Organic Farming with the Bruderhof

Before I talk about the satisfaction of farm work, allow me to show you a picture of one of the EarthQuaker Bike Trip’s fearless leaders, Kristina Keefe-Perry, climbing a huge hill:

We spent the day at the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambursburg, Pa. The farm is completely off the grid, getting all of its electricity from solar panels. It also uses very little gas, as the tractor runs off of processed cooking oil from the college’s cafeteria. They even compost their toilet waste there, creating fertilizer for flowers (but not food!)

We spent all day weeding a field of tomatoes in the hot sun.

There were so many weeds, we could barely see the plants. I know we killed a few poor tomatoes without even wanting to.

Joining us in our work were the many children of a local Bruderhof family. The Bruderhof is a Christian denomination which has settled throughout New York and Pennsylvania. They do not believe in private property, and own everything communally with the communities they are a part of.

The children we worked with were adorable, and probably spent more time torturing the farm cat than they did weeding.

Later, at dinner, their mother explained why she would send them to work at the farm on summer mornings. “There’s not better place to raise children than in the earth,” she said. “It’s their natural environment. You can see how happy it makes them.”

One of her elder daughters had a problem with the statement. “We’re not in the earth, we’re on the earth,” she protested, clarifying that children weren’t wandering beneath the surface.

Anyhow, when the work was done, the field looked amazing. Too bad we couldn’t stay for the tomatoes to ripen!