Farmer? No, maybe not!

Those who know me know that my interest in natural and organic extends far beyond our Baudelaire soap and body care offerings. These images are of my own home and gardens, set in the rural hills of New Hampshire.

The love of working in the dirt has been a theme for farther back than I care to remember. In fact, when I reached “adulthood”, which in my case, meant I was 18 years old, I was convinced that I wanted to be a farmer. I spent one fall season picking apples and one l-o-n-g summer working for a farmer who grew every kind of fruit or vegetable imaginable: rhubarb, strawberries, beans, peas, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, melons, peppers, broccoli, radishes, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, beets, carrots, onions, kohlrabi…I’m probably forgetting several! And, I loved it.

It was only after I started looking into farming on my own that I realized maybe this wasn’t really what I wanted to do. Every farmer I talked to was driving around farm equipment that was, literally, held together with ingenuity, spit and baling wire. Well, I HATE working on machines and it sure looked like that was a real big part of farming, so I started looking around for other career opportunities and soon I found a very enjoyable opportunity as the owner of a natural foods store – maybe I wasn’t growing it, but I was selling it, and that turned out to be just as much fun.

And, meanwhile, I figured out how to grow lots and lots of food at home using just one, rarely cranky machine – a rototiller. 40 years later, I’m on my second tiller, but I am happy to say there are no old rusty farm machines lying around the yard. Just garden fresh vegetables and bursts of joyful flowers. 

Hope you enjoy the pictures – and the season.