The day before May Day, a crew from Roots Rising, a youth program out of Pittsfield, showed up with energy, water bottles and granola bars. They came after school, stressed and tired. By the time they left, something had shifted.
For two hours they moved sandbags and tarps across the field. Necessary work, not glamorous. They covered tender onion seedlings with row cover to protect them from a potential frost. A big field, last year’s winter squash, still mulched with hay, needed clearing before we could plant into it. Every row was raked clean by hand.
At the end, we did “A-Rose-and-a-Thorn.” It’s part of their closing circle. Everyone shares something that went well, something they were glad about, and something that didn’t. Each person named theirs.
By that point their whole energy had changed. More alert. More present. More roses than thorns.
Roots Rising has been coming to the farm for years now. High schoolers from Pittsfield, with their adult mentors. They come to learn how food actually grows, to build skills, to get their hands in soil. They take the jobs that need doing but require mostly hands and willingness, not expertise.
Two hours of moving sandbags and raking hay. They came in wound up and left different.
May Day has always been an agricultural marker, the day, going back centuries, when farmers moved livestock to summer pasture and blessed the fields for the season ahead.
Yesterday was close enough. We just did it one sandbag at a time.
If you want to see the farm in person, the farm store is open year-round. More from the farm is in Field Notes.
