Matt Gerald

His Work: owns and operates a local Farm that produces mostly flowers and wine.

“When I’m out standing in my field” is the environment that he feels he works best in.  Mr. Gerald says “I really do like the labor. I like working with my hands, I like working at my own schedule.”

            One might think that working 12-14 hour days 7 days a week during the peak season might make Mr. Gerald hate his work but he says “I’m very happy. I’m very fortunate to love what I do.” He tells me how “Farming is never a great living. You rarely make enough to afford a great vacation, but it is a wonderful lifestyle and that’s part the pay. Part of your paycheck is living the lifestyle you want to live and being able to live in a place you love.”

One of the things Mr. Gerald truly loves about what he does is that he provides things for his community and he seems to value the important of the strength of local community and the local economy. He says that he “Felt better about it when I grew a lot of produce because I knew I was feeding my neighbors but now I’m feeding my neighbors soul with flowers.”

He has been involved in farmers markets for 11 years and stresses the importance and significance of this market. Through the farmer’s markets he is “trying to create wealth that stays in my community [and] generating the important kind of wealth” which is one where neighbors exchange money for their unique goods and services. This creates a strong community and keeps good jobs going.

Mr. Gerald says “I’ve always called agriculture a study in failures” because you are constantly learning from your mistakes. He tells me that “not everybody is cut out to be a farmer. Farming involves a lot of failure even if you’re a good farmer something’s always failing, some things are succeeding.” He explains to me that a field in which you’ve put a tremendous amount of money, time, labor, and love into can be gone through a number of things like crop pests, hail storms or freezes just to name a few.

 “I’m certainly one of the happiest people on earth” and this seems to be possible because of the lifestyle which he says is part of the pay of being a farmer. Also the cyclical nature of farming allows him time for contemplation, something he values greatly.

Themes: happy, fortunate, important kind of wealth, giving back to the community, study of failure, lifestyle being part of the pay.