Week 8, Summer 2024
Welcome to week 8 of the summer! I’m coming to you today from a pretty quiet house — it’s just six of us here for the weekend, with Acacia, Gavi, and Isa away for the weekend and Luisa and Patricia gone for about a week and a half. But have no fear: we might be missing many people, but this week was certainly not uneventful!
This week (in farm journal terms) began on a thought-provoking note with our visit to the Knox Farm and Tina and William’s home over the weekend. On Friday, we made the three hour drive (well, Awesome Car TM did — sus car is a different story) down to Knoxville, where we were received warmly by Tina and a couple members of her farm crew. Some things that stood out to me and other folks during our tour of the Knox Farm include the idea of companion planting and its benefits both on a visible macroscopic and hidden microscopic level, the intentional incorporation of nonlinearity, appreciating the role of every being and the role they play in the soil microbiome even if they don’t carry a ‘productive’ value as judged by market terms, and the importance of ‘marveling moments’ and looking at places we tend to with a nonjudgmental eye when our default is to critique or make note of what needs to be done in these spaces, rather than what just is.
Tina and William’s chickens (and some echinacea)!
After touring Knox Farm and Tina’s home, we headed to the Nayborhood Farm for a bit of an unconventional Shabbat. We swapped a home-prepared dinner for stone-fired pizzas and music for lawn games, and ended the night with some swimming and sitting around a campfire.
Saturday began with a slow start as we roused ourselves from our various sleeping/camping spots around the land, and made a group pancake breakfast. Then we began our odyssey back to ZA, stopping first around the halfway mark at The Refuge Food Forest in Normal, IL. This was such an interesting space to visit and makes me think about what it means when distribution and acquisition of food and produce is no longer mediated by the market, but is instead promoted as something everyone has access to and must also play a role in stewarding and taking from responsibly. Then we stopped at perhaps the most important destination of our road trip: Culver’s. I got a veggie burger and lemon ice, which were delicious and deliciously cheap (as someone used to East Coast prices), and tried some cheese curds as well — what a lovely end to the road trip.
Woohoo Culver’s! And good job, Eric.
On Sunday, many of us slept in and took time to rest after the road trip. We called family and friends, made music, read, watched movies, and more. There was also chatter bubbling beneath the surface about a fellows’ revolution faintly disguised as a birthday surprise for Patricia, and a cake that was sneakily baked as Patricia was blissfully dancing away at the hay bales.
Monday started as what seemed to be a normal day, with a focus on prepping for the shindig on Tuesday — until it wasn’t, when all us fellows disappeared and Patricia was asked to pack 30 lbs of fennel for the DAF order that we miraculously didn’t offer. All of this, of course, was part of our elaborate scheme to celebrate Patricia’s birthday before she left for her trip on Wednesday. In light of her visit to Boston and appreciation for history, we decided to make our surprise American Revolution and/or history-themed. We sent her on a scavenger hunt around the farm that culminated in the performance of a spectacular synchronized swimming routine in Johnny’s pool. Some of my favorite moments and a meme for your enjoyment:
Patricia walking into the house, DAF order in hand, while I was on lunch clean looking completely distraught, searching for a box large enough to fit 30 lbs of fennel bulbs
“It’S a mEsSaGe iN a bOtTLe, I gUeSs”
Tuesday was shindig day! Everyone was all hands on deck throughout the day weed whacking, moving tables, setting up PA systems and boot-throwing infrastructure, and cooking in preparation for the shindig. In the evening, we began welcoming members of the community to the land. Thus followed a lovely evening of musical performances by Eric, Luisa, Ella, Zoë, and Yonah, a printmaking activity led by Luisa, and conversations with other farmers. It was truly such a special event and I think it was such a powerful way to bring the local community together and also show people what’s being done at ZA.
Printmaking!
On Wednesday, it was right back to work. We said goodbye to Patricia, Isa, Gavi in the morning, and Luisa later in the evening. The day included harvesting, a tent clean, going to the food pantry, and more trellising, and rather thought-inspiring nonsense dinner conversations.
We began Thursday with a debrief about our Knox Farm field trip, what we took away from the trip, and began brainstorming how we might incorporate elements that resonated with us at the Knox Farm into our spaces at ZA. We also took some intentional time to marvel at Bayit and Miracle, and it was incredibly refreshing to step out of that mindset of constantly thinking about what needs to be done and instead just appreciate how things are. Then we split up to trellis tomatoes and cucumbers, and to paint the top of the container and some bee frames. In the afternoon, Zoë and I began working on our mushroom Context Conversation to be delivered today. In the evening, we had a lovely dinner of an Asian eggplant and bitter melon stir-fry, cucumber salad, and crispy tofu, and enjoyed some dinner entertainment of Phoebe acting very strange (Eric thinks she saw a ghost).
Some tomatoes we harvested this week!
That’s all for this week, folks! I’m looking forward to welcoming you back next week when more of the summer crew is back, and when we have the privilege of welcoming several special guests for the song circle event!
