Cooking a Life: Part 5 from the Farm
Reaping Autumn
This comes now but it was supposed to have come earlier; I thought I was going to write about autumn, and Dad’s autumn, and hop harvest, in some form, two weeks ago when we surfaced autumn and “Dad Standard Time” and “the now.” What was written the past two weeks wrote themselves—I just had to get out of the way and so delayed the content that make up this post until it fit and felt right. Time’s a’tickin’; it’ll be winter soon enough, and there are a few more things off the Farm in Autumn that are ripe for consumption. These words here are more along the lines of the autumnal things I initially intended to reflect upon as I live with Dad into the late autumn of his life.
The autumn of a life, the autumn off the farm, both offer ingredients to better enhance the flavor, texture, and quality of what becomes our lives. Just like every other organic and sustainable ingredient when we ingest them. It remains an alchemy in the making of a human being. Everything becomes a part, some part, of who we are.
Everything.
And for all time—in some form or another.
The post two weeks ago was going to include this:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
senescence
it is autumn now;
the time of dying they say,
of shutting down.
and i am in the midst of it.
but what dies?
what does it mean to shut down
and how would i know?
i am asking these questions because this is an autumn
i haven’t seen before—
and I’ve seen autumn before.
we look around and see leaves fall
(oh, another name for autumn, that!);
trees shedding their summers,
their “life.”
we look closer and see things that stop growing,
things that go to sleep or
go dormant;
things preparing to hibernate.
we see less of the life we saw
a mere few weeks ago.
i see that too.
it is what autumn brings
every autumn.
and yet it also brings awe.
those leaves are so beautiful.
dad is in the midst of his autumn now.
he is shedding things as well—
things, and memories, and people.
he is preparing to hibernate,
and go dormant.
i see less of the life i saw
a mere few weeks ago.
his autumn brings this.
and yet it also brings awe.
there is, too, such beauty there.
dads are like trees except
when they’re not.
trees, afterall,
will wake in the spring.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The poem didn’t fit then.
It fits now, I guess.
One human lifespan can be conceptualized as one year (525,600 minutes!)—with the four distinct seasons. In Spring there is conception and birth and emergence (on the farm, there is machine and field prepping, planting and sprouting—emergence). In Summer there is growth, thriving, establishment, family, career, earnings—accumulation (on the farm, there is maturing, irrigation, weeding and greening, maintenance—accumulation). In Autumn, there is a turning, senescence pending, changing, falling, retirement—shedding (on the farm, this is harvest. Full stop.). And in winter…
well….
On the farm, winter is a time of compensation for what was sown back in the spring and from the harvest. And it is a time of rest, for some.
In the winter of a person’s fourth season?
That’s the rest of the story to yet be written. We’re not going there just yet. It’s only autumn.
So, yes, autumn….
Oh THIS autumn….
Dad is in the late autumn of his life. We are harvesting, in a way, the Elderings that have lain dormant within his spring and summer. This harvesting is not easy, but just like the harvesting of hops, there is excitement, and anticipation, and soon, celebration in and after all the effort. With also the inevitable tinge of sadness and melancholy that always followed, and will follow—no doubt.
Everyone looked forward to Harvest season. The tasks to be done were so different from the monotonous, dog-days of summer. The harvest pace was different as we raced bringing the crop in to beat the wet season; and most harvest operations run 24/7 until the final bale is stamped and on its way to a brewery which added its own unique nuance to the farm work experience.
The collective land would soon give up a well earned sigh and finally rest. Us too. We would soon be able to sleep in, at least until dawn. Not before. Unless you went to school or had two-a-days in preparation for the football season. Then you worked the night shift.
The harvest season has been complete in the Yakima Valley for a couple weeks now. It’s not yet complete at Club Med Lenseigne in Lake Stevens. Sleep??? Ha!
We’re 24/7 here too.
Dad’s entire energy would change during harvest season. Even though it is a nervous time hoping for strong yields as a payoff for all that hard work that began a good 8 months earlier, it was such a change of life from the regular hard work and monotony of the farm during spring and summer. Dad was in charge of drying, baling, and stamping for bale distribution. I remember that when the Lenseigne Brother’s (Larry, Paul, and Dad) went 24/7 for harvest operations, LeRoy was brought on board as the second lead dryer. And later, as Dad neared retirement, Trevor stepped in to fill those large shoes.
Drying hops was loud, and warm, and boring (my take anyway—the boring part that is. The loud and warm, VERY warm part was always there.). Imagine huge gas burners that sound like jet engines (which, they kinda were), with three foot flames blowing into the kiln spaces below the drying floors set at temperatures so that the forced, heated air would stay near 145 degrees Fahrenheit (envision here how a convection oven works!). In late harvest, as late September approached, and as night time temps dipped into the forties, THAT was the place to be! In the office area of the drying kilns where all the gauges and monitors could be gauged and monitored. In early harvest, or daytimes with temps in the 80’s still, a place to be??? Not so much.
And LOUD—All. The. Time. Loud! The constant bass-like rumble of the gas burners that you could feel, literally, in your bones. I think it took Dad and Trevor quite some time, when harvest was done, to “get used to silence” again. And to talk at normal human levels instead of yelling. Most workers in the machine and kiln areas of harvest ended up with raspy voices as a consequence of trying to be heard above the din.
But Dad during harvest? He seemed to truly be in his element. He loved the importance of that work. The hops had to be dried to rather exacting “moisture content standards” or else mold might form, the brewers might reject the haul, or they’d have to be re-dried or dried further wasting both time, money, gas, and other resources. When the hops were on the kiln floor drying, (see the pictures above), and as the 8 to 10 hour “baking” time neared, Dad would walk out into the drying hops on the kiln floor, reach down deep to pull up handfuls of hops, and, by touch with his fingertips, he would tear apart the buds, down to their inner stems, to feel the dryness. No clock or timer determined when the drying was done. It was done by feel. And Dad loved that. Dad was GREAT at it. Once the hops were baled, Dad would also use a moisture meter to insure that kiln’s bulk of hops met the standard—which they nearly always did. I can only remember very rare times when bales had to be split back open and forked back into dryer hops for re-baling and to get their moisture content lowered.
BTW: hops were dried as part of the harvesting process at the farm sites, and baled, so that the golden-colored resin, called lupulin, could more easily be extracted at the brewery for inclusion into the odd mixture you all know as beer!
Personally, I think harvest time is likely the thing Dad really misses the most from that era of his life—tractors notwithstanding. September was harvest time. He just looked more relaxed; less harried; more calmly and quietly focused on things that were right in front of him instead of spread out over close to 250 acres of fields, machinery, and workshops. Maybe it was more the fact he was simply in one place for a sustained period of time instead of all over the place. And we saw more of him provided we orbited his place of being where he was in his element—the office of the kiln side of the four part harvesting process (i.e. field, machine, kiln, baler). Regardless, he saw that rest was coming after harvest. But for a guy who never really rested, I’m not sure that was much comfort, or anything he really looked forward to.
And now September is over in Moxee. Harvest is done for yet another year. On all the hop farms in the valley.
It’s over, here, too. We are all well into October—well into autumn. And the leaves are falling.
Even though we are decades now removed from farming and harvesting, there remains the still familiar tint of anti-climactic emptiness that always accompanied the post-harvest era on the farm. There and then, the fields were empty. The kilns were empty. Our energy stores were empty. Gas tanks were empty because most tractors and trucks weren’t needed for another five months or so. Pockets were empty as we awaited compensation from the yields.
Here, life is emptying. The pace is different. The energy is different. Dad is different—he’s physically smaller, and getting even more-so. His parts don’t function well anymore. He’s slowing down. Way down. He’s sleeping more, eating a little bit less (not a whole lot less yet mind you! He still fills up on lattes, and muffins, and cookies—and other favorite plant-based meals like mac and cheese (with spinach and mushrooms!), and hotcakes, and soup with sandwiches. And the occasional, very occasional King Charley’s onion rings.). And moving is… yeah. Movement. That’s tough. It’s when he tries to move that I notice it all—and so vividly. Leaves are falling.
It’s Autumn. Autumn with a capital A. AKA…
Senescence.
We await, albeit with some unknown amount of dread that we are trying to prepare ourselves for (but yet, deep down, know there is no preparation worthy of being fully present, with “don’t know mind,” for those moments), for the coming winter.
But for now? Right now? THIS moment?
We celebrate and rejoice in the beauty of this Autumn.
And my goodness—how beautiful it truly, truly is. We have so much to be grateful for. The slower pace allows for reflection, memory, and appreciation. And every day there is grace and abundance.
And love.
“…gracefully it knew life was a gift.”
And then, like all autumn leaves eventually, it lets go.
T plus 110 days…and counting. Each golden leaf that falls is an occasion to pause and appreciate the beauty Nature paints on the canvas of Autumn.
*** Here’s a practice for you: every day for the remainder of this autumn, when you look and see the yellowing and felled leaves, consider the Eldering lessons they are showing you through their senescent beauty.
I’ll be closely watching the tree outside my window as they change color and fall from the tree.
Your words are a soothing balm. Thank you for sharing the poem, the word senescence and the Tom Waits song. Thank you for sharing your experience so beautifully, I needed to read this today.