The year’s truth

Winter squash tasting at Sunday's open house

Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Broccoli
• Salad mix
• Sweet peppers
• Green peppers
• Brussels sprouts OR cabbage
• Sweet Dumpling winter squash
• Beets
• Carrots

I have been thinking a lot lately about the nature of “blogging,” because I have finally (after all these years) regularly started following a few. It’s a handy thing to do while trying to bounce Dottie to sleep with white noise playing on the computer.

Many of the blogs I have been reading are written by mothers, with very sweet (and selective) scenes of parenting. But, because they are so selective (often intentionally so), I have to assume that they do sometimes paint an unrealistic, or at least incomplete, picture of their life.

Even though we post these newsletters on our website, I’ve never thought of myself as a “blogger” — I don’t adhere to the standard genre conventions that I’m seeing on the internet; I don’t have a clear set of followers who leave hundreds of comments; and I don’t have ads on the site. My pictured audience is always you, our community of eaters, with whom we have real life relationships as well. Casey and Jasper see most of you every week, and many of you are in our lives in other ways as well (friends, professional relationships, etc.).

But, I am realizing that I do have something in common with the blogosphere — what I write about here is, necessarily, selective. This is practical of course; I couldn’t write a very interesting or useful regular essay detailing every single project, thought or experience from the prior week. I like to choose a theme or focal point around which to explore our life — it’s fun, and I think it’s much more interesting.

However, I have also noticed this year that I have become increasingly selective about what I write about. What is here is always true, but there is always much more to the story as well. Some experiences and seasons are just plain hard, and it gets tiresome repeating news that says “we’re being challenged” over and over again. And, at times, Casey and I worry that if we let it all hang out, you folks will start to worry about whether the veggies are going to come through for you! (They always do; they always do.)

I’ve also wondered how personal to get in this newsletter. This year we have 200 households participating in our CSA — that’s a lot of people, and certainly more than we can know intimately (although we’ve met at least most of you). So, how much of our life do we put out there on display for all of you (plus the stray reader of our blog)? We’re private people by nature (this is true of most people who choose to live on Grand Island), so just keeping a newsletter and blog feels like a stretch at times, even though it began as an extension of these very real and important relationships in our life.

But, now that we’re nearing the end of our 2012 season (which ends at the end of November, by the way), Casey and I both feel it’s time to share more of the truth: this has been a rough year. A very rough year.

We have touched on this before, here and there as things come up, but I think we’ve toned it down for all the reasons listed above. Also, many of the things that have made the year challenging have been very intimate. There were the farmy things, of course — the flood in January, the incredibly long wet spring, the challenge of adding animals to our farm and managing 100 acres — but there were human things too: troubling inter-personal relationships on the farm; surprises and injuries during my pregnancy; some growing health concerns for Casey; financial stress from the expansion; and so much more …

Some of the challenges were bigger than others; some caused disproportionate stress; some lasted longer than we expected; some were scarier; some were just annoying — but the sum effect was a feeling of never letting our guard down. Just as one thing was resolved, it seemed another popped up. We were always jugging several challenges at once, brainstorming solutions over our family dinner and then often lying awake at night thinking some more.

I like to think that Casey and I are resilient and optimistic people, but even we were bogged down by mid-summer. Casey especially carried a lot of stress with the many moving parts of the farm. We still managed to have some fun moments (CSA pick-up was always a highlight of Casey’s week), but more time than normal was spent in dark places.

The good news is that we persevered and have worked through many of the biggest ongoing challenges — milking has become a routine rather than a big quandary; we learned a ton about how to best organize labor on our farm (and what not to do); and my healthy (albeit uncomfortable at times) pregnancy concluded with a healthy baby.

Yes, it’s been a rough year — not a year that either of us would have chosen, but perhaps inevitable at this point in the course of our farm and our life. We knew the expansion would stretch our farm in many ways — and oh it has! — but we’re beginning to get a handle on our new scale, and it feels good. Casey and I have both been meditating quite a bit on strength and what it means to survive and thrive through harder times. The “serenity prayer” now makes sense to us, and I keep thinking that it is pointless to hope for ease in life and more fruitful to pray for strength.

So, our stress level has been high. At times, extremely high. But, to be clear, so has our gratitude. All along, we have been as aware as ever (perhaps even more so) of our many blessings. To be farming (our life dream) is always a blessing. To be parenting our beautiful Rusty is a challenge and a huge joy. To eat well. To be surrounded by amazing friends and family. To have a marriage that only grows stronger in these moments.

After Dottie’s birth, we were thrown into one of the more intense periods of our year: I was recovering physically from an intense labor and the blood loss involved in the retained placenta; we were both recovering emotionally from the unexpected scare of the hospital transport; we were adjusting to parenting two children; we were completely exhausted and sleep deprived; we were worrying about the cost of the ambulance and hospital bills; we were continuing to manage the growing farm; Casey was milking daily (even in the midst of my labor); and we were suddenly dealing with a labor scenario that came to a head right then (oh, and our domestic well temporarily broke in the midst of all of it too).

And, yet, we were surrounded by love. My parents and Casey’s mom both spent vast amounts of time with Rusty, becoming his vital sources of stability as Casey and I were trying to pull the pieces all together and get into a new routine. Friends brought us meals and played with Rusty some more (oh that boy is loved!). People washed our dishes. Friends listened, listened, listened. We were carried through that hard moment by amazing love. We were grateful every second.

After that, life quieted down a bit, thankfully. Casey and I both remarked at once point that we completed a whole week without any sense of crisis. Dottie was growing; Rusty was adjusting; our new crew was settling in well …

But then another situation popped up, one that is very personal but that we wanted to share with you now, in the midst of it, rather than waiting until it is resolved later.

Casey had a suspicious looking mole removed from his neck just after Dottie was born, and the biopsy report came back with the diagnosis of a malignant melanoma. Perhaps you can imagine the range of emotions and fears this news brought to our household. As is probably appropriate, we went to some dark places indeed.

Now, we’re in action mode. The melanoma diagnosis requires that there be further removal of tissue and a lymph node in order to be “safe” (it’s most probable that all of the cancer cells were removed the first time). So, Casey is going up to OHSU this Friday to have outpatient surgery and then will continue to have follow-up appointments for many years (and he is already taking new precautions to protect his skin every day).

After keeping this current situation fairly quiet, we decided to share the news here because we’re realizing that we need to rethink our life. This year has taught us so much, including the importance of living in love and working towards the best possible solutions. So, we’re using language of hope and trust as we schedule appointments and look toward the surgery. And, what could be more powerful than 200 some households thinking positive thoughts for Casey?

Honestly, it’s a little overwhelming to think of 200 households thinking anything for us — why have we been blessed with a community such as this? Why do we have such a large loving audience for these essays and our farm life? It doesn’t seem fair to be so blessed when others suffer through more with less support. Even presuming to ask 200 households to think about us at this time feels a bit self-centered. But then I remember that you all are genuinely invested too, eating the fruits of our labor, bring us into your home every week as you unload your winter squash and carrots into your pantry. So, whether it’s fair or not for us to be so blessed, you are a positive part of our life, and I want to share that life with you.

If you choose to talk with Casey about his surgery at pick-up this week, please be positive. Even big strong men have moments of weakness, and Casey has been extra strong over and over and over again this year.

We will get through this, and we have so many plans for how to make the next years of our life filled with more fun and less stress. As many others have done before us, we are using this year’s challenges as calls to action and are taking stock of our values and goals for our life. We aim for more laughter; fewer furrowed brows; more river swimming; fewer nights awake with worry.

And, it’s true that dealing with the melanoma diagnosis definitely has taken away from time and energy Casey would prefer to be spending on fall work and preparing for the start of next year’s season (notably the start of the Full Diet CSA!). That is a frustration, but we are planning to hire another person part-time next month and taking other concrete steps to get it all done without feeling stretched thinner than possible.

Whew. That’s a lot of stuff in one newsletter. I think I’ve done a decent job of “letting it all hang out.” Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of our community. Also, since we do see you every week, I want to extend an invitation to you to share your challenges with us as well so that we can also be thinking positively for you. Some of you do this already with Casey — we know an amazing amount about the lives of people we sell vegetables to! — and it feels appropriate to share these weights of our lives over the simple but magic act of food and nourishment. It feels like the essence of community, love, and friendship — all distilled into brief moments of kind words and the collecting of potatoes and onions.

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. Thanks to everyone who braved the downpours to get your pumpkins and taste winter squash at our open house on Sunday! DJ Danger Kid (aka Jasper) played some great tunes, keeping it lively in spite of the gray day. Stephanie transported dozens of pumpkins from the fields to cars in the Gator. Smiles were everywhere! (It was also the most socializing I have gotten to do since Dottie’s birth; it was wonderful to catch up with old friends and meet new folks!)