Farm & Garden Apprenticeship Graduation Remarks
LaTia Thomas, Valedictorian of the 2015 Farm & Garden Apprenticeship Class, shared the following remarks with her fellow graduates on October 6th, at Graduation.
“My hands are older than me. They always have been. Even though I am thirty they look as though they belong to a seventy year old. They are creased callused and rough. Someone once theorized that they belonged to an ancestor, a slave, and that they were here to remind me of where I’ve been.
My great grandparents on both sides had farms. They planted watermelons, sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes and raised chicken, to the dismay of the next generation. It amazes me how each of my grandmothers, and both of my parents have told me a tale of seeing a chicken slaughtered. It was this defining moment for each of them that made them city bound.
I have not seen a chicken slaughtered. Maybe it is this fact that has allowed me to see the beauty in farm life. Though none of my family members can deny the sweeter taste in farm fresh veggies and the glory of biting into something still warmed by the sun, they are forever appreciative of farmers . . . they just very much don’t want to be one.
Paul Harvey said that on the eighth day God made a farmer: God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark.”
It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing.
Primacaine, floricane, cultivare, cotyledon, companion planting, the glory of compost, FBI, white man’s foot, grafting, death is everywhere but seeds have life within them. These are a few of the lessons I learned here on the farm. I’ve also learned that getting dirt from under your nails is extremely difficult, that when you hula hoe you should stand straight, that being dirty originates from the word dirt, that water tastes the best while sitting in the shade, in green plastic chairs, accompanied by some of your favorite people. That the sun is both brutal and a blessing. That chickens are fun to cuddle. That weeding is stupid hard but defeating the weeds gives the ultimate win.
The greatest lessons that I have learned and relearned on this farm is that life is beautiful, that I am so much stronger than I ever imagined, that laughing is amazing, that sharing good wholesome food is one of the best ways to get to know other humans. That maybe my hands are not only a reminder of where I’ve been but also where I’m going. I have the hands of a farmer.”