Pastors Message

A Healthy Harvest in Conway Village

It was a hot, clear spring day, when the fields were being planted by the Davis family behind the Elementary School in Conway Village. Jake Davis was sticking his hand in a slurry of organic fertilizer preparing the mix for the tractor.

Sarah Davis was taking a seat at the back of the tractor across from Ceilia Wilcox as the blades prepared to cut the weed tarp, and the tractor was to give a squirt of fertilizer so the two women could insert plants into the soil, row on row.

The natural farming of Jake and Sarah is a three-point program. They offer prepaid Community Supported Agriculture Shares, which account for half their harvest. They share their harvest weekly to help with food insecuri- ty in the Village through the Tuesday morning Brown Church Pantry and the Monday night Dinner Bell community meals programs. Then there is their mission to create an Agricultural Literacy, the economics behind the farm-to- fork reality of organic food production, with High School and Middle School youth.

“Students meet with us every Wednesday for six weeks. They plant seed and small plants, spread the row covers, help with the ‘pollinator plots’ (flowers) that border the fields, and learn how to work with nature – it is a partnership that gets results they see at harvest time.”

Students work in teams, get hands-on experience, and learn to work cooperatively for a common purpose.

“Some students need to move to learn, to be resilient as they meet roadblocks to success. Failure is part of life, and our children need the confidence of trusting each other and a process that leads them forward.”

After harvesting, each student has organic food to cook at home with their parents.

“Pizza Night seems to be the most popular choice”, says Sarah, “The pandemic resulted in children and fami- lies feeling isolated, disconnected, with a lack of social interaction. Our program is collaborative. It’s about sharing our disappointments and finding a way through, as well as, offering a healthy meal to be shared by our families.”

Sarah is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor, who graduated from Southern New Hampshire Univer- sity. She mentioned a pilot program offered by UNH for the Mental Health of farmers who have been overwhelmed by the pressures they faced. This year there was an abundance of groundhogs, coyotes, deer, and black bears ready to take their piece of the harvest. Twenty-three days out of the 30 in June saw rain. The wet and cold conditions would slow down the growing season by several weeks. Jake would return night after night to cut furrows for the

water to drain, an increase of 50 percent labor. Rick and Celia Wilcox would patiently travel each row of plants handpicking the bugs as insecticides were not to be used. The weather conditions favored bugs.

“That’s part of farming”, said Sarah, “learning to live with the bugs and giving them their share is part of it, although we try to limit the damage. It takes a family commitment, a shared vision.”

When asked what she gets out of farming with all its challenges, Sarah reflects, “I love working in Nature. I watch Jake in his zone as he works the tractor. There, surrounded by buzzing bees, the chirping of birds, the touch of the wind and the warmth of the sun in the Swift River floodplain, you have a spiritual feeling that you are part of something much greater than yourself. Gratitude is why I do it, it brings me a sense of wholeness.”

Visiting the farm field of the Davis family, you realize they are doing more than growing vegetables and flowers in Conway Village – they cultivate community.

Reverend John G. Hughes

(originally published in Conway Daily Sun, Friday, September 1, 2023)