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Steph Jones
A SACK OF POTATOES, THE TIRED FARMER, & THE MIGHTY WORLD: A Visual Narrative

A SACK OF POTATOES, THE TIRED FARMER, & THE MIGHTY WORLD by Steph Jones - Title

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I listen to tractors. I know a cold tractor will chug for a bit and start with white smoke, and black smoke means a burst of gas and power, but blue smoke means oil. I can smell when a fuel line clamp comes off and diesel is dripping, which is different than the gas leaking out of the sediment bowl on the 1941 Farmall A. I know the purr of idling and the powerful hum of 540 engine RPM. I am not an expert tractor fixer, but I am an expert manual reader. A little elbow grease and perseverance. And a call to some experts.

I am a weed identifier. Winter is chickweed's game, and wild mustard bursts in yellow in spring, often the first flush of new life. When dandelions bloom it's time to plant those potatoes. Broad leaves like galinsoga, lambs quarter, amaranth, and smartweed are barons of the summer, with foxtails and grasses vying for top spot. I know that as daylight shortens in fall, weeds that grow to 6 feet in high summer, set seeds at only a few inches tall as they know frost is quickly approaching. Better to grow short with seeds than no seeds at all.

These pings fly back to me like a boomerang coming home true. My overused August muscles still have doubt, but this time I inhale the power of life around me. I grasp the rough sack and I inhale those potatoes right up over my shoulder. Yes!

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Steph Jones is the Assistant Farm Manager at Pennypack Farm & Education Center, a thirteen-acre non-profit organically growing vegetable farm in Horsham, PA. She majored in Studio Art at Bates College and has been working at Pennypack since 2015. Since her first summer at the farm, she has been fascinated with the natural world around her and its wonder has greatly influenced her artwork. Steph loves how her art shows her what she knows about this world and what is important to her within it. She is a farmer, she is an artist, and she believes they are the same.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #31.

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