Farm Report: December 2007
by Wade Collins

It’s December at the Seeds of Change farm, and there are two inches of fresh snow on the ground from last night’s storm. It’s an odd feeling to be here in the high desert of northern New Mexico surrounded by water. But so much of life here is about contrasts that I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising. Drought and monsoon, verdant bosques and arid plains, red and green (chile sauce, that is) all come together to create a distinctiveness that never allows you to forget that you are here, in this place, and not anywhere else in the world.

The fields outside are in sharp contrast as well; gone are the lush rows of acequia-fed fruits and vegetables, replaced as they are now with the quiet slumber of life in winter—beds of white sheltering dormant crops of vetch and rye... waiting, just like the rest of us, for the tumult of spring.

This is not to say that all life here at the farm is snugly tucked in for the season. December is a bustling time for us here for seed cleaning. Our shelves and drying tables are fairly full of the fruits of our seed growers’ labors this past year. Tim Franklins’ Green Hubbard Squash and Bill Reynolds’ Satsuki Madori Cucumber seeds are both getting a final chance to air out before putting them through the various processes of our increasingly state-of-the-art Seed Conditioning lab. Meanwhile, Emigdio Ballon’s exquisite, bio-dynamically grown, Sonoran Gold tepary beans sit in cloth bags, freshly cleaned, awaiting delivery to our seed packing and storage facility in Santa Fe. The air inside the offices, punctuated by the percussive sounds of machines at work, busily separating and sorting the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff, is infused with the occasional smells of aromatic herbs such as carrot, corriander and oregano as those seeds get put through their paces.

The farm chickens, now comfortably housed in their winter quarters, are busy too, producing about a dozen eggs a day for us with rich, deep orange yolks, setting them quite apart from the pale, seemingly anemic yellow of their supermarket-contracted cousins.

At this time of the year, we at Seeds of Change know that you all are probably busy as well. This is a time for family and friends, a time of reflection and anticipation. Here’s hoping each one of you takes the time to savor the fondest memories of those you love, and enjoys the best that this holiday season has to offer.

Wade Collins
Seeds of Change Research Farm Associate

Photo Captions: (1) Carrot beds are blanketed by mulch and fresh snow. (2) Cucumber seeds dry out before entering the seed cleaning process. (3) The Farm's chickens are nestled in warm winter quarters—a straw bale coop.