Week 6, Summer 2022

Hi ZA community,

We hope you are having a great start to the month of July. This past week was slower than usual on the farm because some of the apprentices took a mid-season vacation to camp at a festival in Indiana.

This experience was interesting for those who went because it offered a rare moment in which we spent time as a group outside of the farm. It helped me realize how much I feel like this group of people has become a family to me over the course of the summer. Camping together also highlighted how functional and harmonious this particular family feels to me. If you’ve ever gone camping on a family vacation, you know that it can sometimes devolve into stress and disagreement. This camping trip struck me as particularly unchallenging socially and logistically, which seemed pretty special and unusual for a group of six people. I think our trip was so successful because we have all spent time working together and making decisions in a similar way on the farm. Our success camping together due to our experience farming together reminds me how farming can uniquely support relationships between people.

On the farm, the apprentices that stayed had more success than usual milking our goat! We’ve begun to make goat cheese, using a recipe for Russian farmers’ cheese that was passed to us by one of our previous apprentice’s mother. We also got a new vermicompost, which they began caring for over the weekend. Julia arrived at the farm over the weekend, and we’re excited to have her back after being part of the founding cohort of apprentices!

Happy wednesday,

Luisa, Sophie, Gavi, Sydney, Lexi, Daniel, Bella, Isa, Julia

Something we listened to this week:

She Is On Her Way - Aly Halpert

Cover image alt text:

Green pencil illustration on white paper, top view of an open cooler. The words “our cooler.”