Week 1, Fall 2023
Hi everyone, Claire here to share updates from our very first week of the fall season! 🍁🍂
Energy on the farm grew exponentially this week: last Monday, Nadav and I were running around the farm frantically trying to harvest everything on our own; one week later, the farm is packed! The house is full (to the brim, some of us are even sleeping in tents outside!), laughter and chatter is everywhere, we’re running out of dishes at every meal, and with so many more mouths to feed we’re working our way through the abundance of fresh produce that we are able to harvest much more quickly. With 9 people, this is our biggest fall cohort in ZA history!
New arrivals began on Monday: Nadav and I held down the Monday harvest until Sophie and Lexi arrived, and in the evening we were invited to a Labor Day party hosted by John Zumwalt (JR’s cousin), where we got to hang out with old Sheldon friends, meet new ones, and stuff ourselves at a delicious potluck -- my first time getting to feel more connected to the local Sheldon community.
On Tuesday, the rest of the fall cohort arrived throughout the day -- some folks new to the farm, some who’ve been here many times before – and we shared our first meals together while beginning to get to know each other. Our fall cohort is made up of Acacia, Martina, Gavi, Frances, Amy, Sophie, Claire I., Margalit, and I – all of us bringing different backgrounds and farming experiences and our own beautiful energies to the space.
Our week was full trying to fit in all the regular farm tasks along with lots of orientation to the farm and how it runs, learning about ZA’s history and vision, developing our own community norms and guidelines (biggest alliterative highlight from our new norms list: “curious questions cultivate community”), deciding who will bottom-line various pieces of the farm work while we’re here, talking about what it means to steward this land, and big-picture visioning of what we want our community to look like this fall. I’m learning that living in intentional community takes work! Some nights I go to bed exhausted from long days of farm work and long evenings doing the work to build this community, but it’s beautiful to see the work paying off already as our community begins to take shape. We had our first Shabbat together on Friday night (featuring Sophie’s magazine-worthy heirloom tomato individual galettes, someone get in touch with Home and Gardens ASAP please), closed Shabbat with a havdalah and fairy-light dinner outside under the stars on Saturday, and spent the weekend doing puzzles, going for bike rides, swimming in John’s pool, and enjoying what might be some of our last warm summer days.
This week we’ll have to say goodbye to Nadav, who stewarded us through the summer-fall transition and welcomed me to the farm (thank you!), but we get to welcome back Claire, who was at ZA in fall of 2020 and this year since March, and whose arrival completes our fall cohort! (Yes, this means we have two Claires now, and yes, it’s already confusing… any suggestions welcomed) We’re beginning to prepare for Rosh Hashanah next week, and Yom Kippur later this month, as we deepen into high holiday season. In closing, I want to share the Shehecheyanu prayer we’ve been singing a lot this week. Shehecheyanu is the blessing for firsts, meant to be recited to mark joyous occasions, and so now feels like the perfect time to hold our gratitude for this place and the newness of arriving here together:
Hebrew Text
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה
Transliteration
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.
Translation
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.