Friends and Adventures!
Wow its already mid-August! Sometimes it feels like I haven't been here all that long, but then I remember its been a full 3 months already! I’m beginning to see the shift in seasons, and its exciting. But I also realized that much has happened since my last blog post, and I must update the masses on all the fun things that have been going on this summer! I’ve been on outings with farm and community friends, went on a vacation, and had a bunch of friends and family come to visit! And that’s not even what I’ve been doing ON the farm! But maybe that can be a separate post. This one is to highlight some of the human connections I’ve been lucky to have experienced. Starting with people who came to visit me!!
Visits!
Being out here on the farm remains an adjustment from the pace of city life, and being away from people I was used to seeing regularly. But I’m so so grateful to some of them who have made the trip out to visit me! First, I was visited by three wonderful friends from the Reba community in Evanston, Camille, Courtney and Kristin! All three of them played a role in helping me decide whether or not to explore this interest in farming, and where to go, and I’m so happy I got to show them around! We picked berries, explored the farm, and had good conversations.
Two more friends, Ellen and Stephen, who I know from different times in life, also came to visit! The three of us all come from quite different places, all got connected at different times, but have been brought together through community and mutual interests, and I’m so grateful that they made the trek out here too! They were gracious enough to be a ride off the farm and visit places I can’t otherwise get to, including True Leaves bookstore in Princeton (highly recommend), and Sislers Ice Cream, so I could stock up on half gallons of locally made deliciousness. We also picked berries, made s’mores, and got caught up on life.
Next on my roster of visits, was my older brother Matthew, and my nephew and niece Abram and Nuria! They drove out from Iowa, and we spent the weekend exploring the farm, wading in the creek, learning to milk the goats, visiting baby chicks, collecting eggs, playing on the playground, and me trying to wrap my head around how to play Pokemon cards with Abram. I think they had a good time :)
And the most recent of visits, was from two of my coworkers from the bakery I came from in Chicago!! Mari and Cecilia and I were all on the decorating team, where we all had fun bonding over the struggles of bakery life, podcasts, and friendly banter. I know I keep saying “I’m so grateful!” but I am! People spent precious gas money and time to come out and visit me, and it’s warmed my heart! Mari and Cecilia made a day trip, which we spent touring the farm, visiting the animals, and just generally catching up about the goings on at the bakery. I didn’t manage to get any pictures of that visit, unfortunately, but it was a lovely day!
Other Adventures!
Other highlights from this summer include outtings with farm staff, and local community members. One particularly fun night, Cristina and I were invited to go fishing at some local folk’s pond, with Fionah (another farm intern), and Simon, a local fishing expert. I didn’t manage to catch anything other than a lot of seaweed and algae, but Fionah caught her first ever fish! We then met up with local church leaders Cal and Carol, and a few other friends, and they took us to a grain bin at sunset. We all climbed up to the top of the grain bin, and watched the sunset in the clouds, enjoyed the view of expansive fields and dozens of wind turbines. It was the most Midwest thing I’ve done since probably high school, and it was glorious, haha! I know someone in that group got a picture of all of us up there, but I don’t have it!
Sadly, soon after that excursion, Fionah’s time at the farm came to an end. She was here for nearly a year through an international volunteer program, and she spent her time learning about and studying the trees that grow here, and working on solutions for some sustainability issues we’re facing with our 100 acres of oak forest. She also lead a project to inoculate a few palates of logs with Shiitake mushroom spores, so that we can harvest them over the next few years when they grow! Fionah is an absolute ray of sunshine, and we miss her a lot, but on her last day, we had a little goodbye shindig for her. I used the opportunity to exercise my cake making skills, and made her a little cake that looked like a tree stump, and decorated it with mushrooms made of icing, and a variety of edible plants I foraged!
In the opposite of being visited, I left the farm for a week and did some visiting of my own! I got to go to Maryland to spend a few days with some extended family in a lake house on the north end of the Chesapeake Bay. It was HOT, but beautiful, and lovely to see family who I haven’t seen in a few years! I was also able to make a quick stop in Evanston on the front and back end of that trip, and it was lovely to see home again briefly, before returning to the farm and getting back into the swing of things!
