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Throughout the winter, before the pandemic, I had dreamed of going to paint on a farm or in a small Café in New England. I may see it all: I spent my days feeding goats, sitting around campfires and drinking homemade lemonade in a box of wildflowers. I’m looking ahead to do another assignment I used to do and take a break from the work I’d had since I graduated from college.
When my TV production/development paintings ended in April, there was no glimpse of a return to normal for the entertainment industry. I sat in my New York apartment from March to June, overdue, reading, cooking and calling my reps.
I paid the $40 club according to the year to your network and contacted some farms in the U.S.
Finally, I limited my roles to two potential hosts, one in Washington state and the other in the middle of the Maine coast. I made the decision that I was not imaginable (for many reasons, whether COVID and not COVID) plan a cross-country flight at this time, so I showed my stay at the farm in Maine.
My roommate also joined the adventure, which delayed nursing school via a year because of the pandemic. We discovered subletments for our rooms through facebook connections and groups, then began to pack and be able to cross national borders.
We were registered in our respective hometowns before we went to Maine. My check in Boston took place in an emergency care center with a five-hour wait and charged $160; wouldn’t settle for insurance because I was asymptomatic. Of course, I am still waiting to know if I will be refunded through my insurance.
Once we got the negative results from our check, we loaded the car from the family circle borrowed from my roommate (available because his brother’s summer program was canceled) and headed to Maine.
He had a few thousand dollars saved at the start of the pandemic. I was able to pay off a small credit card debt in 2019, releasing a small portion of my paychecks to save money. In May and June, I was able to save around $5,000; this was only imaginable because my student loan bills had frozen, my transportation prices had fallen and, more importantly, I earned $928 a week (after taxes) on unemployment checks.
Although my expenses here are particularly lower than in New York (before and after the pandemic), there are prices related to my choice. I do not pay rent and discovered a subleramiento for my apartment in New York, so I am also not guilty of renting there. An available car is the key to our mobility here, however, as it is a family car, there are no gas-related fees, which costs around $25 per week divided between my roommate and me. I had to buy some new clothes, long gardening pants to keep the bugs away, and lots of insect repellent and sunscreen.
It’s a less expensive option than living in New York, however, this freedom is only imaginable thanks to many very important privileged situations: access to a car, parent-sponsored fitness insurance (I’m under 26), the fact that ‘I’m not financially guilty of someone else, and a total number of privileges that lead me to earn a satisfactory salary in entertainment in New York in the first place.
They have so much wisdom and deep-rooted intuitions; Each and every day, I am informed a lot of new data about the multiple uses of weeds and about “good” or “bad” insects.
Many are also on COVID-like diversions of life, from restaurant paintings to nursing schools and world travel. Others may have been here regardless of the global pandemic: they have been growing for some time or have spent a summer here between college semesters. Our paths probably wouldn’t have crossed at any other time or position in life. We live, paint, cook and eat appearance to look; there is a first semester of school or summer camp to spend so much time with strangers.
We can stack our hours as we see fit; I’ve worked five days from 7 to 8 hours and I take two days off a week. The day starts with a quick breakfast at 7:30 a.m. to talk about the day’s chores. We are at the mercy of nature to plan our day; if it’s cloudy, it’s a smart day for transplantation. A rainy day means we’re bombarding peas and preparing for a storm. If it has not rained for a few days, the total day can be dedicated to manually watering each garden.
In addition to the modifiable schedule, I consider that this delight is more in line with my paint concept than with any previous task I have had. Most of my paintings are made on the farm: weeding, weaning, harvesting, compost flipping, etc.
But preparing lunch or dinner for space “counts” as it also counts as hours, as well as shopping, cleaning and planning. It is an exercise to perceive what is needed for space and feed an organization of other people, as well as for my physical condition and energy.
The farm is commercial, meaning that the owners grow food for themselves and their nearby community, for sale. This takes a lot of strain off them and the staff here, there is no source chain or interest of corporations that require some return.
It is an immeasurable privilege for paintings in small-scale, non-profit agriculture during coronavirus, as agricultural staff across the country, the vast majority of whom are Latino and POC, are denied a threat premium, fair wages and safe operating situations in order. to keep food at our tables. Undocumented staff cannot report unemployment, sickness benefits are very limited, and childcare is unaffordable when schools close.
The history of agricultural paintings in this country is full of racism, injustice and violence. Much of the trendy agricultural land is land that has been stolen from black and indigenous peoples, and those who benefit from slave/migrant/low-wage labor are predominantly white. While much of today’s agriculture has its roots in the Afro-Indigenous tradition, black farmers lately account for less than 2% of all farmers in the United States.
From picking vegetables to sautéing vegetables and cleaning after a big organizing dinner, the farm is a small-scale, humane and eco-friendly example of paintings related to each and every level of our food chain.
Contrary to my initial farming dreams, there are no baby goats to bottle feed, and there are too many mosquitoes to even think about frolicking through any kind of wildflower. It’s hard work. The days are long and exhausting. In the end, I’m an unpaid task on a nice small biological farm to break with “real life” when both farm staff on commercial farms hire COVID at maximum rates. I’m comfortable enough to take a holiday running like that without knowing where my next source of income will be.
I will also be informed to appreciate not only the amount of paintings involved in the development of food that I eat every day, but also the point of care to be brought to a morally and disgustingly rich environment.
I don’t know exactly what my next step will be after I left the farm. Wherever I am located, I plan to upload recurring donations for food justice projects into my routine, buy more in farmers markets and continue to look for local agricultural stocks. All this delight has taught me to be patient and to pay attention to my instincts most of the time. By opting for my next professional development, I know I will take the time to deliberately think about the price of my paintings and how to help the ecosystem of the other people around me.