My first year at Opal’s Farm was interesting to say the least. I’d never farmed. I’d had lots of experience with community gardens, but I had never farmed. I only had a few hand tools and a BCS two-wheeled tractor, a wide-open space to use it, and I was the only laborer to do so. There was no money in the farm account and even what little seed we had was donated. That also meant I didn’t get paid unless some grant money came through or we had a huge harvest – neither of which appeared to be happening soon.
Fortunately, I had a great mentor come into my life, Charlie Blaylock, who owned Shines Farmstand, guided me through the process of becoming a farmer. A month into the project I received help from our first volunteer, Brendan, who stayed with me every day through that first growing season. He put that BCS tractor to work. Although our first growing season met with some moderate success it was nowhere near enough to get paid so I went without a paycheck for the first year.
I believed in the farm. My wife and I had a very small savings account to draw on, and although it wasn’t near enough to pay all the bills, I went to work each day. The money finally ran out in October, and I was so worried and stressed out to the point that I came home and told Margaret that I was going to have to go work elsewhere. My wife, who is one of the most spiritual and faithful people I know, looked at me and said, “Greg, we prayed for a long time about this, and I know this is where God wants you to be. Give it another month before you decide what to do”.
I exclaimed, “Baby, we’ll lose the house if we can’t make the mortgage payment!”
She smiled and simply said, “We had a roof over our heads when we moved in didn’t we?” Needless to say, I’m still there seven years later and the farm is thriving.
You see, I received a call from our Executive Director at eight o’clock the following morning. She told me we’d received a grant from Visit Fort Worth, and she’d have a check for me later that day. I called my wife and told her the great news and stopped to have a little conversation with God. “God, I’m stubborn and thickheaded. I know you told me not to worry about things like that. You have my back. It’s all yours from now on. I’m just going to do the work you gave me each day and you take care of the rest.”
I’ve told this story many times over the last seven years. I’ve even had to remind myself several times this year when funding cuts led to staff layoffs and irregular paychecks. Texas Health Community Hope and the Conservation and Environment Fund at North Texas Community Foundation stepped up to help us in enormous ways to continue the great work at Opal’s Farm.
I’d like to say that my life is free of worry, but that would be a lie. I just worry less about myself and more about others. It seems there’s a lot to worry about these days with all the chaos, hatred, and harm being directed at folks, but doing what I can to ease another’s burden, especially in food justice and serving the marginalized communities around us, there’s less worry and more action.
I don’t worry (well, most of the time anyway…) about results and just do the work. I also remember I spent way too much of life worrying about things that just didn’t matter. I have “enough” and life’s pretty damn good.
From another patron saint of Texas music and one of Fort Worth’s favorite sons – Delbert McClinton along with the great Francine Reed.
“There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” – G. K. Chesterton
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seed you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.” — Frederick Buechner
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