It was mid-day, the sun hanging behind whitish gray clouds. The breeze coaxed me down the garden bed with its cool hands on my back. I plunged my gloved fingers into the mounds of rabbit manure, and despite the ammonia smell stinging my nostrils, a smile cracked across my mouth. I turned to Helen, my (brave) partner in crime: “You know, a part of me wants to say I never thought I'd be spreading rabbit poop with my hands, but then again..maybe that's not true.”
If you took a peak into the pages of my personal history, you'd probably agree. But my story doesn't start off as expected.
Growing up in the suburbs right outside Seattle, I didn't have many opportunities to dig my hands into fertile soil, let alone fertile animal manure. My parents kept a modest garden when I was pretty young, but my memories of it are few, and in them I was never the one getting dirty. It wasn't until high school that I even began to think about what it would be like to grow my own food, and not until a few years later, as a college student, that I had my first-hand experience working in a friend's garden plot.
If you took a peak into the pages of my personal history, you'd probably agree. But my story doesn't start off as expected.
Growing up in the suburbs right outside Seattle, I didn't have many opportunities to dig my hands into fertile soil, let alone fertile animal manure. My parents kept a modest garden when I was pretty young, but my memories of it are few, and in them I was never the one getting dirty. It wasn't until high school that I even began to think about what it would be like to grow my own food, and not until a few years later, as a college student, that I had my first-hand experience working in a friend's garden plot.
Flip the pages ahead, to a couple years later, and you'll see me living in New Orleans, as a volunteer in a communal house, sharing my home with homeless folks and trying to figure out what it means to be an ally to marginalized communities. Down the street from our house was a community garden where we tended our own plot. I remember the thrill and wonder I felt thumbing through gardening books, learning about this magical philosophy known as permaculture and wondering how I could use it to grow vegetables I'd never even tasted before like okra and collard greens. The greatest pleasure came when it was time to plant my first seeds, and oh how I waited in great anticipation for those little seedlings to finally make their debut inside their cozy little seed trays. An idea came to me to try composting with worms, which I did in a simple plastic bin, and from there my homesteading efforts grew to building a three compartment compost system in our side yard, and eventually, raising chicks in our defunct bathtub.
When I returned to Seattle, with a garden-loving boyfriend in tow, I tried to keep my interests in urban farming and community sustained by joining cooperative houses where there was a shared love for these things. First, we lived in a home with a big garden, quails, rabbits, ducks, chickens, honeybees...(the Shangri La of urban backyards). I discovered that while I loved to plant seeds, I loved to commune with the animals even more. It felt so intimate to watch litter after litter of fuzzy baby bunnies born on our “farm”, and my understanding of these creatures grew when I got to participate in some of the chicken and rabbit slaughterings for meat. It's a bit of a stretch to say, but I felt like a true farmer during those moments. Wise with the knowledge of what it means to watch an animal be born, see it grow, and carefully release it in to the folds of that final part of the life cycle, death.
This past October, I married the same garden-loving boyfriend, and we spent our honeymoon in Vermont among the gold and red tipped trees. For one week of our trip we volunteered on a dairy goat farm, and this was my entrance into the world of wwoofing. It was about half-way through that experience, while walking to and from our daily work sites, my body caked in dirt, my heart swollen with gladness, that I told my husband, Marcus, that I wanted to keep wwoofing. No, not in New England: in Washington. I thought, surely there has to be an urban farm somewhere in close proximity to Seattle, where farmers are just chomping at the bit for an eager volunteer with energy to give.
A simple search on the wwoof site led me to Songaia Co-housing Community, “an oasis of 10+ acres surrounded by the ever-growing suburbs.” Hmm, I thought, an oasis in the suburbs, could such a thing exist? And then I read on to learn that Songaia was an intentional community, and my mind was pretty much made up. The prospect of playing in the dirt, with the additional opportunity to get to know and learn from this unique group of communitarians, made my mouth water. I began my search hoping to find a farm, any farm, close to Seattle that could feed my desire for more open landscape, more productive work that leaves me with a tired satisfaction at the end of the day. What I eventually found in Songaia met me in that way, and in more ways than I think would've been possible at any of the other options near me.
Now the pages of my history reveal my life and times as a volunteer at Songaia. It's winter time. The soil may be frosted over, but it would be a mistake to think that there isn't life under there, wriggling about, stirring up something spectacular for seasons to come. I know, because in the little less than two months I've been at Songaia, I've witnessed the resilience of the plants. I've seen dormant garden beds breathe to life again after healthy shovelfuls of rabbit manure. I've watched the tiny, weather chapped plants change from pea soup yellow to vibrant, almost electric, green, just from lifting their winter cloches, announcing their rearrival in the garden. But best of all, I'm in a special position to witness the resiliency and vibrancy of the community of people who live here. Slowly, trustingly, they let me in to their lives, and I sense their heartaches, their joys, their commitment to one another, their ear for the land; the web of life they are creating together.
Here, I find myself becoming a part of their web, and I feel gratitude. I rub the rabbit manure between my fingers, and yes, maybe this was inevitable. All of it.
Now the pages of my history reveal my life and times as a volunteer at Songaia. It's winter time. The soil may be frosted over, but it would be a mistake to think that there isn't life under there, wriggling about, stirring up something spectacular for seasons to come. I know, because in the little less than two months I've been at Songaia, I've witnessed the resilience of the plants. I've seen dormant garden beds breathe to life again after healthy shovelfuls of rabbit manure. I've watched the tiny, weather chapped plants change from pea soup yellow to vibrant, almost electric, green, just from lifting their winter cloches, announcing their rearrival in the garden. But best of all, I'm in a special position to witness the resiliency and vibrancy of the community of people who live here. Slowly, trustingly, they let me in to their lives, and I sense their heartaches, their joys, their commitment to one another, their ear for the land; the web of life they are creating together.
Here, I find myself becoming a part of their web, and I feel gratitude. I rub the rabbit manure between my fingers, and yes, maybe this was inevitable. All of it.
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