Light and Time, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Moon

"The Sun will rise and set regardless. 

What we choose to do with the light while it's here is up to us."

~Alexandra Elle

Two of the hundreds of sunflowers we grew last year.
Farmer Nic (2018)

There's no denying it: my entire life, I have been largely unaware of how much I cling to an anthropocentric sense of the world and how out of touch I have been with the natural ebbs and flows of Nature's processes. I am living proof that one may major in environmental science in college and still come out the other end completely ignorant of the essentials of what it is to be a living creature in the world. And not only have I been naive to the natural world, but it has caused me anxiety to live in the polarities inherent in both the natural and the human worlds. Out of the struggle though, I have come to deeply appreciate the flexibility and awareness required to succeed in a farmer's life. Two such areas necessitating a redefinition of the roles they play on the farm are light and time. 

Morning light on the farm
Farmer Nic (2018)

Light

Without light—a variable so easy to take for granted—farming simply is not possible. And that's not just due to obvious things like soil temperature, plant germination, and flower blooming. Without light, chores become even less enticing—and more dangerous. Seasons set the tone for everything else that happens on the farm. Not only will an abundance of light produce more flowers, vegetables, and eggs, but a lack of it will stunt the growth of otherwise healthy plants and temporarily switch off the egg-laying mechanism in a chicken. Before, I just enjoyed the light. Now, it feels like I'm in mourning when daylight savings time ends. To have to then resort to artificial light, which uses more energy and costs more money...perhaps there is a reason to mourn.

Solar Light 

Who doesn't prefer the sun?
Farmer Hannah (2018)

Doing chores in the summer is entirely different than doing them in the winter, even if the weather is relatively mild as it is here on the north coast of California. Even something mundane like scrubbing out a water container at 8pm in July when I can still see clearly is a chore completely unrecognizable from scrubbing a water container at 5pm in December when I can just barely make out the outline of my scrub brush and my hands are numb from the hose water. I notice that I now calculate down to the minute the time I have left to do chores, and I only stop when I can't see my hands anymore. Sometimes, I relish the setting sun's foreshadowing of the chore day coming to a close, and other times I grow anxious as the sky dims, knowing there is so much more to do before the sun sets completely. 

Our typical dozen eggs
Farmer Nic (2018)

The light—or lack thereof—doesn't just affect the farmer. Our laying hens produce the most eggs in the summer, when the long days and coastal California warmth encourage an optimal laying environment. Their laying doesn't suddenly start and stop. From summer to fall to winter there is a steady decline in the eggs laid (perhaps only a few a day), but just as surely, there is a steady rise in the eggs laid from winter to spring to summer. Changes in temperature and sunlight naturally trigger molts as well, when chickens (and other poultry) lose their feathers and start over growing new ones. Due to these seasonal fluctuations, the income for the farm follows the ebb and flow of eggs laid as well. Because of this, we are focusing on diversifying our farm so that something is always ready to go to market. 

One of the coops with its light
Farmer Hannah (2018)

Artificial Light

When the days get shorter and the light fades earlier, we use artificial lighting to extend the laying of our hens and quail. To compare a small lightbulb to the sun's enveloping rays seems dimwitted, but it doesn't take much light to trick a chicken. Just a contractor's lamp hanging in the coop with a timer on it is all it takes. The light comes on when the natural sunlight starts to recede and turns off at about 10pm. Then, it comes on before dawn so that the hens are awake and laying eggs earlier. I find it fascinating that this trick works so well that we never really stop producing eggs in the winter. The production decreases but never ceases.

Our pre-greenhouse seed starts
Farmer Hannah (2018)

Before we built our greenhouse, we also used artificial light to grow our seeds before transplanting them outside. This is typically done for plants that fare better when started inside rather than being immediately planted in the soil. In the garage under a grow light, a special frequency promoted photosynthesis. It was always so fun to open the door and see the little sprouts coming up. Now we save energy and money with our small greenhouse, using the sun's rays to germinate and grow our plants instead of using anything that needs to plug in. In this way, we become more sustainable and less reliant on fossil fuels. For times when we choose to use artificial lighting in the future, we have started investing in solar panels for the task. Sustainability is one of the pillars of Table Bluff Farm and we are actively moving ourselves closer to being 100% off-grid.

It isn't difficult to see how a farmer can come to depend both on the natural light beamed upon earth by the sun as well as the artificial light cascading from human-made equipment. Clearly, one form of light is absolutely essential to farming while the other simply adds to its productivity. Should the lights of the power grid fail to switch on forever more, we at Table Bluff Farm would be just fine. Our egg count would decrease, but it wouldn't stop completely. Now that we have a greenhouse, we no longer need artificial light to grow our seedlings. It's important for me to always remember that one is crucial and one is a bonus, and that although I might feel that our farm depends on both forms of light, it's the sun that matters most. With our technological ability to harness the Sun's rays within our  grasp, my goal is that we completely cease relying on artificial light from the power grid. 

Time

Hannah planting for last year's CSA
Farmer Nic (2018)

A farmer is always pulled between the seasonal tilts of the sun and the cycles of the moon as well as by the clocks and calendars of the human world. When I am trying to ensure that flowers bloom in time for Mother's Day, that's the pull. When seeds cannot be planted until the soil is warmer, but the farm share season is starting soon with customers already signed up, that's the pull. My off-farm employer pays me bimonthly, but my chickens don't know that. If I can't afford their feed until I'm paid next week, I decide to eat cheaply this week or put the feed on the credit card (many times, both). That's the pull. There is no syncing that can be done to make Nature conform to my needs. I am forever at the beck and call of the changing seasons. I don't live in the month I'm currently in; I'm constantly living in the future. It's January, and Nic and I are already planning for May. That means that if we don't do what we need to do now—even if we don't have the resources to do so—we may have to wait an entire year for the right time to come back around again. That's the pull.

Lunar Time 

Cinnabar's first litter
Farmer Hannah (2018)

When I started menstruating as a young woman, I wish I had been taught that my own biology can be measured by the cycles of the moon as well. Not only would it have eradicated any shame I felt from the physical changes I would experience as an inevitable part of growing older, but I would have (as I do now) feel a certain sort of kinship with other creatures who also experience an estrous cycle. There are 28 days in a complete cycle of the moon, 28 days in a complete estrous cycle of a woman, and 21 days in a complete estrous cycle of a pig. Similarly, the gestation periods of both humans and sows can be measured by the cycles of the moon. It takes about 40 weeks (9 months) for a human to give birth to a baby and about 16 weeks (or as the adage goes: 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days) for a sow to birth her piglets. How extraordinary that such complex creatures can be formed in such a short amount of time! As someone who has never been pregnant, I felt like I was living vicariously through Cinnabar as she birthed her 11 piglets into my hands. As a female, I felt close to her knowing that we both share the moon as our common timepiece.

Anthropocentric Time 

Chickens waiting on breakfast
Farmer Nic (2019)

Consistency matters. Only one thing will make a pig break out of any kind of amazing enclosure you think you've constructed: no water to drink. Before we built our pickle barrel watering system for the pigs, we carried water by the bucketful down to the pig pens, only to have the pigs playfully nudge the containers over. Then they would get thirsty and find a way to burrow out of their pens in search of water. Now that we are able to provide them with a consistent source of water, we don't get breakouts anymore. It's just as important to collect the eggs at the same time daily (hopefully soon after they have all finished laying) so that you don't get the chickens pecking at the eggs or laying in a random woodpile. You can help ensure a consistent laying schedule by feeding the hens on a regular schedule, too. Consistency in, consistency out.

Velvet with day-old Concepcion
Farmer Hannah (2018)

My own humanly sense of time determines the relationships I have with our creatures, as the more time I spend with an animal, the more affection I feel for it. I get joy from watching it grow and observing its range of emotions. I grow attached to the animal based on how it responds to me and then in turn, how I respond to it. I fall in love with the process of learning its habits and its preferences, with the knowledge that it has a life it enjoys living, too. It doesn't matter if I name animals or not…if I spend time with them, it will be hard to end their lives. I have done both—tried keeping an animal I knew we would eventually butcher unnamed, and it was just as hard of a day as the day we butchered an animal with a name. Many people have named their cat "Kitty" and love it no less than if it were named "Cornelius." Similarly, our pig that we referred to only as "Pig" was just as hard to butcher as was "Velvet," the mother pig to "Concepcion," our most beloved piglet.

January seed starts in preparation for
early spring planting in the greenhouse
Farmer Hannah (2019)

Light and time are intricately, interdependently, and interwoven variables that form invisible bonds between a farmer and Nature. We may be intelligent enough to outsmart many of Nature's processes by artificial means, but it is so much simpler to let her speak, and for us to follow. There is even a great sense of freedom in the letting go—it becomes less of a cerebral task and more of a spiritual and physical one to grow a market garden. The healing effects of gardening and farming are strongest when resistance to Nature ceases. When we as farmers can be humble enough to drop our anthropocentric defenses and learn to live within the world rather than trying to tame it, our productivity and spirits may soar unbound. So I say that we should all learn to stop worrying and love the moon.