Tips for Surviving Adulthood: Volunteer at a Farm

Adulthood can be tough. Here's another tip for surviving.

My friend Dan has been getting awfully obsessed with gardening in the past few years. This summer, he's been volunteering at a local farm about once a week in exchange for a little bit of the produce. When he was looking for a ride to the farm this week, he gave me a call and tried to convince me of how much I needed to spend some quality time on a farm. I was skeptical.

But the boy sounded desperate. I wasn't convinced I needed some quality time doing manual labor, but time outside didn't sound bad at all, and neither did some of the free, fresh produce, and a little labor this summer definitely couldn't hurt me either, so I agreed.

So, this morning I went to a quaint little 1 acre-or-so farm on Limeport Pike and helped to dig up 150 pounds of potatoes. Some Gold Yukon, some Red Yukon.

The farmer's description when he was showing us what to do was, "It's easy as that...kinda like an Easter Egg hunt...for adults...who like potatoes." And he was right on. Just about as much fun as an Easter Egg hunt. Very therapeutic.

From there we moved on to what he called "Operation Save Lettuce" which consisted of pulling weeds around the lettuce to give them "breathing room." Surprisingly, the catchy mission title did in fact make weeding a little more enjoyable.

I enjoyed my time a whole lot longer than I expected, and when it came time to leave, I wasn't needing much in the way of payment at all. The farmers were nice enough and I was glad to help them out for 4 hours. I really could have gone home empty handed and content, but when the offer stood to take home some of my freshly dug potatoes, how could I refuse? I accepted some salad mix and some zucchini, too, but I was mostly modest in what I chose to take home. Dan admitted he also is a bit conservative in what he takes at the end of the day saying, "It's their livelihood."

Yeah, but when you add up the market value, I think I got paid about $1.50 an hour today. Maybe I could have taken a bit more of their livelihood after all. But no need to be greedy.

Anyway, if you're looking for another way to survive adulthood, find some time to visit a local farm and help out a bit. It's the perfect setup. You get to be outside. You get your hands a bit dirty. You get a little exercise. You don't have to carry all the responsibility of farming. You skip out on most of the hard work. You get the excitement of harvesting (without the hard work). And you get some free, fresh produce to put on your dinner table that night.

Why not?