In the Face of Uncertainty -- Lund fellows Internship Experience
In the Face of Uncertainty
By: Bryan Wilcenski
To work on an orchard/cidery in the summer is to commit yourself to the land first. There is no need for picking fruit, pressing cider, or intricate fermentation projects. On an ordinary year, labor would be focused on the orchard itself—attempting to maximize the yield and squeeze as much fruit from the trees as possible. This year, however, was extraordinary. A freeze on the night of May 18th—during the time in which the fruit was budding—killed almost the entire crop. It is heartbreaking to consider how the massive loss will impact the farm for years to come. While it goes without saying that the financial ramifications would be significant, the loss was greater than the money. It was clear over the course of the internship that, Autumn Stoscheck, who has been operating the orchard and cidery for twenty-one years, had a deeper tie to the cidery than most business owners have with their companies. Meticulous care for the land and the people who work it alongside her are clearly underlying tenets of her stewardship. This climactic catastrophe—one which was as unavoidable as it was brutal—occurred without recourse. No amount of apple growing experience would have allowed her to prevent the crop loss; it was a tragic case of a brilliant person doing everything right and receiving a poor result.
The reality of the freeze set in quickly for me—I had not invested the time and energy into the crop that Autumn had. We discussed the loss first thing in the morning on the day I started work. Selfishly, before I learned to appreciate what the loss meant for Autumn, her family, and my coworkers, one of the first things to cross my mind after that conversation was, “How is this going to impact the internship?” After all, I had spent the past semester applying for this Lund Fellowship position and eagerly anticipating a summer of working with apples. This was my last summer before graduation, and my last chance to spend a time working in a field without the need to commit my time and energy to a profession for an extended period. I asked myself whether I had made a mistake taking on an internship so unlike my previous professional experiences. This, of course, was both short-sighted and foolish of me. I may not have had a conventional orchard-experience, but the few short months that followed our first conversation proved to be some of the most valuable that I have ever experienced. Not only did I learn many new skills, but I had the opportunity to work alongside truly wonderful people with valuable, unique perspectives and true passion for what they do: traits that were shared by very few people in my previous jobs. I would be remiss not to mention that the following photograph essay, in my opinion, provides only a patchwork picture of the value gleaned from my time at Eve’s Cidery. So much value came from the time spent lost in thought while working alongside others, the silly conversations held over lunch, and the wisdom shared in passing by those around me. However, the photographs below illustrate the ever-changing nature of the internship and make clear the wide variety of tasks conducted while scrambling to make the best of an uncertain season:
Rows of the valley orchard in Van Etten, NY immediately after a morning weeding session on row three (right). Photo by Bryan Wilcenski.
Each morning before the sun got too warm, we would weed half of a row in the valley orchard. These were younger trees, many of which had been grafted in the past few years. As such, the ground around them had to be weeded to limit competition. One would not expect the arduous task of bending down and weeding for a couple of hours to bring about anything but back pain, but this soon became one of my favorite parts of the workday. We would hit the rows together and have the chance to get our bearings for the day. On one particularly memorable morning, we spent a significant portion of the two-hour stretch talking about USDA farm policy and its impact on the cidery.
Lo and I hitching a ride on the dump trailer that Julia skillfully maneuvered out to the row of asparagus that we planted that very day. Photo by Bryan Wilcenski.
After one summer, it became clear that this sort of farm labor is more conducive to conversation between coworkers than other professions. Lo (right) and Julia (center) were the two farm apprentices that I worked alongside. Together, it is fair to say that we brought three vastly different perspectives that, in time, led to some great conversations. Mulching requires little discussion of the work at hand—leaving plenty of time to chat as we worked. On an organic farm like Eve’s, we can’t use pesticides to suppress weeds, and the laborious task of shoveling mulch down rows is a reminder that organic operations have their own challenges. Much like the weeding process, mulching was arduous and monotonous, but whenever we finished a row the sense of achievement was tangible.
Stacked bottles of the 2022 CoFerment—a unique cider that is fermented on grape skins. This one flew off the shelves at the farmers market each weekend. Photo by Bryan Wilcenski.
Since there is fermentation occurring after bottling in many of the ciders that Eve’s Cidery produces, one of the tasks that we homed in on at least once a week was labeling, packing, and stacking. Lo, Julia, and I would form an assembly line, with one of us pulling the unlabeled bottles from the bin, one of us operating the label machine (rarely my job), and one of us placing the bottles on either a shelf (pictured above) or on a pallet for shipping. We had free reign over the speakers in the cidery while we worked, but I only connected once during the internship—I always felt as though my taste in music would clash with the tranquility of the cidery early in the morning. This was just a small taste of the work that separates a commodity farm from a business like Eve’s that sells value-added agricultural products.
Each day, the whole team would meet for lunch at the picnic tables next to the cidery. It was typically the only time that Lo, Julia and I would spend with both Autumn and Ezra. Of course, these lunches were for socializing, but they also allowed us to participate in conversations about farm operations. As the season progressed and the reality of the crop loss fully set in, more lunches were spent talking about the farm’s future. In the context of this year’s freeze, these planning conversations seemed critically important. It was at one such lunch that we learned about Autumn’s plan to make mead for the first time and the possibility of buying fruit from other producers. We would discuss the new Airbnb on the property, and reflect on the work already completed. The time we spent discussing the season’s plans during lunch was, in my opinion, necessary. In the context of such an anomalous year, this was when all of the tasks we completed were fully unpacked and the larger vision for the summer became clear. In these moments I felt as though I bore witness to the reality of farm ownership.
One of my tasks was to install tree guards around Black Locust saplings in the valley next to the orchard. The area pictured above was immediately adjacent an old well that was once used to produce natural gas. Left unused for many years, the owners of the well left behind two things: a fenced in area containing the well itself, and compacted soil on the land around it. Earlier in the year, Autumn planted saplings next to the installation, some of which were black locust, a nitrogen fixing tree. It was her hope that, between rapidly growing roots and nitrogen fixation, these trees could rejuvenate the soil. The tree guards took up a few of my days, but by the end of the internship there were leaves poking out the top of them. This was a long-term investment in the land that will hopefully pay dividends in the long run. I often wondered whether we would have dedicated so much time to the project if the freeze had not occurred. Knowing Autumn, I imagine that we would have.
One of the projects that Eve’s had been working on over the past couple years was the construction of an Airbnb. The house, designed and built by Autumn’s father, was almost complete by the end of my internship. We did a lot of finishing work on the house, and indoor work ended up playing a significant role in our day-to-day. It was especially important that we completed the Airbnb on time this year because in the absence of fruit, the building represents a great opportunity for farm income diversification.
Without apples on the trees, we had time to focus on other projects on the farm. The asparagus, for example, was to be replanted in the valley orchard. Since there were only enough plants to cover half of the row, we planted willow cuttings on the other half. During this process, I had the chance to get comfortable on the tractor, using the augur to speed up the process. The power of these machines—even the older ones—is humbling and reminds the driver very quickly that one misstep can be catastrophic in such a well-tended orchard. When we asked what the purpose of the willows was, Autumn told us about her ineffable drive to craft spherical light fixtures out of their boughs. Creativity and ingenuity were never in short supply on the farm.
For one week in June, we spent our time on the farm indoors working on the Airbnb and cider house tasks. After a conversation with Autumn each morning in which our comfort level with the air quality was gauged, we would get started on our work. This was the week I learned how to properly apply poly to unfinished wood, refinish furniture, and wire brush steel. The smoke that filled the valley elicited a visceral reaction, especially in a place that was always so beautiful. After a spring freeze, the smoke served as a grave reminder of the ever-growing frequency and intensity of climatic disturbance.
The only apples I saw at the orchards managed by Eve’s Cidery this summer were Ashton Bitters. The buds on the handful of these late-blooming trees missed the freeze by a few days. Photo by Bryan Wilcenski.
One of the jobs that I found myself doing later in the summer was weed whacking around the bases of the older trees in the North Orchard. These trees were far more established and the hillside that they were perched on was breathtaking. It was slow moving, and the first few sessions with the tool left my hands shaky and unable to close. In time, however, I learned to spool up the wire more evenly and adjusted to the vibration. We would do this task in two-hour sessions and finished the entire orchard just before the end of the experience. I learned to love working up there in the early mornings, and it was a great joy to see apples. Seeing that some varieties had fruit while the rest were barren was a great reminder that planting diverse varieties of a single crop makes an operation more resilient in the face of disturbance.
Julia (left), Autumn (center) and Lo (right), riding the tractor through the “newfield”—an orchard located 20 minutes outside of Van Etten. Photo by Bryan Wilcenski.
We spent our final days working in the “newfield orchard”. The trees here, many of which are over forty years old, were planted by James Cummins and are now maintained by Autumn. Working here was a fantastic end to the internship—the land here had its own distinct aura. The rights to the land on which the orchards sit were hotly contested after the communally owned farm that once stood here came to a messy end, yet Autumn still comes out each year to oversee the trees planted by her friend and mentor, James. We cleared the rows of debris, pruned the trees so that the mower could fit through, and cherished the chance to be in a place so extensively cared for and loved. It was fascinating to hear the stories of how the orchard evolved over the years, and a great learning opportunity to work with trees so much older than the trees seen at the Van Etten site.
After my last day at the newfield orchard, I found myself struggling to grapple with the reality of leaving the team. What started as an internship rife with uncertainty ended up feeling like I was granted a chance to be a part of a great experiment in resilience. The consistent stimulus of new tasks and unique projects was both something I learned to love and a reflection of the reality of this season’s precarious nature. I remember telling the team that this would not be the last they saw of me as I hoped to continue contributing to Eve’s however I could during the upcoming semester, and I meant that. Aware that I saw just a glimpse of the life lead by Autumn and got to work on the farm without the risks and stress, I must work hard not to romanticize the experience. At the same time, however, I am deeply aware of just how great the fellowship was for me as an individual. Sure, the internship taught me about farming, sustainability, and community—but it also taught me valuable lessons about myself, the impact I hope to have with my work, and the importance of adaptability in the face of a changing world.
Comments
Post a Comment