Oscar, Jasper, and Emmet
Greetings CSA Members!
Many of you know that 2024 will be my last here as full time owner and operator of Featherstone Farm; the 30th Anniversary Fall Harvest Party flyer notes 2024 as “the passing of an era”. So this has been a season of “lasts” for me… last budget, last sweet corn crop, last Strawberry Social (well, first time ever cancelled because of weather!). There have been poignant moments I’ll admit; nostalgia has already started to set in. Of all these end-of-career type experiences, however, none have been as powerful and downright painful for me as last Friday, our son Jasper’s last day of work at Featherstone Farm this season, very likely his last for good.
Jenni and I have 3 grown sons; I’ve had the crazy wonderful opportunity to employ each of them at Featherstone Farm in turn, starting with Emmet (started during high school ca 2012), continuing with Oscar (how well I remember his first week as shop “janitor” when he was 15!) and then concluding with Jasper (started ~2019). But the idea that any of these guys “started work” on the payroll at FF on any given date is misleading: each of these characters really started at FF as 4 or 5 year old, riding shotgun with me in delivery trucks leaving in pre-dawn darkness, arriving at a Co-op in the TC just as the sun was coming up, then carting invoices for me into the building, emptying boxes out. I remember the books on tape, very fondly. And the word “employ” completely misses the point, in a similar way. Featherstone Farm was a seat-of-the-pants, shoestring operation for decades; it has been only very recently that any formal organizational and management system has been in place here. And because budgets were so tight for so many years, I ended up doing lots of different things myself, particularly repairs and maintenance and farm construction. THIS is where the 3 boys have plugged in with me most often, particularly recently. Yes, they each worked countless days planting and weeding and picking vegetables with the Spanish speakers here, honing their language skills for college (and life beyond!). But they also worked with me on lots of different projects, which gave me the opportunity to mentor them directly, to teach skills and inspire them (hopefully!) with what I do at the family farm business. This is the sort of experience that I will miss most, with this passing of an era.
In Jasper’s case, the pandemic hit at a time in his life- he would have been a junior in high school- when he was well primed to dial things up with me and Featherstone Farm. In succession, he and I built (with help, of course!) a large free standing sauna at the Anderson Farm, the outdoor shower at Peterson’s (see photo), a 2 story garage at our home in Winona, and then a cabin at Anderson’s. Jasper was involved in several major renovation projects at the apartment house in Rushford during this period. And oh, and there were four separate high tunnel construction projects mixed in there, too, with Jasper leading the charge on the last two (2023 and 2024).
Working with my son(s) on these types of projects has been a joy I can scarcely describe. Because of course these collaborations are about so, so much more than just nuts-and-bolts, trusses and cement, wiring and roofing. Leaving the shop last Friday afternoon, after Jasper clocked out for the last time, the two of us were pretty much in tears. It was a quiet, deeply reflective drive home together that afternoon. We didn’t have to say a word, to know precisely what was in each other’s hearts and minds.
I will miss Jasper at FF, as I miss his two brothers; profoundly and indescribably. As I will miss many other things at Featherstone Farm, when my own time to move on arrives.
Gratefuly,
Jack