Week 11, Summer 2024
Welcome to week 11 of the summer and my final farm journal :( Tomorrow I will be packing up my stuff to depart home after one of the most special experiences of my life, and I’m definitely in my feels right now and I think this farm journal will reflect that. I’m hoping to channel that reflective energy wave in this entry and detail not only what we did each day of this final week, but also the little lessons embodied in those tasks that I will take with me when I leave ZA.
Friday, August 9:
Friday was a frenzy of event prep and cooking as we got the land tidied up and prepared to welcome about fifty people for the dance festival. It was also, unfortunately, the day that we said goodbye to Zoë, and we entered the weekend with, as Patricia calls it, a Zoë-sized hole in our hearts :( In the evening, however, we shared a lovely moment of grounding and community-building at the hay bales with the dance festival attendees, and got to share the dance that we’ve been working so hard on and sang together as the sun set over the cornfields.
Friday was a necessary reminder to me of the importance of pausing, being still, and just marveling. I often feel like there is always a never-ending list of things to be done — and this feels especially pertinent at ZA sometimes when all the gardens need weeding, tomatoes need pruning, and many beings need tending to — but we don’t have to wait until those things are done before we take a breath and appreciate the moment for what it is.
Saturday, August 10:
Saturday was the first full day of the festival! The day was filled with workshops on topics like place-based literacies, homelands, and learning to listen to land, and concluded with an awe-inspiring stage performance and dance party under the stars.
The dance festival workshops created space for important conversations we often have at ZA on what it means to steward and be in relationship with land. Attending Patricia’s workshop on land listening helped me reflect on what it means to know a place — whether through its sounds, its beings, how it takes up space, etc — and made me acutely aware of the fact of just how many interesting sounds fill the air on a consistent basis. It also makes me think about how we as human beings make sound and take up space too as we move through this land, and how we can do so in a way that is responsible, reparative, and just.
Sunday, August 11:
On Sunday, we wrapped up the dance festival with a final few workshops in the morning, including a MoPeD workshop led by Gavi, a hip-hop workshop, and an ecology workshop led by Eric and Acacia. In the evening, Yonah, Ernest, and I went on a lovely sunset bike ride to Kentland and met up with some other folks at Don’s for a quick pick-me-up snack before heading back to ZA.
Sunday felt like such a healing day for my inner child with the bike ride, our pit stop at a playground where we enjoyed some swings and a roundabout, and getting ice cream at Don’s. It felt like an important reminder that as much as it’s important for us to engage with serious, thoughtful, and often challenging conversations, creating contrast and making space for fun and joy is just as necessary.
Monday, August 12:
Monday was a slower day as people took time to rest after the dance festival. In the morning, I harvested the usual suspects with Isa, and in the afternoon tended to the mushrooms.
Whenever I harvest, it’s always a lesson in gratitude. I find that I’m constantly humbled by and in wonder of our plants’ endless abundance and generosity, and it has also been really special to consistently be on harvest throughout the season and witness how the plants evolve through varying stages of production.
Tuesday, August 13:
Tuesday was Tisha B’Av, and some folks fasted, took part in grief rituals, and read Jewish text to honor the day of grief. Tuesday also happened to be the day that we said goodbye to Isa and I dropped her off at the train station, which evoked feelings of sadness and bittersweetness for me that felt appropriate for the day. That evening, we had a lovely dinner of grilled kale and corn courtesy of Marya and (you guessed it) leftovers around a bonfire.
I like to joke with my friends at home that I’ve cried more being at ZA for the past two and a half months than I have all my time at college, and that’s a great thing. I think there’s something to be said about how ZA cultivates an environment in which there is space to feel out all your emotions, both ones we enjoy feeling and others we don’t (like grief) and see them as being a valid and necessary part of the human experience.
Wednesday, August 14:
On Wednesday, Ella, Luisa, Patricia, Anja, and Gavi departed for their respective trips to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Chicago, and so the six of us remaining were left with a rather quiet house. It was all hands on deck harvesting the usual suspects in the morning, and we broke away to do various tasks like pruning tomatoes, weeding ATR, and mushroom tending in the afternoon.
For me, the mushrooms have been an interesting lesson in letting go of control. I remember coming in with lofty goals as the new mushroom co-bottom-liner to maximize production, streamline the inoculation and growing process, and to make sure the mushrooms were doing as well as they possibly could. And though thinking in this way can be helpful, it was also important for me to recognize when I had done enough for the mushrooms and when things were out of my control, and especially to recognize that mushrooms are their own beings who at times refuse to operate on a human-defined schedule. And that’s okay and beautiful.
Thursday, August 15:
Thursday was a gloomy, rainy day, so we split off to do various indoor activities like tent cleaning, fall flats seeding/planting, cooking/preserving, prepping for Phoebe and Nooch’s insane birthday blowout (taking place today), and more. Ernest also led an incredibly innovative (and rather interesting) transformation of festival leftovers for lunch.
Thursday, as our second to last day, had me thinking a lot about the concept of closure and transition, which I feel like I’ve done a lot of thinking about since being on the farm and navigating some pretty significant transitions in my life. I’m often left with the feeling as I leave a place that I haven’t made the most of it — endings always seem to creep up on me in a way that brings up challenging feelings. And while I think there’s often no way to make endings and transitions feel less hard because that’s just the nature of them, grounding in ritual, being present, and taking intentional time to reflect on the legacy I’m leaving behind has helped me feel at peace a little more in saying goodbye.
It has truly been such an honor to be at ZA and to share what’s been happening on the farm through these journals to the larger community, and I look forward to seeing what the next farm journal-er alchemizes :)
