Week 11, Spring 2024
Hello again dear readers: welcome back to the farm journal!
Last week’s entry left off right before our exciting trip to Wisconsin. We left early Friday morning to make the 5-ish hour drive so we could spend Shabbat with Acacia’s family in their lovely home. On the car ride we learned a bit about the geographical history of the Driftless Area. In the last ice age much of America was covered in glaciers, greatly changing its landscape. These glaciers did not reach the Driftless Area, though, and as a result the geography of southwestern Wisconsin, filled with rolling hills and river valleys, is quite different from its surroundings. Along the way we stopped at Culver’s, famous for their frozen custard, which was essential for our time in the state nicknamed “America’s Dairyland.” We also made an important stop by an outlet of Duluth Trading Company to get some great deals on working clothes. Once we made it to Acacia’s home we got a lovely tour of the land and set up our camping gear. As the sun set we welcomed in Shabbat with song and had a lovely dinner over the campfire. With the cool summer air flowing and moon shining so brightly we decided to ditch our tent and sleep under the stars.
Shabbat morning woke me up gently with the sunrise and not a single cloud in the sky. We went to explore and forage in the woods before sitting down to an incredible brunch of frittata and pancakes, including homemade maple syrup! In the afternoon we headed to the Muscoda Morel Mushroom Festival. Every year this region of Wisconsin gets together to celebrate the fleeting excitement of morel foraging season. We enjoyed some fun food, picked up some mushroom-themed gifts to take back home with us, and headed back to Chicago for the night. Unfortunately we had to start our Sunday by saying goodbye to Sophie who was heading out for the summer. We will miss her so much but know she’ll be up to great things. After a lovely brunch with Lexi we finally headed back to Sheldon. And we were in for a huge treat; Patricia was on the farm to greet us! After unpacking and unwinding a little we ate dinner together on the porch and soaked in the sunset.
Monday was back to business as usual. We spent much of the morning continuing to cicada-proof our trees. In the afternoon I led the group in our Context Conversation about racism and marginalized groups in the Jewish community and we had some really thoughtful discussions together. After the work day ended Patricia taught me how to play her autoharp: an instrument I had never seen before and actually isn’t too hard to play. For dinner Acacia used some phyllo dough we picked up in Chicago to make an incredible pot pie and Patricia made us some chocolate chip cookies for dessert. For those of you who have been following the journal you’ll know that we’ve been keeping track of the omer and have even been naming our chicks after the corresponding sefirot for every week. Since Monday night marked the last night of netzach, endurance, we brought out Netzach the chicken to count the omer with us. Truly a ZA moment.
On Tuesday morning, farm managers Acacia and Eric had their weekly farm maintenance walk. We also continued our tree pruning and, you guessed it, cicada netting efforts. In the afternoon we kept up the prep in our ATR beds with some weeding. I also took some time to harvest more mushrooms. After our work day we convened in the afternoon breeze to hold our Weekly Weeds check in while simultaneously holding some of our chickens. You would not believe how big they are getting. It’s been pretty cool to see their adult feathers starting to come in.
On Wednesday we started seeding cucumbers, turnips, beets, and winter squash in ATR. I took some time to chop and soak some straw for our next mushroom inoculation. For lunch I roasted some of our asparagus, made pasta with our oyster mushrooms, and threw a couple freshly harvested radishes in a salad. The radishes in Bayit bolted (went to seed too fast) so we harvested them all and have consequently had an abundance of radishes: 105 pounds to be exact! With all this talk of how fast the life cycle of a plant can be, I realize I’ve been failing to mention the beautiful flowers that have come and gone so far this season. Some of my personal favorites have been poppies, irises, peonies, and even some roses are just starting to bloom. Our evening was surprisingly eventful thanks to the escape of the bull in the far pasture. I think it’s safe to say that we can now all put cow herding on our resumes.
On Thursday we worked on even more netting. We actually spotted a couple adult cicadas checking out our trees which was nerve-racking but also sort of exciting. As usual for Thursdays I cleaned our buckets and led us through an inoculation, this week the Summer White variety of oyster mushroom. In the afternoon Martina shared a presentation about cottage food laws which we’ve been mistakenly but then purposefully referring to as cottage core laws. In addition to accessorizing with kerchiefs and hand-made jewelry, we learned some very useful information about what resources you need to sell small-scale processed food products like jams and pickles. In the evening we spent some time outside reveling in the cool summer air and the moonlight. I’m trying to get in as much outdoor appreciation as I can before heading back to the hustle and bustle of NYC.
Today (Friday) FINALLY marked the last day of cicada netting: woohoo! We’ve also been working on some other tasks like mowing, weeding, mitigating bee swarms, and writing this very farm journal. I’m really looking forward to Shabbat back on the farm and can’t wait to update you all again next week!
