Remembering San Ysidro

Lisa Grenier, Volunteer

May 22, 2021 was clear and sunny, like most June days in Tucson. It was my first week as a Mission Garden volunteer and the day of the San Ysidro Festival. San Ysidro is the patron saint of farmers and laborers, and at Mission Garden, the day celebrates the wheat harvest. By 9 in the morning, it was already heating up. The field of wheat stood tall and golden. Board member, Jesus Garcia, was educating the assembled group of visitors and volunteers about the role of White Sonoran Wheat in the history of the Southwest. 

Left to right, volunteer Lisa Grenier with Assistant Gardener and Cultural Outreach Liaison, Maegan Lopez

Then came the wondrous part. All the volunteers were given a hand sickle and shown how to harvest the wheat by hand. We each grabbed a handful of stalks in one hand, and, with the sickle in the other hand, made a clean cut through the stalks of wheat. Well, that was what was supposed to happen anyway, but many of us inexperienced harvesters seemed to saw through the bundle, not yet used to the motions. By sawing and slicing, we cut armfulls of wheat and laid the sheaves down on the threshing ground. When the ground was covered, a bridled horse trampled the wheat separating the grain from the stalks. The rough grains were then transferred to baskets where they were tossed high into the air to allow the wind to blow away the chaff, the outside husk, from the wheat kernels. Finally, the cleaned wheat was poured into the mouth of a great stone mill called a tahona. We worked together at the mill to turn the huge heavy grinding stone. Wheat flour dribbled out into the trough around the edge of the mill where it was collected into bags.

As I was harvesting and processing the wheat, I felt such a profound connection to the land and the people who cultivated this land before me. I thought about the Tohono O'odham, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese and African American farmers who tilled this land. I thought about my own ancestors who worked similar fields in Sicily and Canada. I could see the long chain of our human family planting, harvesting, and processing grain for millennia. I remembered the traditional farmers throughout the world who still harvest wheat by hand. I felt a sense of kinship with all of these people.

Through hand harvesting wheat, I regained a connection to the sacred toil of turning seed and soil into food to eat. Biting into a delicious slice of Barrio bread that day, I felt especially grateful  knowing the momentous work it takes to farm and process food.

It's been more than a year since that first San Ysidro Festival. I have been volunteering at Mission Garden regularly and enjoy it immensely. I like all the garden festivals, but San Ysidro’s festival was my first introduction to the miracle that is Mission Garden.