Footprints on the Web

This year was a special year for the farm. It had been 50 years since it had started as a farm. It was a commune before then. Hippies in their 20s who had degrees and stable jobs in the city decided to leave their lives and move to an island. There was 11 of them in the beginning. They didn’t all know each other. Many were friends of friends. They put their monies together and bought a piece of land with a house on it- the same house that we call the frame/farm house now. All 11 of them. They divided daily tasks such as dishwashing, cooking, childcare, etc. Outdoor tasks such as animal care, maple syrup tapping, etc. were also divided amongst the commune members. They didn’t have nearly as many animals but just enough to feed themselves.

In less than 2 years, as happens with most communal living, differences arose because there were too many alphas. People started being paid out for their investment in the land. It came down to 2 members remaining who decided to grow it a full blown farm. Eventually a new partner joined them on the island and the farm became theirs. There was the shepherd, the fencing & finance in charge and the one who fixed all of the farm autos. As years passed by, the auto mechanic died of cancer and the shepherd asked to retire and be paid out. And so the farm came down to one of the members, his family and debt from loans taken out to pay out past members.

For the first time they decided to have a reunion. They reached out to all commune members well in advance. Most of them turned up with their families from all over. The atmosphere was really pleasant. Everyone catching up at different areas of the farm. A lot of ‘remember when’ stories around the bonfire going on until 5am.  I had seen albums with the patriarch of the farm where he shared stories with me. By the time, they had arrived on the farm, I was able to recognize them. They still had the same personalities just looked older with grey hair.

I didn’t socialize much. There were too many people all of who knew each other but not me. My yurt was close enough to the festivities. I liked retiring to my digs. As the night went on, I had visitors to my yurt to check on me. One of the farmers shared with me the time when her senior dog got sick and passed away. It was hard to listen to as I pictured myself going through the same some day. Her dog was buried on the farm so she always felt close to her. Another farmer, clearly high, kept laughing hysterically at anything anyone would say. Pretty soon we had kind of a reunion on the stoops of my yurt! There were many laughs, stories and idiosyncrasies of people on psychedelics shared. Ofcourse my dog always wanting to be where the party is, was with the hippies most of the night except when it was late and then he decided to come home. Just to hump his bed.

The farm had close knit relations with a brewery that farmed their own products used in the beer. Every year the brewery opened up its space and land for a music festival with some big name artists. There are food vendors from all over that participate and it’s a great fun night for all. The festival takes place on the mainland not too far from the island. I had the opportunity to go to the brewery with one of the farmers and I have to tell you, its one of the best breweries I have been to. Not just for the beer but for the whole experience. The staff is very friendly and they always have a delicious BBQ food truck on site. The farm and brewery is run by 2 brothers and their cousin. Their family has owned it for generations and these guys grew it tenfold and put it on the map. When I started the RFP process for the farm in search of an accountant/book keeper, I was keen on hiring the accountant who did the accounting for the brewery because they do it right. The farmers did end up hiring the same accountant based not just on my recommendation.

The patriarch of the farm had a lot of stories to share. Some found his comments to be insensitive or sometimes discriminatory at times. But I saw past it because he came from different times and didn’t know better. He was not a fan of the woke culture that had been uprising.

One of my favorite things to do with him was a tour of the woods. We would go on Lucy or Ronan (our Kubota general purpose utility vehicles) with my dog. The patriarch said we wouldn’t need to take a gun but not to let my dog loose in fear of coyotes/foxes. That was reassuring! He wore hearing aids and couldn’t talk over the noise of the running vehicle so would make stops a different junctures of our tour to share a story he would remember. There was a ‘graveyard’ where all the rusted , inoperable farm vehicles of the past were mounted up. It was in memory of the farm partner who was in charge of autoshop repair. There was a bench by the cliffs (or bluffs as we called it) overlooking the water for some serene meditative thoughts. The woods had some maple trees that were tapped once a year and the syrup is sold in our retail store. There was a shack in the woods called the ‘sugar shack’ where they used to make maple syrup. The shack was no longer in use and syrup was made in farmers’ homes now. The shack was small, cute and in a picturesque setting. It looked liked something out of a book. I mentioned to the patriarch wanting to live in it and he thought I was crazy. He said he had lived much of his life outside in the cold farming that he had no desire left to live in such a setting. He told me of cold days where he couldn’t feel his hands and had to burry them into this drawers to try to get them warm and sense a feeling in his fingertips. It sounded painful. He told me of times when a vehicle would break down in the woods and he would have to walk back miles to the main farm as they didn’t have cellphones back then. And then would come back with someone to get the vehicle fixed or drag back to the farm.

All of it sounded like a lot of work. Maybe because we are so spoiled with conveniences now. Also, maybe because we have become so used to individualistic way of living and these things often requires us to reach out and rely on people with expertise we don’t have. But back then, they had no conveniences to rely on, only each other. It came a lot easier. Somewhere along the way, depending on a community or asking for help became the challenging thing to do.