Found So Doing

Reflections of a Polyface Apprentice

I remember relaxing after chores one morning, a year ago, as a new apprentice. I was sitting on a picnic table near where we meet every morning, enjoying some of the last warm sunshine of autumn, and listening to the birds sing. Every few moments a pig feeder lid would bang shut in the distant barn; I've become quite fond of that sound.

It's a peculiar thing to find comforting, but there was something deeply satisfying about the ambiance of a working farm, and knowing that I was finally part of a place I'd admired for so long.

One of my earliest and most enduring impressions was just how wonderfully simple and approachable it all seemed. Behind the books, speaking engagements, tours, and reputation was a real farm, full of ordinary people doing ordinary work. Somehow, that made it all the more extraordinary.

I came to Polyface as something of a non-traditional student. At 37, I was a little further along in life than my fellow apprentices, and the farm's first married apprentice. I wasn't an eighteen-year-old embarking on an agricultural gap-year exploration, but an adult looking to make a deliberate course-correction.

My love for this farm had always been about more than agricultural techniques. I am truly excited by pasture-based livestock systems, but Joel's broader philosophy resonated just as deeply. His ideas about entrepreneurship, personal responsibility, liberty, stewardship, and meaningful work gave expression to convictions I'd spent years developing myself.

But for much of my adult life, I'd struggled to find a vocation. I felt capable, but out-of-place and underutilized. I knew I was intelligent, resourceful, and a quick study, but there's a considerable difference between knowing you possess abilities and seeing those abilities produce something meaningful. I had often doubted whether the things I was good at would ever amount to anything. Part of the problem was finding work that could engage enough of my interests and talents; the other part was finding something I believed in strongly enough to deserve my best efforts.

What I found at Polyface was more than just a way to learn to farm. It was a place where the agricultural, commercial, educational, and social dimensions of the life I'd imagined already intersected.

And so it was not hard for me to offer myself into novicehood - to step back and see what I could learn. It's never too late to become a beginner.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;

that is where they should be.

Now put the foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau

I'm so glad I started where I did, and I've scarcely begun to count the wealth of experience I've gained. Daniel says, "the days are long, but the summer is short," and somehow now the long days of managing tricky cattle moves or water issues in drought conditions feel like the blink of an eye. The summer stewards have come and gone and taken their own five-month lessons home to see what they can make of them. They left me with lessons all my own.

One of the greatest gifts of my time as an apprentice has been learning from Joel's son Daniel and our Farm Manager, Eric. I've been fortunate to find in each of them a mentor I can respect and admire, a guide just a few years ahead of me on the path I want my life to take. These good men are examples to me every day of the kind of commitment and faithfulness it will take to get where I want to go. They've challenged my assumptions about my own capabilities and helped me see through doubts and insecurities I'd carried for years. They haven't simply taught me how to become a better farmer – they've helped me become a more effective version of myself.

Daniel showed me a little trick one day. He needed to carry just a little more feed than would fit in our standard 5-gallon bucket, maybe 20% more. He took the full feed scoop and stacked it neatly on top of the bucket, grabbed the handle and took off. It seems simple now, and obvious, but in that moment it stood out to me as one of hundreds of little nuances that reveal long experience. I did it this morning to get just enough feed to the farthest broiler shelter.

Once, hurrying to get hay in while rain began to fall, Eric and I were loading round bales on a flatbed. It was my first time with round bales, and I thought after the first layer that the trailer was full – I made to drive off. Eric smiled and held up a finger. His smirk said, "I'm about to show you something cool... Watch what we can do together!" We loaded another row on top, and then he reminded me I could grab another bale on the front-end loader spears on the way out of the field.

Little stories like this show something I've come to appreciate deeply about the culture here. There's always something to learn, another improvement to make, a little more capacity to discover.

Daniel and Eric have helped me recognize my own capacity by expecting me to use it.

If I'm honest, I knew I would want to try for the year-long apprenticeship before I even came for the first summer - and it wasn't long before I started to wonder if maybe I could stick around even longer. What attracted me to farming wasn't necessarily the prospect of owning a farm. It was the life associated with it: meaningful work, stewardship, community, education, and participation in something I believed in. Starting my own farm would mean years of acquiring land, developing infrastructure, establishing markets, building relationships, and creating a reputation. That's a worthy undertaking, but I was conscious of how much of my remaining working life it might require.

Here, at what I considered the epicenter of the regenerative agriculture movement, was an enterprise with tremendous momentum and an established community of people who shared my convictions. I could spend twenty years building something similar, or I could leverage the talents I'd already developed to help carry this extraordinary place into its next chapter.

When I talked to folks about the apprenticeship, the inevitable question was, "So what do you want to do after this?" and I always said, "I don't want there to BE an 'after this!'"

I'm thrilled and honored to be staying on as a member of the Polyface staff this fall.

There's a passage in the Gospel of Luke that has long resonated with me. Following Jesus' familiar teaching to consider the ravens and the lilies, he describes the faithful steward who diligently attends to his responsibilities while awaiting his master's return.

"Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing." — Luke 12:43

I understood that competence, diligence, and reliability in small things would help build a web of trust, relationships, and opportunities for greater responsibility. I wanted to be someone who could be counted on, someone whose work demonstrated his convictions as readily as his words.

But my time here has also deepened my appreciation for another aspect of that lesson: the small things were never insignificant in the first place. They are the ordinary acts through which the principles of good stewardship become reality.

A farm isn't sustained by its philosophy alone, but by the faithful application of that philosophy in countless small decisions, day after day.

Every family that buys our food places a measure of trust in the people who raise it. They trust that the principles we talk about are the principles we practice, even when nobody is watching. It's a responsibility I don't take lightly, and I'm grateful to work alongside people who feel the same way.

That, perhaps, is what I've come to love most about Polyface. It's a place where the things I believe find expression in the things I do. Where experienced people take the time to pass along what they've learned. Where the smallest jobs deserve our attention, and where the next generation is continually challenged to grow into greater responsibility.

My journey at Polyface is not over, and I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunities, relationships, and responsibilities that have come my way. There's still so much to learn, and I hope there always will be.

This season of my life is folding into the next, and it's bittersweet like autumn. I'm sad to say goodbye to the friends alongside whom I have grown so much. I am relieved from the press of bringing the summer to fruition; I am excited to turn it all under and see what sprouts in the spring.

If you come by the farm one morning and see me chin-up toward the sun, don't be afraid to say hello.

Chris Walker