Buying the Farm: Peace and War on a Sixties Commune

8. Annus Horribilis (2000)

M 98 N 8 Annus Horribilis (2000) As the late 1990s unfolded and the millennium neared, the situation at the farm, as it entered its fourth decade, was composed of several related strands. First, the farm was largely controlled physically by its inhabitants , the team of the young organic farmers—Tim and Lise and their friends and associates—who had jelled into what they saw as a new farm family over their more than seven years’ tenure there. They were, in turn, supported by Harvey, who continued to offer them both material and moral support and, as a farm founder and a trustee, to champion their cause as embodying the rightful future of Montague Farm. Then, as the year 2000 approached, Janice, its longest-term resident, made it known that she wanted to return to the farm, abandoning her self-imposed exile after a four-year absence, and that she hoped to move back into the converted garage where she had lived. Just why was not entirely clear. The view she expressed passionately at the time was that the farm was her home and that there was no other place that could satisfy her desire to settle down and continue with her life in the way she chose. Another consideration was the impending birth ofher first grandchild —reestablishing at Montague the domestic stability she felt was needed to welcome into the world the next generation of her own family and, as she saw it, the farm’s. Related to these personal motives, especially in view of the way the 99 N ANNUS HORRIBILIS (2000) situation played out, there was also, no doubt, the need for Janice and Sam to reassert themselves at the farm. Janice’s departure in 1995 had been preceded by meetings of residents, plus Sam, in which Sam and Janice sought to reexert their authority over the farm. In their view, they wished to return it to a position more closely aligned with the larger farm family and to begin to guide it by a process of decision-making more resembling community consensus. While that approach had had its rough edges—offending, among others, not only Harvey and the current residents but farm stalwart Peter Natti, who at the time still lived there— Janice’s intended return to the same situation, which she was discussing in early 2000, had, despite its potential problems, the support of much of the wider farm family and several of the farm’s trustees. It was especially supported by Cathy Rogers, who had stayed in touch with Janice over the years, shared her interest in the health field, and sympathized with the domestic concerns she expressed. It was also strongly backed, in recognition of Janice and Sam’s role in farm history, by Steve Diamond, who, along with Cathy, represented some of the original voices of the farm. On the other hand, the idea of Janice’s return also had the effect of rearousing the enmity of Harvey, who, it appeared to many, had spent considerable effort over the past few years building a bulwark of current residents intended, at least in some part, to block Janice and Sam from meaningful involvement in the farm. The third important strand composing the farm’s situation at the turn of the millennium was that the trust itself, renewed in 1980, was due to expire at the end of the year. At the end of January 2001, unless the board voted to renew it again, the trust would lapse, leaving the seven trustees as merely joint owners of the property—“tenants in common ” was the legal term. While under ideal circumstances this transition might have been predicted to occur with little change, as many hoped it would, growing tensions at the farm alerted the board and others in the community to the new possibilities the transition did in fact allow. One of these was that while the terms of the trust made the selling or dividing of the farm very difficult, once it had lapsed any of the seven owners could act on his or her own, creating a situation much more difficult to control. This prospect imposed a deadline of late 2000 or early 2001 for some kind of action concerning the farm and the trust. 100 N CHAPTER 8 Increasingly, the events of the following year would reflect the urgency of this impending date. As these three themes continued to interweave...