Thank You

On this Thanksgiving Monday, while I could thank Mother Nature for her gifts and generosity, I would rather mention those without whom our family enterprise would flounder, our four seasonal employees, Mexicans all, who form the backbone of this farm. That’s not to say that we don’t have other employees. At the season’s peak, we number roughly 10 hard-working humans in the fields, doing our organic farming thing – i.e., planting, harvesting, weeding, irrigating and ultimately, packing your baskets. But if I draw your attention to our seasonal workers – Jhenrri, Crescencio, Carmelino and Gregorio – it’s because they are my closest collaborators in the fields, a reality that has earned them a status that differs from that of the others who join us mid-season, for two or maybe three months, often as coop agronomy students or simply as summer job-seekers. In contrast, our Mexican workers arrive in early spring and depart in late fall, like the migratory birds who follow a similar flight path between the Canadian Great North and warmer climes along the Eastern American seaboard and even further south. I raise my hat to all four of them, to their kindness, their courage and their hard work. Tomorrow morning, at dawn, the first to depart will be returning to his family after a six-month absence. Indeed, I cannot thank them enough.