2022 Spring Farm Internship Reflection
I spent almost three months interning on the Groundwork farm. My time on the farm showed me the variety of paths that exist through life, and I met people with experiences wildly different from anyone I had known. I learned the basics of many arts and practices, from basketry to seed saving, and it made me want to further develop my knowledge in the years to come. The farm was a place of learning and growth, and I look back on the laughter and experiences with love.
My first full day on the farm, we spent the evening gathering willows and over the following weeks, I wove my first basket. I learned the difference between twineing and randing, how to insert uprights, and so much more I never knew went into the creation of a basket. Alongside baskets, I learned to spin and weave, using a drop spindle to create a few feet of yarn at a time and a backstrap loom to weave thin bands of fabric. These arts showed me how much work goes into the creation of things often taken for granted, from wastebaskets to clothes, and gave me an appreciation for the slow work of creating something worthwhile.
Groundwork exposed me to a community of unique and interesting people and hearing their experiences taking non-traditional paths showed me the incredible diversity of options that exist for how to live a life. While working, while eating, there was never dull conversation. I was always excited to hear what they might have to say on topics from the environment to life and religion. Being in such a community led to conversations that pushed me to broaden my opinions on environmental solutions, seeds, and invasive species.
Part of my work was helping research and write Groundwork’s “bite sized booklets,” which break down complex environmental issues into digestible pieces. The conversations and readings that these booklets brought about opened my mind to new perspectives on environmentalism. I worked on a booklet about the issues with technological optimism, the idea that technology will be the solution to climate change. Before working on the booklet, I had never realized technological optimism existed. I thought finding technological solutions to climate change was just the way the world was moving. It was difficult for me to challenge the beliefs about technology that I had been taught throughout my life, that electric cars are the solution to transportation emissions and that carbon capture could be a feasible answer to atmospheric carbon. Over months of research, writing, and re-writing, I came to understand the issues with reliance on technology, and began to see how what I learned for years impacted my thought process about all technology.
On the farm, we grew thousands of plants. Some of the seeds were scattered on the soil, some were sown underground, and some were started in trays in the greenhouses and planted when the season was right. Working with and talking about seeds as often as we did helped me develop a deep appreciation for seeds and their stories. One of Jeff’s projects is collecting non-commercialized seeds, seeds that have never been sold, only given from one caretaker to another. Each seed variety had a rich history, the story of the places it had been and the people it had known. I loved learning about seed saving, sharing seeds, and watching the seeds disappear and reappear as plants out in the gardens. To me, the seeds were one of the most important parts of working with Groundwork, learning how to plant each one so it was most likely to grow, learning the conditions different seeds needed to germinate and thrive, and working with giant jars of seeds, holding the possibility of plants, of food, and of more seeds.
Before working on the farm, I had been interested in plants, but had never pursued the interest particularly far. Working with people who have incredible knowledge of plants taught me so much about wild and agricultural plants, including how much I still do not know. They showed me the relationships between plants, humans, and the environment, and the ways humans can impact ecosystems. In the past, I had only ever learned about negative ecosystem interactions with humans, the ways we destroy delicate environments. On the farm, I learned about the ways humans can tend to ecosystems, shaping them and becoming an important part of the way they work. Humans and the environment have interacted since time immemorial and concentrating on only our negative interactions overlooks the ways humans and plants have co-evolved and shaped each other.
A big part of the work Groundwork does is sharing new ideas about the environment. One of the ideas that was most important to me was finding enough, that the easiest solution to climate issues from consumerism to carbon emissions is finding contentment in what we have. The idea that working with what you have and finding fulfillment in the place you are in can provide a full and meaningful life. Groundwork provided a space not only to discuss and work to understand these ideas, but to live by them as best I could. It is important to find ways to have hope in what can seem like a hopeless world, and my time with Groundwork helped provide that.
Over my last weekend on the farm, we began building an adobe shed. For weeks before, we made bricks out of mud and straw, leaving them to dry in the sun, and for months we had discussed adobe and made and remade plans for what and where it could happen. That weekend we set the foundation and built the walls up almost above my head. There is still more work to be done, finishing the walls, and building the roof, but I was glad to have had a hand in the project before I left. I know that the adobe will be finished by the people I worked with and by new people, who I may never meet, working with and expanding Groundwork. I loved my time on the farm and can only hope more people will share that experience and take their own knowledge away from it.