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Community, Down On the Farm, Gratitude, Hope, Neighbors, New Year's Day, Opal's Farm, The Holidays, Thoughts From the Porch, Uncategorized, Unity Unlimited, Inc.

New Year’s Coming Fast

gregoryjoel

It’s hard to believe that in a few hours 2025 will be behind us. It’s been a long year for so many folks, but we’ve made it to 2026. It’s my prayer that the New Year brings joy and a renewed spirit of hope for everyone. May we come together in that hope and joy!

We’re looking forward to 2026. We’re making some big changes with the farm and Opal’s Farm Stand: one of which is a new location for the farm stand to better serve our neighbors. I’ll be announcing those changes in the coming days.

Happy New Year from all of us at Opal’s Farm and Unity Unlimited!

Photo by Leeloo The First on Pexels.com
Communication, Community, Culture, Down On the Farm, Family, Farmers Markets, Neighbors, Non-Profits, Opal's Farm, Relationships, Simplicity, Texas, Thoughts From the Porch, Uncategorized, Urban Farming, What Can I Do

Everyone Needs Community

gregoryjoel

It’s been a great week around these parts. My Assistant Manager, Joey, and I were in San Antonio earlier this week for the 31st Annual Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (TOFGA) Conference. We spent two days learning and sharing with other growers from all over the state. On Tuesday, I was part of a panel discussion on Agrotourism. We’d love to thank Kristin Song from Delve Experiences and the other panel members for helping us (and you, we hope) grow our agrotourism business. We are thrilled to be a TOFGA member!

The weather here has been unusually mild for Texas in February. The long-range forecasts, both from NOAA and The Old Farmers Almanac, point to a cold spell in the middle of this month and a last frost date of March 18th. I can’t wait to start getting the Spring crops in the ground. It’s been in the upper sixties and low seventies the last week. Spring Fever firmly has me in its grip. Still, it is February in North Texas…

This has been a week about community. We had our annual membership meeting of the Cowtown Farmers Market yesterday after the market. One of the questions put to all the members was, why do you sell at Cowton Farmers Market. My reason was clear – it’s all about community.

I spent the first part of the week at the TOFGA Conference. This was my fifth one and I’ve come to know people from all over the state of Texas. I look forward to being with them every year. I often learn more from the conversations outside the meeting rooms and that makes the conference expense more than simply worthwhile. It’s a community of farmers and food justice advocates I am so blessed to be a part of.

Cowtown Farmers Market is the same – both with the farmers and with our customers. A member of the market – another farmer – made a comment yesterday that explains the ethos at Cowtown Farmers Market. He said, “I don’t view anyone else there as competition”. This same member I’ve often seen help, or even sell, for another member farmer when they were sick or needed to be off.

We don’t operate from a paradigm of scarcity. We don’t need to stress and fracture relationships through constant competition. Farmers constantly refer customers to other customers who might have something they don’t have. I have benefitted from the wisdom many of our experienced farmers shared so freely. I’ve become a better farmer and a better person by knowing them.

I’ve also come to know many of our customers because they are there every week (and they usually tell me when they’re not going to be there for whatever reason).They’re there in the cold winter and they’re there during the heat of a Texas summer. I come to know what’s going on in their lives, their likes and dislikes, and they mine. Genuine conversations start – what’d you do this week, how’s the family, or asking about something they’d told me about a few weeks ago. There’s a continuity and a sense of community you simply will never find at your local Kroger or Albertsons.

I’d love to see you all come out to the market on Saturday mornings. Come join our wonderful community. Enjoy great people, great fun, and great food! If you can’t make it there, please come out to our new farm stand at 2500 LaSalle and be a part of the neighborhood community we’re proud to be a part of. Don’t worry. The community can never be too big, and besides, there’s always room for one more farmers market, right?

Emotional Health, Faith, Grace, Gratitude, Heroes, Quotes, Role Models, Simplicity, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Jim-isms

gregoryjoel

February has long been my least favorite month of the year. I’m the only one with that opinion. I’d like to think the greeting card industry invented Valentines Day not simply as a way to sell more cards, but an attempt to take the edge off the shortest, most miserable month of the year. Heck, even the corporate types at the National Football League extended the season so that the Super Bowl falls in February. I’d like to think they did it out of compassion for my fellow February sufferers, but I’m pretty sure that the motive was simply to line their pockets with increased ticket and ad revenue. Besides, it offers a distraction from those Christmas bills that just came due…

Despite the twenty-eight-day (Julian had a little too much wine while figuring out calendar calculations, so he threw in an extra day every four years – it’s a leap, I know) depression that is February, it does have one saving grace – Groundhog Day. I’m not really into the weather prognostications of a fat, furry little rodent, but the movie is one of the all-time cinematic greats. Grace, whether in secular or religious form is one of my favorite stories. It’s a reminder that we always have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves daily. We don’t have to settle for continuing to be a butthead.

Photo by Joël de Vriend on Unsplash

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to take February, and most things in life, with a dose of salt. Most of the things I’ve deemed tragic episodes in my life have turned out to be some of the biggest blessings. The inverse is true as well. The things I was ecstatic about turned out to be not so great. I’ve decided to just take it as it comes. As my friend Jim always reminded me, “Chop wood and let the chips fall where they may…”

It was February 15th, 2018 when I lost my friend Jim. I guess I didn’t really “lose” him. I have a pretty good idea he’s off fishing with Jesus and telling fisherman’s tales (no lying about the one that got away Jim, okay?). I simply wish he’d stayed here a bit longer. I guess it’s that way with all the people you love and care about: especially those who impacted you in a big way. Maybe that’s why February remains at the bottom of the list.

We held a celebration of Jim’s life on Tuesday at two o’clock in the afternoon on a mild February day. I’m not sure how many people were there, but it was a big crowd. He impacted the lives of so many. It was an eclectic bunch of church members and some not-so churchy- folks from recovery groups that Jim attended (seeing bikers sitting next to proper Baptist folks was a treat!). Before the service, I asked his wife, Sharon, if she had intentionally planned the service for Tuesday at two. She looked at me a bit puzzled and said “No, why?”

I had to laugh. Only Jim could pull this one off. I explained to her that when I would tell Jim about the difficult times in my life, he’d always say, “it’ll get better”.

“When Jim. When is it going to get better?”

He’d always reply somberly, “Tuesday at two o’clock. It’ll all be better on Tuesday at two o’clock”. He never knew what Tuesday or whether it would be two in the morning or two in the afternoon, but he was always right. It always got better. I didn’t always know the exact moment it happened, but it was always by Tuesday at two o’clock. I’m sure he still gets a good laugh out of that one…

There are three men who are my heroes. They all share the superpowers of unconditional love and wisdom – my father, my friend Edgar, and Jim. Each had their own way of using their superpowers. My father gave me solid values and wise counsel, which I usually failed to heed. When I finally surrendered my rebellious self-centeredness, he was awaiting my return like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son (and more than just once I can assure you). If God has a human face, I’m pretty sure He looks a lot like Dad.

My friend Edgar has been my friend, confidant, and mentor of sorts for almost three decades. He’s seen me at my very worst. He’s been there to dust me off and help me back on the proverbial horse more times than I’d care to admit. He believed in me when no one else would. Not many people have friends like Edgar. This blessing is not lost on me.

Then there’s Jim. A few Februarys have passed since that day in 2018. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear Jim’s voice telling me one of his “Jim-isms” – things he would say for whatever life might throw at me. “Jim-isms” were not always original, some came from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, some from older guys in recovery programs, and some were just time-tested West Texas sayings he’d grown up with. Somehow they all became Jim’s.

While the list of “Jim-isms” is long, there are two or three that stand out above the rest. First, there’s “This thing is too damn simple to be taken so damn seriously”. That was often coupled with “Son, don’t complicate the corn flakes”. Quite trying to be so intense. There’s nothing new under the sun. Above all, quit trying to make the simple so damn difficult. Remember Occam’s Razor- “the best solution to any problem is usually the simplest one.”

The other “Jim-ism” that hits home on a daily basis (and usually several times a day) is this, “When it’s over it will all be okay. If it ain’t okay, then it’s not over.” When I listen to the torrent of news about hate-filled people doing hateful things, about systemic and brutal racism, and about Christian Nationalist who blatantly misrepresent God in their pursuit of power and hegemony I have to remember this “Jim-ism” above all. It’s the one that reminds me that God is in control, that love always wins, and the arc of justice may be longer than I’d like, but it is an arc that is leading to the Kingdom of God.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk among my friends and neighbors about how tired everyone is – tired of COVID, tired of grief, tired of the police shootings and oft repeated news of insane mass shootings, and most of al, tired of the vitriol and division we live with every day. Faith and Jim-isms tell me to remind you all that:

“When it’s over it’ll all be okay and if it ain’t okay, then it’s not over” and “It’ll be better Tuesday at 2:00”

Children, Community, Dallas Cowboys, Emotional Health, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Grandchildren, Gratitude, Grief, Kentucky, Relationships, Stories, Texas, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized

Happy Holidays? Eh…

gregoryjoel

I always celebrate Thanksgiving with mixed emotions. If I look at the real history of the holiday it leaves little to celebrate. I’m sure that when the Wampanoag People feasted with the pilgrim colonists, saving them from a dreadful winter of starvation (because that’s what human beings do for one another) they had no idea what lay ahead. I’ve sure the pilgrims were thinking “thanks for the food. Next year we kill your women and children and steal your land.” It’s no wonder Thanksgiving is a day of mourning for my Indigenous brothers. True history is usually hard to celebrate.

However, I grew up in a middle-class, white, suburban, and fundamentalist Christian home in Texas. That’s not the Thanksgiving story I was told. Mine was much more pleasant than the reality and had a white supremacy spin put on the whole thing, but that another story. Thanksgiving became a holiday to be celebrated with too much food, family, friends, and Dallas Cowboy football. My Dad was transferred to Denver in 1969. Coloradoans didn’t take to Texans moving there (after skiing with them I understand why…) so all my parents’ friends (mostly ex-patriate Texans and mostly from church) got together each Thanksgiving to feast together and watch the Dallas Cowboys.

We communally held our breath as Clint Longley threw his “Hail Mary” pass to Drew Pearson to win the game against the hated Washington Redskins on Thanksgiving 1974. Clint was the son of one of our church members and big brother to one of my friends. He’d also graduated from Abilene Christian College which is where all of most of our friend’s children either went or would go. We all watched the number one moment in Thanksgiving history. I’ve never seen such excitement, and given what professional football has become, may never see again. I’m quite sure Jerry Jones is the anti-Christ…

Years have passed and many Thanksgivings have drifted in and out of my memory. Grown kids and grandkids make planning Thanksgiving difficult. This year I’ll put a smile on my face and hope January 2nd comes quickly. The holidays have become a difficult time for me. My son Jeremy died two years ago. He was born on Christmas Day during the Denver “Blizzard of ‘82” so the holidays bring a lot of melancholy with them. I miss my son. Grief is a bitch…

Last year, Margaret and I celebrated Thanksgiving with my “birth” family in Kentucky. It was amazing to be with so many people that looked like me. That helped me through so many difficult days. This year I got a phone call from Momma that took the wind out of whatever sails I had – the cancer has returned, and the prognosis is not good (Momma was quick to remind me not to count her out yet. They’ve said that before.) I’ll be spending Christmas in Kentucky this year, making new memories with my people, my Momma. Sometimes I think that Jeremy’s behind all this. I don’t think he wants this to be a depressing time of year for his family. I know Momma doesn’t. Maybe the new memories will make a difference. I hope so.

I’ve often thought Thanksgiving was more of a commercialized greeting card holiday. I strive to be grateful each and every day, not just on the fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving may be a special day to say thanks for the many blessings we have, but gratitude is something to be exercised all the time – 365 days a year. Gratitude is a verb, it’s action. Gratitude is taking care of the things we’ve been given – our world, our families, and each other.

We spent this Thanksgiving with friends, many of whom I haven’t seen in a couple of years (thanks to COVID). Our host reminded me that we were celebrating with our family of choice. It made me smile. It also reminded me to show my gratitude for the wonderful friends I have by being more accessible. I’m not going to wait for New Years to start on that resolution.

I hope that all of you had a blessed, peaceful Thanksgiving and the holidays bring you cheer, peace, and appreciation for all that’s been given each of you. I do appreciate so very much those of you who take a couple of minutes out of your busy day to read the ramblings of some old guy in Fort Worth, Texas!