Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Update from the Farm

People ask me “how is everything at the farm?” with the same regularity that others might ask someone else about the latest Phillies game (don’t try me with baseball, I don’t know the first thing about it!). The most rewarding part about this time of year for me is the fullness and cohesiveness of the farming team. Three months into the season, our staff has grown tremendously and it truly feels like a real team out in the field as we work together to get the harvest done, the plants in the ground, and try to battle the weeds.
Our summer intern, Ariel Dooner, has joined us with fresh energy and motivation. I’m considering making her the farm public relations director as she has already expressed how much she loves interacting with all of you, the shareholders. We have a regular crew of stellar volunteers who miraculously showed up just at the right time, when I was asking the universe for some more helping hands on the farm. Perry goes to Lawrenceville and has blown us away with her maturity and endurance for weeding tomatoes. Kevin lives just down the street and should be considered our second intern since he’s been logging so many hours with us. He also gets extra points for actualizing my year-long dream of putting our farm stand sign up on the Henry Ave. Deshawn joined us last week from Germantown High. He loves to cook and has proven to be an expert black plastic mulch layer! Janai, a recent graduate from Germantown High, has also joined the team. She has discovered the power of the stake pounding tool and I’m hoping she’ll consider coming back next year when it’s time to stake the tomatoes again! Eric and Briana are from University Academy Charter school and are both doing school based internships with us. Eric is helping us learn more about fitness and taking care of our bodies while we farm, and Briana is going to contribute some articles in the newsletter.
It feels like our team has grown as fast as the weeds in the onion beds! Now we have to see which one will win, the farmers or the onion weeds!

No comments:

Post a Comment