Originally published February 2025 in the Napa Valley Register
By: Carine Hines
Last weekend was the Almond Festival in the Capay Valley. This 110 year old celebration of Spring brings folks from far and wide to view acres of delicately blossoming white petals against the backdrop of bright green hills dotted with oaks. Every town in the valley offers its own local food, farms, artisans, and activities.
I spent the day visiting my home town of Guinda, and the neighboring town of Rumsey with my two sons while my husband boiled oysters at the local fire department’s BBQ stand. My sons rode a neighbor’s poney, we ate pizza made by our friends, and drank juice from a nearby farm. Amongst the many out of towners, I saw mostly local faces and people I call my community.
It seems like yesterday, not 10 years ago, that this community welcomed us at our first Almond Festival. We had just moved to the valley and were planning out our first farming season. We were young and clueless of the journey we were starting and the failures and successes to come. But most importantly, we did not know that we were joining not one, but two communities.
We are so lucky to have our community in the Capay Valley. They are all our neighbors, they help us on our farm, they help us raise our children, and we are by each other’s sides from wildfires to dance parties. And if this were not enough, I have another community in the Napa Valley. Every weekend I see the same faces I saw 10 years ago at our first farmers market. This community feeds us as we feed them, they laugh and cry with us, and they are our joy, solace, and inspiration to continue farming. It is with these two deep and loving communities in mind that I celebrate Spring this year.
In a way, Spring is a celebration of beginnings. It’s a beginning that happens again and again, yet every year it feels as fresh and delicate as the almond blossoms it brings. In the Spring we can celebrate the beginning of what is to come, and by remembering the past, celebrate the beginnings that lead us to where we are now.
Ten years ago we were beginning a farm, buying our first tractor, hanging our first fences, planting our first potatoes, and sowing our first seeds. Ten years ago we were beginning to join our communities, making our first friends, meeting our first customers, joining our first community projects, and learning for the first time that you cannot make it without the unconditional support of your neighbors.
This year, as we celebrate previous beginnings we point our eyes to a new beginning. In many ways this is a beginning with so many challenges for the farming community. As the government pulls out the rug from programs needed to support conservation efforts, fight climate change, bring food to schools, and build local economies, it is simultaneously threatening our community of farmers and farmworkers. This is the beginning of so much sadness, less food in your plates, and a shrinking landscape of American farms. That is a fact, not a political opinion.
But beauty and joy can exist with fear and pain. Meaning this is also the beginning of something we have yet to meet, to know, and to guide us. On our farm it is the beginning of a new pack shed on the farm that will change how we farm and live. It is the beginning of growing on new soil that heretofore was being rehabilitated from a dead walnut orchard. It is the beginning of a new conviction, that no matter what happens we will keep getting out of our beds to stewart the land we love. And it’s the beginning of a new question… how will my communities, in the Capay Valley and in the Napa Valley, show up for each other? For how long will we be complacent? What will we do when someone in our ranks falls or is taken away? I do not know the answer, but I do believe in each and every one of you.