract "tribal" symbols like spirals, wings, chevrons, hearts and birds, the brochure declared, "EVERY WARRIOR NEEDS AN OUTFIT."

What?

I looked around again at the hundreds of pink-bling-bedecked women around me. I thought about Rachel Carson, who wrote "Silent Spring" and died of breast cancer herself. Breast cancer is an environmental disease. It is caused by a complex array of factors, many of which are linked to the pervasive, endocrine-disrupting toxicity of the chemicals we eat, wear, drink and breathe in our mass-manufactured society. Those chemicals could be in the free pink plastic water bottles and the free temporary tattoos. They could be in the colored paper and the glitter paint. They could be in the very dyes and fixatives and wrinkle-preventers of those free "Warriors in Pink" scarves. The garment workers in China--probably women--who make those scarves could be exposed to much higher levels of those toxins than we are, we privileged North American recipients of this well-designed, well-marketed corporate charity bling.

The opening ceremonies began and The Piper went up onto the stage. I watched her stand, compose herself, and strike in the pipes. A murmur went through the crowd and people turned to look at the tall, tartan-draped figure playing tunes from another century. The harmonic drones of this ancient instrument took me back to my own "tribal" roots, and I thought about the women warriors of the Celts and the Picts. They earned the respect of their enemies not for their outfits, but for the lack thereof. They were known for charging into battle with very little on indeed, a demonstration of pure intention, confidence, and bravery that came from years of careful discipline. There is some evidence that ancient schools existed to train warrior women in the Celtic/British/Pictish lands. They began their training as girls and grew into powerful women and formidable adversaries.

The fight for cancer is unaffected by outfits. Every warrior does NOT need one. We contribute to the fight against cancer when we refuse to use the host of unnecessary chemicals around us. We build our defences by deflecting the pointed arrows of corporate target marketing. We fight cancer by refusing to pour poison in our yards and in our homes. We fight cancer by refusing to apply chemicals to our hair, our nails, and our faces. We fight cancer by educating ourselves and each other about environmental toxins. We fight cancer by speaking up and speaking out, demanding more regulations to protect our bodies, our air, our soil, our water, our land. We fight cancer by declaring that our poorer sisters and brothers in industrial waste zones deserve the same standards of environmental safety that we do.

We may yet be warriors. Let the beauty of the earth be our ritual decoration. Let our own empowered active lives be our tribute to the fallen. Let our bodies and spirits reflect the purity and healing we seek. And when a restored and healthy planet answers our efforts with showered blush-tinted blossoms, THEN we shall bedeck ourselves in pink.

The Knights Who Say, "KNEE!"

It's been a few weeks now since the Piper underwent surgery to repair her knee. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that some cartilage ended up somewhere it really ought not to have been, and the surgeon was, well, impressed--not in the way you WANT a surgeon to be.

After months of debilitating pain, followed by a fairly uncomfortable post-surgery recovery, the Piper is inching toward full farmerdom again. Last week, she sat in the midst of everyone else's activity and snipped branches down into kindling. Now she is proudly--if gingerly--hauling cartfuls of whey-soaked bread and wilted veggies down to the pigs in the name of "therapeutic strengthening."

The piper is not one to sit still while others work, so these past few months have been especially hard on her, even with WWOOFers cheerfully pitching in to take over her chores and ease my burden of managing the farm alone. She doesn't respond well to requests to slow down, rest, or be careful. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that she's an avid Red Sox fan, I'm not sure how I would have gotten her to slow down at all--thank heavens for the concept of the "DL" (Disabled List). Only after a reminder that "even star players end up on the DL for months at a time..." could she be convinced to lay down with an ice pack for the afternoon. (It also helped that, thanks to the clock radio, she was able to lay there and listen to baseball games!)

She found the first couple of post-surgery therapy visits pretty excruciating. The muscles hadn't been engaging properly due to the inflammation and misplaced cartilage, so her kneecap was no longer being held in place and riding smoothly where it ought to be. The Piper dutifully performed her prescribed strengthening exercises and acquired a special brace to keep the kneecap from "floating."

Last week, she came home from physical therapy with a new look. Like so many other veterans of Wounded Knee before her, the Piper had borne her suffering bravely and displayed tremendous courage and fortitude. The therapist recognized these qualities and sent her home a newly-decorated hero:

The Gael Who Cried WWOOF

Actually, this post has nothing to do with crying. We are dancing joyful jigs, here on the farm, even if we do have only three knees between the two of us.

Back in November, the Piper hurt her knee while shifting a bag of "pig bread" on uneven ground. Ever since then, it's been a challenge for her to manage the daily farm chores. Physical therapy provided a brief respite, but pain and swelling have continued and even the knee specialist confessed some measure of bafflement.

In between my part-time job and a several-month stint as a hospital chaplain, I wasn't much help to the Piper at Wounded Knee. The young couple who stayed with us during the winter helped somewhat, but their hearts were full of their own farm dreams and they moved on as soon as they found a place of their own. (That move occurred right at Beltane-- May 1st, the traditional start of the outdoor work season.)

So, what can a couple of farmers do when they have one bull, two cows, six pigs, eighteen chickens, twenty-four garden beds and three functional knees? It was time for these two Gaels to cry, WWOOF!!!

The WWOOF program counts as part of our Celtic/British agricultural emphasis, as it began in the U.K. about forty years ago. (WWOOF stands, variously, for "Willing Workers On Organic Farms" or "World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.") Essentially a networking system, it allows member farms to seek assistance while allowing "WWOOFers" to seek hands-on education in sustainable agriculture. Farmers and volunteers arrange the details of each informal internship--everything from a single weekend stay to full-season or full-year engagements. While details vary widely, the program's generally accepted standard is that each half-day of volunteer labour is compensated by a full day's room and board at the host farm.

We signed up with the program in April, as soon as we confirmed our Winter couple's departure date. Inquiries started to reach us a few weeks later. WWOOFers tend to embrace opportunities for travel; our first month's inquiries included folks from Quebec, Tennessee, New York, Taiwan and Seattle. We sent e-mails back and forth, trying to ensure the best match between what we could offer and what others might want to learn. We realized we would be educating ourselves, too--expanding the range of skills needed for task-sharing and delegation. We began to brainstorm. We made lists. We talked with other farmers about the specific challenges of hosting volunteers. We invested in extra blankets and pillows. We developed our own list of questions for potential volunteers and began sending them out as e-mail inquiries appeared...and then we chose our first WWOOFer and the real fun began!

So far, the program has been everything we hoped, and more. Our WWOOFers have pitched in with enthusiasm, demonstrated a wonderful eagerness to work and learn, shown good humour, flexibility, and stick-to-itiveness. We've been fascinated by their wide range of life experiences, their travel stories, and the range of things they've seen and learned on other farms as they WWOOF their way around the world. They're not perfect--they do come to learn, after all, and occasionally a tool gets left in the rain or a veggie plant gets pulled instead of a weed--but overall the experience has been genuinely lovely. Each one comes with their own delightful surprises, too--One WWOOFer turned out to be an absolute wizard in the kitchen and helped us work on a new website for the farm. Another has a great way with a camera and has captured our creatures in some wonderful images and videos. A third came along to the farmers' market with a typewriter and raised money by creating custom poems for market-goers on the spot--an effort I'm doing my best to carry on. Shared evenings around the table are another side benefit--we've found the kind of camaraderie, diverse perspectives and wide-ranging discussions on which we thrive.

WWOOFing may not work for every farmer. We have to relax our expectations and give up some of our perfectionism. We have to remind ourselves sometimes that these folks are still learning; many of them love the idea of farming but are unfamiliar with foundational concepts and basic skills. Others come with tremendous skill AND enthusiasm and we have to reign them in a bit, as we lack the resources to tackle the range of projects they ask to undertake. It's a balancing act, to be sure, but isn't that true of farming and life in general? Might as well meet new folks, share what we know, and make new friends along the way!

So here we are, in all our three-kneed glory, dancing. With each new WWOOFer, we learn a new way to move to the music, a new way to dig the beat (beets?) and enjoy the grooves (furrows!) of this land. The WWOOFers complete our broken circle and help us keep in time as the season calls the tune.

Many Happy Returns!

The Piper and I have a running joke. "Marry me," she says, "and I'll take you away to all this."

Well, 47% of Maine voters would be perfectly happy to let us do just that, but it looks like we'll have to wait--and work--a while longer before that particular dream comes true.

And so we work. We rise each morning and greet the rising sun together. We let the Border Collie out of her kennel and she guides us through the door, down the steps, and over to the waiting chickens inside the wee barn. The Piper lifts their little hatch and they come hopping and spilling and fluttering out in a laughable, feathery rush.

We check their feed and water. We gather the eggs--softly brown and sometimes still warm to the touch. We stop to admire the cows, all shaggy and complacent in their neatly-fenced pasture. We hear the contented sounds of creatures all around. We are in love with this place, these creatures, this dear old storied plot of land.

Happy Birthday, my Beloved. Married or not, thank you for taking me away to all this!