Farmers First: When is enough … enough?

“Enough is enough!”

When I was young, those three little words – usually bellowed by one of the Dame patriarchs – always made me freeze.

Nothing else needed to be said. The message came through loud and clear: No more talking. No more jumping. No more running. Close your mouth. Sit still. Stop.

Who Defines “Enough”?

To me, the phrase always seemed to come out of nowhere, sort of like a nuclear attack before war had been declared.

I now recognize that the adults had been giving off subtle warning signs before the detonation. While my siblings and I played blithely (and loudly) the adults sighed deeply; admonished us to “stop squabbling”; and ironically muttered “Keep it up…”

The problem? Two definitions of “enough” were in operation. The adults had had more than enough noise and activity. The kids had not had nearly enough sibling playtime.

The gap between those definitions caused friction and frustration for everyone involved. I was reminded of that experience just this morning.

I was two hours into pulling weeds in one of my perennial gardens, and all the signs were telling me to call it a morning:

• A wheelbarrow full of bittersweet, bindweed and grasses
• A bed of lilies that was cleaner than it had been in years
• A son who had abandoned helping in the garden for fixing my old windchime
• An unfinished to-do list that included writing this article, editing this week’s podcast and posting the next video in my series on farm symbols
• Tweaky hamstrings that cursed me for not stretching beforehand

But like the unruly child from my past, I just couldn’t stop.

I’d decide it was time to pack it in, and then I’d see a strand of grass poking through the irises … a mugwort nudging out the bee balm … a rogue hydrangea vine weaving through the eupatorium.

I’ll just pull this last one – then I’m done.

It wasn’t until I traded weeding for transplanting – the nasturtium are big enough to transplant, and they’ll totally fill in that empty spot near the crocosmia – that I finally lost my temper.

“Enough is enough!” I said aloud.

What is Enough?

I put away my tools. I watered in the new transplants. And I pondered: What is “enough”?

My grandfather modeled that “enough” was “when the job’s done.” I don’t love that definition.

By that metric, I should still be crouched amid the flowers, freeing them from unwanted interlopers, instead of typing this article. Or maybe I should have avoided the garden altogether until my paying work was finished.

At different times in the past decade, I’ve tried both approaches. Neither was really “enough.”

The untended garden weighed on my spirit. The unwritten article left a hole in my bank account. I suspect you’ve experienced something similar in your farm life.

The job of farming is never really done. Even after you finish harvesting the final crop of the season, a dozen other tasks are waiting to be begun.

If only we could redefine “enough” so that we experienced more farm life satisfaction and less farm life guilt!

We can.

• Prioritize progress.

Farmers tend to be idealists. We want to do and produce the best all the time. While that is an admirable aspiration, it is the exact opposite of enoughness.

The best is, frankly, unattainable in an imperfect world populated by imperfect humans.

Enough, on the other hand, focuses on progress over perfection. It says, “What action can I take today that will move me one step closer to my farm life goals?” If you’ve taken that action, you’ve done enough.

Maybe your overall farm goal is to be able to afford a vacation. You’re (probably) not going to generate the entire price of the vacation in one day. Focus instead on doing one small thing that can move you closer to that goal, such as posting an extra video on social media, calling a potential wholesale customer or auditing your production expenses.

• Be flexible.

“Enough” is not an absolute value. What is enough for you today may be too much or too little next year, next month or even in the next minute.

Imagine you start the morning saying, “It’ll be enough for me to prune one row of greenhouse tomatoes today.” Just as you start pinching off those little suckers, you get stung by a bee and have an allergic response. Your peaceful day in the greenhouse becomes an anxious day in the ER.

At that moment, you have a choice. You can rail against the “wasted” day, or you can redefine the day’s goal.

Make no mistake: sometimes just making it through the day is enough.

• Track every success.

Focusing on what we have and what we have done is arguably the key to experiencing “enough.”

I learned this lesson very powerfully when I was going through burnout. I never felt like I was doing enough. Then one day I decided to write down all the things I did in a day, starting with “I woke up.” By the time I put the kids on the bus at 7 a.m., I had quite the list. By the end of the day, it looked like I’d worked three full-time jobs … because I had.

Think I’m overvaluing the little things? Consider this: All the other progress you make in a day starts with waking up. Every “big” success builds upon “small” ones.

• Use your resources.

If that “not enough” feeling feels a little too familiar, send me an email at kcastrataro@pen-light.org. Together, we can decide what is enough for you so you can make meaningful progress towards your farm life goals.

It’s your time to grow!

by K. Castrataro