Week 3, Summer ‘21
Rains poured heavily, a new feline family member was gained, Black Eyed Peas shabbat was enjoyed, and interpersonal relationships were deeply strengthened… all in all a great week.
On Monday, as you can guess, we started the day off with an hour-long meeting, diving deeper into the logistics of Zumwalt Acres as an organization, and what our goals are for this summer. Along with our official indoor roles, we created various subcommittees to effectively plan out the coming weeks in terms of media, events, food distribution, policy work, and more. Having spent a good amount brainstorming indoors, it was time to move outdoors and get into more of that weeding that we love so much. Zaria was officially put to work to weed in Goat Garden, along with Jesse and Stephanie. While Goat Garden was full, Hannah and Patricia began conducting research in the Strawberry Field, along with some others doing a quick weed and mulching of beds as necessary.
The afternoon was spent almost entirely indoors, as we put our respective sub-committees to work. Zaria and Sophie worked on expanding our media presence/engagement by planning out upcoming virtual opportunities. Policy work was also emphasized by Patricia and Tuomas, who spent the afternoon planning our visit with State Representative Tom Bennett. Eric and Grace also developed a comprehensive outline to better guide our Context Convos. Lastly, Gavi, Hannah, and Jesse came up with an idea of how events (virtual gatherings, as well as a small community event with friends and family) will look this summer, while Joey and Stephanie worked on some more aesthetic ways of communicating to our friends and family what these events will look like.
For dinner, we enjoyed red lentils, brown rice, kale chips, sauteed rainbow chard, and a homemade basil flatbread [Grace + Joey].
On Tuesday, we got a quick start to the day and immediately got our strawberry research done. Hannah, Patricia, and Sophie finished about 6 rows of recording the pH and taking soil cores within the strawberry field in a very timely manner. Gavi also participated in research, and went into the corn and hay fields to flux. As the Bayit beds were being cleared periodically throughout the summer, Zaria took on her role as Bayit bed manager and planted more lettuce where the old harvests were cleared. While research was being completed, Joey put his construction background to use while making a dry rack from scratch with Grace. In addition to all of this, the team worked hard to make the farm pristine for the upcoming visit by a group of local representatives.
After a hearty lunch of rice and salad, Eric went out into the forest and checked on our chestnut trees, fixing their trubes (tree tubes) and remedying the damage done by some local cows. We then got all hands on deck to weed Goat Garden and the Strawberry fields, which are now happy and weed-free.
For dinner, we enjoyed black bean soup, with a side of quinoa and a mix of steamed kale and chard [Gavi + Patricia].
On Wednesday, we started off with some light indoor work to prepare for the visit from State Representative Tom Bennett and ISA (Illinois Stewardship Alliance) members. Tuomas, Patricia, and Eric (who are heading the logistics of the visit) debriefed the team about what we needed to finish around the farm in order to prepare. After that meeting, we had all hands on deck in Goat Garden to finish weeding, mulching, and trellising each row as needed.
In the afternoon, we finished weeding, and uprooted many of the veggies in Miracle and Goat Garden that were too far gone (aka lettuce, turnips, mustard greens, etc.), so there would be room to plant new veggies the next day. Another small victory we had was finally putting up our beautiful signs for each bed around the farm! Shoutout to Zaria for getting that done.
For dinner, Jesse and I cheffed up some jackfruit street tacos topped with caramelized onions, freshly made guacamole, and limes. On the side was Mexican style rice and sauteed kale varieties. Sadly there were no beans per Joey’s request [Soph + Jesse].
On Thursday, we planted like crazy! We started the transformation of many rows throughout the farm. In Goat Garden, we planted kale, another full research row of cucumbers, and continued trellising the old rows; in Miracle we planted bush beans and sweet potatoes where we had cleared veggies the day before. Within the Bayit beds we also planted many different herbs and peas. In addition to planting, we mulched basically every other bare location that had produce, and JR mowed the entire property.
The afternoon was filled with good news as well. We had a very exciting change to the farm… we got a cat!! JR believes that someone couldn’t home their cat anymore, so they dropped him off with us in the middle of the night. JR woke up to the little guy following him around the farm, and then he came out to meet all of the apprentices when the sun came out in the afternoon. We have yet to determine his name, but he’s orange, striped, curious, confident, cuddly, and VERY cute. Then, the representatives arrived! Tuomas, Patricia, and Gavi led Tom Bennett and ISA members on a farm tour and presented them with a nice spread of our farm-grown produce, Gavi’s famous sourdough bread, and Jesse’s beloved pesto. The meeting went really well; we gave them a general overview of ZA, chatted about the research we’re doing here and how it could be scaled up to larger farms to help mitigate climate change, how regenerative agriculture is possible in places with conventional corn and soy farms, and more about what work we’re doing here. We hope to host them again sometime in the future.
For dinner, we enjoyed sweet potato, peanut butter, kale soup, and a side of rice and sourdough [Hannah + Zaria].
On Friday, the rains were pouring all day, so our work flow shifted a bit from our normal outdoor heavy schedule to a more lowkey indoor day. Nonetheless, we still had to harvest some produce to sell to local Chicago restaurant Kopi Cafe by the end of the day, so Zaria went out to get beets, broccoli, and more from Miracle when there was a gap in the rain. Grace and Eric were feeling rather energized about the outdoors, so they also went outside to finish pruning tomatoes. Other than that, everyone caught up on indoor tasks that needed to get done; the tasks involved updating the website, organizing research data, getting apparel ready to be ordered, talking through logistics for our upcoming farmer’s market booth, and more.
The afternoon consisted of meetings, more indoor work, and preparing for Shabbat dinner of course.
For dinner, we enjoyed red lentil kale curry, hummus, tahini salad, challah, and zaatar roasted potatoes [Stephanie + Gavi].
