| CELEBRATING A NEW HAMPSHIRE ORGANIC FARM |
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Eero Ruuttila and his family celebrated their organic farm operation on the banks of the Merrimack River, outside of Litchfield, New Hampshire once again this fall, with an afternoon of poetry and song that featured appearances by friends of the farm gathering from such locations as Maine, New Jersey, and Northport, NY. The lead performer in the day's activities was Janine Pommy Vega, a distinguished figure in the world of American Bohemian Poetry. Accompanied by Jason Eisenberg - the inimitable "Lord Buckley" esque figure, and a writer and performer who appeared most recently in Northport as a participant in the Kerouac Big Sur marathon - Vega stood beneath a tent under the glowering gray skies of southern New Hampshire and delivered an impassioned reading in support of the work of Ruuttila at Nesenkeag. Among many others on hand were videographer Laki Vazakas, creator of Huncke and Louis and other beat videos, and New Jersey based author Andy Clausen. The festivities continued well into the evening, as much a friendly gathering of like-minded individuals as a program of activity designed to acquaint the general public with the workings of a unique organic farm. It was a fitting day for Eero - a man feted by both the local Chamber of Commerce and by the nation's burgeoning network of Bohemian aesthetes - his wife Liana, and the rest of the Ruuttila family. After all, in his work as an organic farmer and a participant in the world of alternative and Beat literature in America, he is following the dictum of Thoreau - who camped on the very land Ruutilla farms - that "he who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed." In fifteen years as manager of Nesenkeag Farm, Ruuttila has done just that, by establishing a viable and well respected organic farm operation on the Merrimack River. And beyond that, by sharing the fruits of that operation with food banks while sharing the inspiration of it as well with some of the leading figures in the world of alternative American literature today. All that Saturday, small groups of visitors accompanied Eero on walks along the Merrimack with his black lab Lydia - where native bamboo grass leans riverward in the breeze, where gnawed trunks betray the effects recent "beaver action," where Thoreau and his crew of travelers stopped one Monday night to write these words: Then, when supper was done and we had written the journal of our voyage, we wrapped our buffaloes about us and lay down with our heads pillowed on our arms listening awhile to the distant baying of a dog, or the murmurs of the river, or to the wind, which had not gone to rest - or half awake and half asleep, dreaming of a star which glimmered through our cotton roof - to participate in tours through the rich fields. Some of those fields were planted with late kale, arugala, or other fine mescaline greens and salad crops bound for Boston markets; others with finger crescent potatoes, miniature white beets and the like. A few of the fields were already set for the winter with cover crops like winter rye, field pea, or hairy vetch, a methodology for which Ruuttila has drawn the considered attention of regional farmers. "I don't mind a morning frost, it brings out the sweetness," said Ruuttila, looking out over a crop of raddicchio in the chill of a New England sunset. "I just have to watch out for a freeze." Later, touring the lower fields which were last flooded after Hurricane Bob created havoc in New England a decade ago, he contemplated out loud irrigation and water control methodologies, and looked out over the Merrimack. "We should take the kayaks out on the river in the morning," he said, and tossed a stick into the river for a grateful Lydia. "That's the best way to get the full feel of what Thoreau experienced." All in a day's work for Ruuttila, who as the Farm Manager for Nesenkeag Cooperative Farm, oversees operations for 40 acres of farmland, all of which is certified organic. Eero got his start in farming at the age of 16, when visited relatives in Finland for a year (1966-67), and helped them with their farming after having grown up in central Illinois. It was a typical northern European working farm, he recalls: dairy cows, fruits, hay. He likes to say that his grandfather was an old-school organic gardener in New Hampshire - back before any non-organic farming ever existed. All along he has been influenced greatly by his reading, notes Ruuttila: mainly Thoreau and Gary Snyder, he says, an indication of his intense involvement in the creative writing influences of such institutions as Colorado's Naropa Institute, and his continuing association with the naturalistic and environment oriented strains of American Bohemian culture. Before going into farming full-time himself, he spent seven years as the wholesale buyer for NorthEast Co-operatives, a large association of organic New England farmers. During that time, he organized a direct-buy program with smaller local farmers and also solicited federal grant money to help pay for the continued expansion of the Co-op's network of farmers throughout New England, Then came a stint as the first Massachusetts inspector for NOFA (NorthEast Organic Farm Association) in 1985. Finally after working part-time at Hutchins Farm, an organic farm in Concord, Massachusetts, he came to Nesenkeag. Nesenkeag Co-operative Farm was incorporated in 1982 by a fellow named Bill McElwain, as a charitable, non-profit, educational farm, in the spirit of preserving greenspace and providing healthy food to low-income residents in the area. It is located along the sandy banks of the Merrimack River, just north of Nashua and Hudson NH, on the eastern side of the river where rural agriculture still prevails over the more developed commercial and industrial corridor of Route 3 on the western banks. A protected farm whose development rights were purchased by the state a number of years ago, it is situated on an incredibly rich and productive bank of black soil, several feet deep, left behind by glacial action. Nesenkeag, says the farmer, was operated in the early years by what Ruuttila describes genially as "political/hippie-type volunteers." In 1987, he was hired as farm manager, and took on the challenge of organizing the farm as a self-sustaining, viable business. A transition that would take five years to complete, he developed his connections with distributors, became a member of a number of Co-ops, and started to develop some restaurant accounts. Later on, relationships with different Food Bank and other distributions services - including one to an extensive Southeast Asian community in Lowell - developed. It was through this network that Ruuttila began working with Cambodian refugees as farm hands - a stable group of families with plenty of experience in their native country to bring to bear to the work, not to mention a spirit and vision that Eero responded to eagerly - and set about working his several fields to produce some of the finest exotic greens one might find in the best restaurants in America. A tour of the farm reveals an odd melding of aesthetics and technologies - in one barn, combines and tractors are co-located with traditional Cambodian threshing baskets; behind the refrigeration truck Ruuttila uses as a storage room for his delicate products, the workers have built a small Buddhist shrine; in Eero's office are pinned a kaleidoscopic collage of technical manual notes, quotes from Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac, and Sanskrit inscriptions. Somehow, it all comes together under the umbrella of Eero Ruuttila's vision. And in fact, he has earned high praise for his work from business and agricultural interests - he was just featured on the front page of the New Hampshire Sunday News - and from America's alternative writers, many of whom Eero has hosted at his farm or collaborated with on writing projects in locations as diverse as New York and Boston to Colorado and San Francisco. Several of whom appeared at this Saturday's festival on the small farm outside Litchfield. All told, the festival was an opportune moment to stop and take stock of that work - and the gathering afterwards in the kitchen and dining area of Ruuttila's farmhouse an opportune moment to reflect on the comradeship alluded to by Thoreau in "Two Weeks On The Concord and Merrimack." Here are his words, written on the banks of that river, as the great American philosopher stopped to camp with his brother John for the evening: "We had found a safe harbor for our boat, and as the sun was setting carried up our furniture, and soon arranged our house upon the bank, and while the kettle steamed at the tent door, we chatted of distant friends and of the sights which we were to behold, and wondered which way the towns lay from us. Our cocoa was soon boiled, and supper set upon our chest, and we lengthened out this meal, like old voyageurs, with our talk." Standing with Eero Ruuttila on spongy black soil looking out over a river rolling southward on the eastern edge of his farm; past the old Nesenkeag Creek Henry David Thoreau himself camped on 173 years ago, it was evident that the farmer and his family - with the help of Cambodian workers - had ample reason to feel he had successfully turned a nice, ordinary series of open fields of southern New Hampshire into a rich rare shelf of fertility. Into,
in fact, a historic intersection of responsible farming and high
aesthetic thought on the banks of the Merrimack River.
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