The Year That Wasn’t
It’s been a full year since one of my customers showed up with a plastic bag full of medical face masks, handing them over with the ominous prediction, “You’re going to need these.” Little did they realize that in the coming weeks and months their generous gift would become both requisite and scarce as COVID19 took hold turning our lives upside down.
In the one-year anniversary reflections of the pandemic the comments tend to focus on what has been lost. Anger and grief flare at unmet expectations and rights-of-passages canceled or reduced to digital experiences.
The reality is none of us get a free pass from adversity. As a farmer I have learned this lesson on many occasions. It’s part of the job. Maybe that’s been the impetus to move through the changes, the emotions, becoming innovative for some things and steadfast for others.
With one in four adults in America now vaccinated I’m hearing a collective sigh of relief at the light at the end of the tunnel. Last week I kept a running tally of customers who informed me of their vaccination status—a full 97%. For the record, I have one Pfizer injection down and one in two weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean life will ever go back to normal. Normal would be pre-COVID19 and the novel virus shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
For everyone who has asked about how vaccinations will affect the re-opening of the farmers markets, please be aware we will continue to follow the recommendations and restrictions put in place by the Montgomery County Health Department which includes wearing a mask in public and socially distancing.
In retrospect, I can’t help wondering if 541,449 people would have lost their lives had the United States responded to the pandemic with the same speed, efficiency, and policies that we do for disease outbreaks in agriculture. This country has one of the most well-funded, monitoring and response systems to threats from diseases affecting agricultural commodities.
When I first bought a farm and moved back to Pennsylvania, my plan was to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors in Adams county and plant a stone fruit orchard. Unfortunately, that was in 2000 when Plum Pox had quarantined the south-central portion of the state, my farm included. Inspectors cruised both commercial and residential properties alike in search of the dreaded pestilence. If your property had stone fruit trees within a certain perimeter of an identified infection you were forced to cut down all your stone fruit trees even if they were healthy. Compensation was only for the cost of the tree, not for the labor of planting or loss in production no matter where the trees were in their lifecycle. It was also illegal to plant stone fruit trees. Even after the quarantine was lifted I was advised by a senior farmer not to plant an orchard, to farm something else. “If you plant an orchard and the pox comes back, you’ll lose,” I was warned.
Did I lose out? Nope, still farming and feeding people just as I’d set out to do only in a different way.
That’s how I’ve taken the disappointments over the last year. Practically everything was canceled and that which wasn’t was moved online. It was the little things that disappeared that had the most impact. I missed the music and chef demonstrations at the farmers market. There was a palpable disappointment when there was no sheep in costume for Halloween or no occasional bottle babies. Fear not, lambing season is extremely late this year so there may be the opportunity to snuggle one in the near future.
But with the year that wasn’t came the year that was. Who would have ever considered having Zoom happy hours with old friends no matter where they live? I’ve become spoiled by the rise of digital events having streamed concerts, conferences, workshops, classes, and social events I would not have been able to attend in person either due to budgetary constrains or agrarian responsibilities. If anything, the pandemic may usher in a new era of digital participation thanks to not having to travel to each event. One teacher who had been traveling to festivals and conferences since the early 80’s admitted she’s going to scale way back on all her traveling even when people begin congregating and traveling again. A big plus also is being able to teach to a wider audience.
The most poignant observations about the loss of a year came from a customer who was a refugee. “I lost five years in the process of coming to America and I survived. We’ll be fine. We adapt and life goes on.”