Winter Writing!
Extra-special news from the farm!! We gathered about two dozen readers, poets, essayists, artists, singers, creators, students, menders, and visionaries for a weekend retreat at Zumwalt Acres, where we collectively celebrated and rested while gathering our contributions into a fantastic almanac! Check out the full almanac below, and continue reading for more ruminations on this cozy wintertime experience.
Folks began arriving on Thursday evening to reunite with the wintertime farm crew and the posse of cats who call ZA home. It was such a comfort to step into the warm farmhouse after two months away in the city! Many sights and smells were familiar to me, though the land looked completely different under a quilt of snow and ice. While unpacking, us city-dwellers marveled at the clarity of the night sky over this outpost in rural Illinois.
We shared a meal around the kitchen table while catching up on recent happenings on and off the farm. I reconnected with fellows from previous seasons, plus new friends who were visiting ZA for the first time! We spent a quiet evening reading, getting cozy, and preparing for the days of writing and creating to come. I slept on the couch with Leo & Jam (the cat brothers).
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Friday was bitterly cold! Groups bundled up for walks in the woods and across the starkness of the neighboring fields and roads. We found layers of ice above the flowing creek, leaves of all shapes and sizes, and the tracks of wild animals over the quiet forest floor. The cows watched us from their winter home by the barn, stamping their hooves against the cold.
Inside the farmhouse, Patricia talked us through the almanac as a concept for gathering social, ecological, and cosmic knowledge into an accessible textual location. We perused zines, periodicals, newsletters, novels, and interviews to gather inspiration, then dispersed to begin the work of creating our own almanac. The house hummed with creative energy as folks researched possible topics, explored and noticed our surroundings, and made music between sentences. Before I knew it, the sun had set again, leaving a wash of pink in its wake.
Ayden led a beautiful kabbalat shabbat service, complete with Midwestern folk classics and not one but two melodies for lecha dodi. I loved washing my hands while watching the glow of the wind turbines south of Sheldon — a view that now fills me with love and nostalgia! We welcomed shabbat with blueberry wine, challah, and a deliciously soupy dinner.
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The inhabitants of the house woke up slowly and gathered around the kitchen table to start the day with cups of coffee and tea. Leo & Jam greeted me by climbing all over my back!
After breakfast, Zoe shared a writing/imagining workshop that encouraged us to think of the world from the perspective of soil. We started by mapping the relationships between plants, microbes, mycorrhizae, fungi, drainage tile, microplastics, basalt, woodland creatures, human land stewards, and even Magma near the mantle of the Earth! Next, we jumped on a massive shared document to dig into (hehe) each of these relationships through words. This was such a rewarding and generative experience!!
Throughout the afternoon, folks scattered to the woods, the silo, the hay bales, and various corners of the farmhouse for almanac creation. Luisa drew mini-comics to support readers through the winter while I disassembled magazines for a wind-turbine themed collage. Other topics featured in the almanac include pear cider, oak leaves, prophets, bag balm, wintertime weirdness, beans in the instant pot, and way, way more!
I had to leave on Saturday, but the writers of the farmhouse continued making things (sentences, songs, paintings, baked goods) late into the night. This weekend planted spores for a new web of relationships between young farmers and artists across the Midwest and beyond — such an exciting prospect! I felt grateful to spend a few chilly days on the land with creatures I know and love. Here’s to more moments of connection through our winter hibernation.
