The most popular question we’ve been asked by far is: So, what do you do in the ‘off-season’? True, the person asking often has the intention of continuing the conversation. But implied is the idea that farming is our ‘day job’ and that among other hobbies and past-times, we enjoy a long ‘off-season’, searching for something fun and exciting to do. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Show me a farmer who spends months traveling the world during the ‘off-season’ and I’ll say, That is not what farming is about.

As my husband has said in some of his writings, farming can be summed up as exercising your ‘freedom to put down roots’. This freedom is not available to everyone in the world. War, extreme climates, and political atmospheres, are often the cause for lack of this essential freedom. So, during the ‘off-season’ that comprises about one month of really cold and nasty weather coupled with some home and office organization and planning, we are fighting to keep this freedom for ourselves on our farm in northern Virginia. This year, our few eeks of ‘off-season’ have been filled with writing letters, making calls, looking at maps, and meeting with our local officials, to stop two ‘public’ projects that would impinge on our freedom to put down our roots: a giant, 500 kV poweline, and a major highway, both projected to go right through the heart of our farm.

Here in the Washington DC area, where we deliver a majority of the produce we grow, we are in a good place to deal with politics. But the fight to keep our farm land as productive farm land and not as a blank space for lines on a map has to be fought locally. Next time a new road or a public works project is being looked at in your area, see if any farm land is being affected. Farm land is apparently looked at as dispensable, open space. In this era of food-scares and high oil prices, local farms are the answer to a major question of the future: where will our food come from?

It will come from rooted farmers and local farms, but only if we get citizens involved in our ‘off-season’ efforts to save our farm, and others like it.

Considering the ethical shopping choices that we pursue in the name of our Jewish faith, the ethical citizen action that is needed to stop these types of projects should come to us as ’second nature’.

Please check out our website: www.slfarm.us for more information on what is happening to our farm, and how you can help us to stay rooted.

The New Farm, a brilliant site for practical sustainable farming information has published our story: http://www.newfarm.org/features/2007/0107/stoneylonesome/elliott.shtml