The end...and the beginning

"For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction." 

-Cynthia Occelli

The Farmer Training Program concluded the last week of October. It was a jam-packed week of final presentations, Farmer Olympics, our graduation ceremony, parties, and farewells to friends. Throughout the final weeks of the program, I was overwhelmed with a sense of how much I had learned and changed over the past six months. I came to Vermont to learn how to farm and grow food, and understand food systems, and see examples of how sustainable agriculture is working in America. But I came away with so much more. I've learned how much I love being outside everyday--even when it's hot and rainy and swarming with mosquitos--nurturing plants that will one day provide me with delicious vegetables and fruits. I've learned about different models of small-scale farming, and the creative ways farmers are finding success and fulfillment in a notoriously difficult and often looked-down-upon profession. I've learned about issues related to farmer livelihood, food distribution and access, government regulation, and the ecological impacts of agriculture. I've met and worked with some of the most respected farmers in Vermont, who willingly shared their time and knowledge to support the next generation of farmers. And most importantly, I've come away with an incredible circle of farmer friends who are going to plant roots across the country and help shape sustainable systems for growing, distributing, and purchasing food.

Our last week together kicked off with two days of presenting on our final projects. Each student picked a topic to present on, such as developing a farm business plan, or a research project on a farm-related issue (I presented on urban agriculture). It was a nice capstone to the program, and a fun way for everyone to share their particular interests with the group. Our final day on the farm was spent competing in the Farmer Olympics. Events included a pitch fork toss, spelling bee, garlic peeling race, and a relay race through various farm tasks. (My team took the gold!) The festivities concluded, of course, with a massive dance party. Afterwards, we had a ceremonial planting of the garlic. Garlic is the one crop we overwinter on the farm; it has to be planted in the fall in order to be harvested in the summer. It gives a nice sense of continuity to each glass of students: we harvested the garlic last year's class planted, next year's class will harvest our garlic, etc.

Farmer Olympics

Before leaving the farm for the day, we all gathered in the hoop house. Our farm manager Rachel gave each of us a bean/ seed (a Vermont Cranberry bean to be exact) and told us of her mantra each winter, when the farm is frozen and it feels like nothing will ever grow again: faith in a seed. (Thoreau said it first, but it definitely resonates with any grower of plants). She read us a poem with the same sentiment--that you have to trust that a little seed will one day grow into a beautiful plant. S'ra, our program coordinator, read us an adorable children's book called Miss Maple's Seeds, about Miss Maple who takes care of the seeds throughout the seasons until they are ready to go out into the world. Obviously, all this seed metaphor was in reference to us, the students, ready to plant our farmer roots after six months of training. Sentimental farming bunch we are, there were a few sniffles and tears that chilly afternoon in the hoop house. And of course, a group hug or two.

Graduation took place the next day. We had a nice ceremony on UVM campus with friends, family, and fellow farmers in attendance. There were speeches and poems, a slideshow of photos from the season, and a personal haiku recited for each student as they received their certificate. It was a lovely way to close out the program and recognize our accomplishments. (You can read a nice summary of the ceremony here.) The rest of the weekend was filled with graduation and Halloween parties, packing, and sad goodbyes to friends who I've only known for six months but I hope will have for a lifetime. I couldn't have asked for a better experience in the Farmer Training Program: I learned so much about farming, and Vermont, and myself. And, obviously, had a ton of fun while I was at it (I once heard one of our rotation farmers fondly refer to FTP as "camp," which feels fairly accurate). I'm going to miss my crazy rag-tag group of farmers and can't wait to see what they'll all do next.

Farmer Training Program Class of 2015

And now...I've returned to DC, which still feels like home after six months away. I'm slowly picking up the pieces of my old life, reconnecting with friends, and settling back into my house. I'm still looking for a full-time job, but luckily the food systems advocacy scene is growing in DC, so I'm hopeful I'll find something that will be a good fit for me. I've already made some promising connections and am excited for whatever the future holds. I'm still on a total high from what was maybe the funnest summer of my adult life, and I feel like I've truly found my calling, which is a really nice feeling for someone who's never really known what I wanted to be when I grew up. Even though winter is nearly upon us, it feels a bit like spring to me: I'm just a little baby seed planted into a new home, eager to grow my roots and shoots.

Certified Sustainable Farmer!

New England October

Ah, October in Vermont. It's the month that makes the state legendary, when the Green Mountains make their amazing transformation into the orange-yellow-red-golden-brown mountains. After dreaming of a New England fall for about two decades, I finally got to experience one. And it did not disappoint! The entire month of October was an ongoing parade of color.

Apple picking on the farm

October kicked off with my 28th birthday, which I spent at Bread and Butter Farm for the first day of my final rotation. Bread and Butter is run by Corie Pierce, an amazing farmer and incredibly down-to-earth lady. Her farm specializes in grass-fed beef and vegetables grown in her hoop houses. A big part of her production is winter greens, and we learned all about how she manages to produce fresh veggies in the dead of a Vermont winter. We did a little work in the hoop houses but spent most of the day talking about organic farming, Big Ag, cattle farming, and other various technical and philosophical aspects of agriculture. Throw in the bucolic farm setting, and it made for a pretty spectacular way to spend my birthday. That night, I celebrated with my farm friends and felt so grateful to welcome my next year of life with such incredible people.

Bread and Butter Farm

October was tinged with sadness at the imminent end of the program, but also excitement for the things to come. Early in the month my class hosted the FTP alumni reunion party, and it was wonderful to hear what students from past classes are up to now. It was also great to see how so many of them have kept in touch with each other, and I hope my class will do the same! Our final field trip of the program was to Butterworks Farm, which produces diary and grain. We spent the day with Santa Claus lookalike Jack Lazor, who has run the farm for nearly 40 years. He waxed poetic about his life as a farmer, the importance of community, and the challenges of surviving as a small farmer in a globalized food system. We were all totally enamored with him, gathering around his feet like a brood of eager grandchildren to listen to his stories. After lunch, he brought out tubs of his delicious maple yogurt and bottles of kefir, which we all devoured. In the afternoon we had fun stacking a giant wood pile in the barn for the winter. Although it was a dreary day, we were blown away by the beautiful foliage of the Northeast Kingdom, where the farm is located, and the entire day felt like a perfect cap to all that we'd learned during our time in Vermont.

An amazing day at Butterworks Farm

My dad came to visit in mid-October, and, knowing that my last couple weeks would be extremely busy, I took it as a final opportunity to play tourist around Vermont. We had a great time exploring Burlington and nearby Stowe. We shopped the farmers market (on a sadly very dreary and cold day), purchased some authentic Vermont flannel, and visited the Trapp Family Lodge. We got our fill of Vermont deliciousness, sampling local brews, cider, cheese, and concluded with a tour of the Ben & Jerry's Factory. At that point in the season, there wasn't much to show at the farm, but we enjoyed driving around admiring the changing leaves. Plus, we witnessed the first snow of the season! It was a great visit, and I'm glad all my family got a chance to come to Vermont while I was there.

Building our new toolshed

Our final week on the farm focused on a building project. A local carpenter came to guide us in the building of a new toolshed, and it was a fun project to conclude our time on the farm. For my last day at my Bread and Butter rotation, Corie made us breakfast, and we discussed more in-depth her pasture-raised cattle operation. Given her heavy clay soils, it's nearly impossible for her to grow crops on her land; because of that, cows are actually the best way for her to make the land productive. The herd migrates from pasture to pasture every few days, giving them access to fresh new grass and allowing them to roam. Their manure fertilizes and adds organic matter to the land, and their hooves aerate the soil, creating a perfect system where the cows and the land both support one another. I've always thought of large-scale beef as a cruel, dirty, unsustainable industry, but after seeing these cows, I'm convinced that you can raise cattle in a way that isn't totally destructive to the environment. In fact, Corie says that cattle are the most sustainable part of her farm. The herd is small enough to be managed effectively on the available land without polluting the air, ground, and water with their waste. They don't eat grain, so no feed is imported from large, monoculture farms. And I don't think I've ever seen a happier herd of cows. A couple of times during our rotation, we got to help move the cows to lush new pasture, and you could tell that those cows were in heaven. That is beef that I can feel good about eating.

Happy cows, happy famers

While it may be the natural progression of things, it was pretty sad to see the farm so empty and desolate at the conclusion of the season. By the end, all that remained were some Brussels sprouts, kale, and salad greens, and a cooler full of storage vegetables. If I were staying Vermont, I would have made more of an effort to save food for the winter. There's something so beautiful about preserving the bounty of summer to nourish yourself for the long, cold months. One of my biggest takeaways from this program is how good it feels to feed yourself, and I would love to get to a point where I can do so through every season. After six months of eating a hyper-local diet--the vast majority of my food I either grew myself, or was produced within the state--I am fully convinced of the joy of growing your own food, knowing your farmers, and eating local.

Transitions

Fall absolutely flew by on the farm. As soon as Labor Day hit, there was a sense of everything winding down: one by one, the crops in the fields were pulled up and the beds tilled under, and one by one, days until the end of the program marched onward. It was around this time that our collective sense of urgency regarding what we would all do after the program ended seemed to get more pronounced. My job hunt became a bit more serious, and as I researched different opportunities, I came to realize that I really wanted to get back to DC. As much as I love Vermont, DC still feels like home, at least for now.

Harvest continued throughout September, as the pace on the farm slowed down a bit. We were still bringing an overwhelming bounty to the weekly farm stand at UVM, and I had fun hawking our wares to the passing students. As farm work became less intense, our class work ramped up, with assignments focusing on crop planning and business planning--both extremely important skills for a farmer to have! I finally got a part-time job, which ate up a lot of the free time I enjoyed throughout the summer (but the paycheck sure was nice). Perhaps the overwhelming feeling of September was that of fluctuation: the farm's slow death accelerating, even as it continued to feed us; the program curriculum intensifying, even as we started considering our next steps in earnest.

Our chickens went to slaughter in mid-September. Initially, the hope was that we would be able to slaughter the chickens ourselves (an experience that I certainly wasn't looking forward to, but felt that it would be important to take part in). But with a lot of red tape and liability issues involved with slaughtering animals on UVM property, we ended up outsourcing the task to Maple Wind Farm, a local operation that processes hundreds of chickens a week and one of the only smaller-scale chicken processors in the state. We went on a field trip to Maple Wind earlier in the summer and saw their processing facility, so we had a good sense of what our chickens were in for.

The morning of chicken processing day, a group of us gathered at the farm in the early pre-dawn hours. We took a moment to thank the chickens for the work that they did improving our farms throughout their lives, and the meat they would soon give us. After spending over two months raising these chickens and spending so much time with them, it only felt right to take some time to honor their lives. Then we rounded them up in a process almost identical to the chicken wrangling I did at the beginning of the summer--only at a much smaller scale. There was something slightly magical about gathering chickens on a dark, chilly fall morning; the stars were out, all was quiet, and I enjoyed the methodical, steady nature of the work. It was one of those farm moments that I experienced numerous times this season, where I had an overwhelming sense of appreciation for being so in touch with my food, and working with a community to accomplish a task. The whole process was over fairly quickly, and the chickens were on their way. A week later, Isabella made a beautiful chicken lunch for us, complete with farm veggies. With nearly all chicken in this country produced on factory farms, it was wonderful to know that our birds were able to live natural lives of foraging, pecking, scratching, and roosting.

Chickens on their last day on the farm

At the end of the month, we student farmers got to spend a week running the farm ourselves. Honestly, the most challenging part was figuring out how to divide the work between 21 people. It felt great to know that we could prioritize farm tasks, identify issues, and manage nearly everything that needed to be done on our own, and it demonstrated to us just how much we had learned over the past five months. We also took a field trip to Pete's Greens, a large-scale organic farm, and High Mowing Seed Company, which produces organic, non-GMO seed. I was really impressed with both companies. Despite their large scale (they grow on about 90 acres) Pete's Greens takes sustainability very seriously, and has managed to scale up low-impact practices that are generally associated with much smaller farms. They also work to support smaller, local farms by incorporating them into their CSA distribution. We learned all about plant breeding and seed production at High Mowing, touching a little bit on the technology of plant genetics and issues surrounding GMOs. I never realized I was so interested in plant genetics, but I was fascinated by this complex, scientific world!

One of many spectacular Vermont sunsets

CSA, Farm Stand, and Fall

Each week, a different FTP student writes the newsletter that goes out to our CSA members. A couple weeks ago it was my turn, and I thought it would be fun to share what I wrote.

***

Hello CSA members!

One of the most satisfying things about being a grower is getting to feed our community healthy, delicious fruits and vegetables. Here at the Cat Farm, that means feeding you, our CSA members; UVM students returning to campus, who will enjoy our produce in dining halls or straight from our farm stand; and, of course, ourselves! This time of year, there’s nothing better than a dinner of sweet corn, tomato salad, and watermelon—especially when you grew it all yourself.

As FTP students, we’re passionate about getting food to those who want and need it, and we’re deeply aware of the problems of food access and food insecurity in this country. We try to extend our impact in the local community by making regular deliveries to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf with our surplus produce, sharing our incredible summer harvest with those in need.

We hope you’re enjoying the abundance as much as we are!

Meet Your Farmers!

Where are you from?

Born in Nebraska (and still a Midwesterner at heart), but grew up in Georgia. I spent the past several years in Washington, DC, which is where I currently consider home.

What is your favorite vegetable?

I adore all vegetables. I love to eat vegetables all day, every day (seriously, even for breakfast). Ironically, my favorite thing I’ve grown on the farm isn’t even edible—it’s ornamental gourds. They may be funky looking, but they’re going to make my front stoop look awesome come October.

Why are you an FTPer?

I’ve always been passionate about healthy food and sustainable agriculture. After working in environ-
mental advocacy for the past several years, I decided that I wanted to transition my career to focus more on issues around food and farming. I figured there was no better way to understand our food system than by actually getting out and growing my own food, so here I am! FTP has not only given me real-life farm experience, but also a solid understanding of everything from business planning and marketing to food insecurity and land access. Plus, it’s a ton of fun, and I couldn’t be happier to be here!

***

Last week I started the farm stand rotation. We sell on the UVM campus every Tuesday afternoon, and we have a fancy new mobile farm stand that debuted a couple weeks ago. I've really enjoyed the CSA and farm stand rotations because I get to interact with our customers. The farm stand is especially fun now that students are back in school. We got so many questions about the program and the farm, and it was fun to see the students get excited about the produce we grow!

The farm-mobile on UVM campus

Last weekend a few of us took a trip up to Montreal to visit the Quebec farmer training program (which is pretty different from ours, in that it's a three-year program, and students earn university credit). We toured a nonprofit farm outside the city that employs troubled young adults to give them job skills, while using farming as therapy. That night we were invited to a corn roast hosted by one of the Quebec farmer training students. They were a very friendly bunch, and had as many questions about our program as we had about theirs. The night ended with a dance party in the barn with everyone singing to French-Canadian hip-hop, and camping in the fields. It was a pretty great weekend!

The temperatures are still scorching here, but September has definitely brought some back-to-school energy and the anticipation of fall. I'm nervous about figuring out what I'm going to do when the program ends, but mostly I feel really excited for the future. I'm hopeful that this program will open a lot of doors for me in the food and agriculture world, and I think this has been a big step toward figuring out where my career will take me. Being in the farmer training program has solidified my passion for improving food systems, and I can't wait to see what comes next. Plus, it's been such a treat to grow nearly all my own food, or buy from other local producers. That's a habit I definitely hope to continue!

Golden Days of Summer

"August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time."

- Sylvia Plath

August is a strange time for a Vermont farm. It's still high summer, and peak production time. We've moved on from planting and prepping to harvesting and selling. We're churning out pounds and pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and summer squash. The abandoned plum and peach trees on the farm have been producing more than we can harvest, and I've loved taking any excuse to walk by and munch a piece of fruit. The melons are ripe, and last week we harvested the first ears of sweet corn and sliced into the first glorious watermelon--two of my favorite summer indulgences.

The first watermelon of summer

Yet...you can already sense things winding down in preparation for the cold months to come. We're beginning to till some of our beds, and the mornings and evenings are getting the tiniest bit chillier every day. A few weeks ago we turned under our snow and snap peas, which we had been harvesting since the earliest days of summer. And even our precious sungold cherry tomatoes--quite possibly the most delicious tomatoes ever--have seen better days (although we're still overwhelmed by our weekly tomato harvest).

I love this paradox: the land is giving and producing in full abundance, even as we begin to prepare for hibernation mode. I love the transition of the seasons, enjoying these last golden days of summer while eagerly anticipating brisk fall air, apple cider, and the legendary New England autumn colors. And I love feeling so in tune with the changing seasons, knowing that every change in the weather, every change in the day's length, is impacting how our crops will produce.

But fall is not here yet! This week has been a scorcher, with temperatures and humidity that make me think I'm back in DC or Georgia, not balmy Vermont. It's pretty rough being in the fields when it's this hot (and one of the big reasons I think I couldn't be a full-time professional farmer--I don't do well in heat!). But some little piece of me kind of likes it...harvesting beans in the midday sun may make me want melt into a puddle, or go hide in the walk-in cooler, but it still feels good to be outside and feel the sun on my arms, instead of in an unnaturally climate-controlled building.

I'm on CSA rotation this month, my first rotation on our home farm. The CSA and farmstand rotations comprise the harvest crew, since we're the two groups that distribute our produce to customers. I love being on harvest crew and having a real sense of just how much the farm is producing right now. The cooler is filled an insane amount of food, and it's so fun to pack up the CSA boxes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and imagine how excited our members will be to see this week's goodies. After all, growing food for other people is why we do what we do! I love getting to see all our hard work pay off in feeding our community.

Peppers galore

Yes, it's sad to see the summer go--not least because we've now crossed the halfway point in the program. Everyone seems acutely aware that we're on the downhill slide of our time here, making the last days of summer all the more precious. I'm starting to think more seriously about what I want to do after I complete the program and will start researching and reflecting more intensely in the coming weeks. 

But there's still more fun to be had, and I'm taking advantage of all the sun, swimming, and lazy warm days I can before they're gone. Some farm friends and I participated in the Farmer Olympics last week, which was a fun opportunity to hang out with some other local growers. We tried our hardest, but sadly didn't place; what we lacked in skill we definitely made up for in enthusiasm. My sister was here this past weekend, and we spent a few perfect summer days enjoying the farm, farmers market, and Vermont's natural beauty and delicious food. I'm looking forward to basking in a few more warm sunsets on the shores of Lake Champlain, farm-fresh watermelon in tow.

Summer in Vermont can't be beat

Harvest!

The farm really came alive in July. All the planning, planting, cultivating, tending, and patiently waiting has paid off in more lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, peppers, radishes, beets, basil, cilantro, onions, garlic, kale, chard, peas, carrots, and flowers than we know what to do with. Farm tasks the past several weeks have consisted mostly of weeding and harvesting, and not much else. We're in full-blown production mode!

A truck full of freshly harvested garlic, ready for curing

The abundance of summer is visible everywhere. I spent my July rotation at Half Pint Farm, owned and operated by Mara and Spencer Welton. As the name implies, it's a tiny farm (2 1/2 acres) specializing in tiny vegetables. They may be small, but they are mighty! During my four weeks there, we harvested carrots, onions, scallions, hot peppers, baby cucumbers, summer squash, potatoes, string beans, and more. I really love Mara and Spencer's farm philosophy: their guiding principle is grow what you love, and sell what you grow. They only plant what they enjoy growing, and they're excited to sell it. They work hard but love what they do, and it shows in their finished product. It was really inspiring to see how they've turned their little farm into such a productive and satisfying business.

Our farm is now home to 200 chickens! The day-old chicks arrived on the farm in early July and got nestled in the brooder coops that we built for them. Now a month old, they're fully feathered, gangly teenagers. We took them out to pasture last week, where they'll live their lives roaming one of our fields not currently in production, scratching up the soil, eating grubs and weed seeds, fertilizing the land with their droppings, and living happy little chicken lives--while simultaneously improving the field for future planting. At night, they get herded back into their mobile coop, which is moved to a new patch of field every three to five days. They are true free-range chickens.

Wee little chicken babes

Our chickens are meat birds, and I know meat is a fraught issue that elicits strongly-held opinions in many people. I truly believe that meat animals can be raised in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and honors the lives of the animals. In a small-scale operation like ours, we can use the chickens' natural instincts and habits to improve our land for future vegetable production. On some farms, where the soil may be too problematic to be used to raise crops, animal grazing is the best way to make the land effective at producing food for humans. Large-scale meat production is a big, dirty, inhumane, and unnatural operation. Animals are kept in confinement, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, and live in filthy conditions. Why? Because it allows consumers to have cheap, easily available meat--three times a day, every day. If customers continue to demand meat in the quantities that they currently do, we'll continue to rely on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to meet the demand, regardless of the ethical, environmental, or health implications.

Honestly, I think meat should be a luxury, to be enjoyed only occasionally, or in small quantities. It should be raised in a way that requires care and attention to the animals' needs, and that level of attention should be reflected in the price. We can't continue consuming meat at the rate that we do, unless we want to continue degrading the environment and subjecting animals to horrific conditions. If we viewed meat as an indulgence, to be eaten only once or twice a week (or less); committed to purchasing only high-quality grass-fed beef, or pasture-raised chicken or pork; and paid a price that takes into account the care that went into raising these animals--it could go a long way in minimizing the meat industry's impact on the planet, and would vastly improve the health and happiness of the animals whose lives we take for our sustenance.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. :)

Summertime off the farm has been just as delightful as on the farm. The past weeks have ben full of swimming, watching the sunset over the mountains and Lake Champlain (or, in the case of Fourth of July, watching fireworks over the lake), and potlucks with friends. My mom came to visit, and I had a wonderful time showing her the farm, shopping at the farmers' market, exploring Burlington, and--my favorite--eating creemees. And just a couple weeks later, three of my dearest friends from DC came to visit! The last week of July was my mid-program vacation week, so Lauren, Alix, and Jay came up to spend the week traveling in Canada and New England with me. After a weekend in Burlington, we spent a wonderful day and evening in Montreal, then drove to Acadia National Park in Maine, where we spent three days camping and hiking. We returned to Vermont, spending one night in the northern part of the state, then came back to Burlington to close out the week. It was a wonderful vacation, and so great to spend it with friends. And my sister is coming to visit this week! I'm really liking having a new round of visitors every couple of weeks, and getting to show off Burlington.

Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park

A closing thought: what good is the bounty of a farm if you don't get to enjoy the abundance? There's a real beauty about eating a meal made entirely of produce that you grew yourself. It feeds the body and the soul. My roommate Isabella has all but turned our kitchen into a commercial kitchen, turning out tomato sauce, ratatouille, kimchi, jam, pesto, more pickled veggies than I ever thought you could pickle, and delicious dinners on a regular basis. Yeah, it's good to be a farmer.

Farmer friend Corinne and our overflowing farm stand

An ode to farming

I love farming. I love seeing dirt under my nails, mud patches on the knees of my jeans, and grass on my boots. I love feeling the sun and the rain and the soil, and noticing changes in each throughout the day. I love seeing a little baby transplant that I patted into the ground turn into a beautiful head of lettuce or bunch of kale, spilling out of its basket on the farmstand table or CSA box. I love driving tractors, turning the soil and making cozy beds for our baby vegetables. And I love, love, love feeling so inspired every single day that I am a part of this movement and taking ownership of my food.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this consistently, joyfully, bone-deep happy. Every day I wake up excited to go to the farm. Every day I come home, covered in dirt and smiles. Even on the days that it’s hot or rainy and all we do is weed carrots (probably my least favorite task on the farm) I am happy. I’m learning so much, and I’m particularly grateful for the stellar group of people I get to work with. People who will nerd out with me about everything from seeing the cilantro germinate to discussing the deeply entrenched problems with our nation's food system. Classmates who make me laugh, and instructors who challenge and inspire. Wednesdays and Thursdays are our class days and rotation days, respectively, so we're often away from our home farm; by the time Friday rolls around, I find myself missing the farm and eager to get back.

I love that farmers--at least sustainably-minded farmers in Vermont--often refer to themselves as "growers." I love being part of a farming culture that prides itself on a commitment to nurturing crops, nurturing the environment, and nurturing the local community.

I love that it's so easy to eat locally and seasonally here. It seems like every restaurant can rattle off the local farms that supply their produce, and the farmers market and is brimming with seasonal delights from across the state. Burlington is so devoted to the local food scene that our primary grocery store in town is a member-owned cooperative, which not only sources most of its products from nearby growers, but also supports myriad organizations in the area that are working to increase access to healthy, local food. Walk into the store and you can see the seasons change, as the front produce display rotates from asparagus and wild ramps to rhubarb and strawberries, all grown within a few dozen miles.

And even though it's not all that urban (after all, the entire state of Vermont has fewer people than the city of DC), I love Burlington, too. Aside from the amazing food scene, there's tons of live music, art, bike trails, and plenty other activities to keep this city girl happy. And when I'm surrounded by scenery as beautiful as Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains, I don't feel like I'm missing out that much on city life. There's really nothing better than jumping in the lake after a day of farming (which is exactly what I did last Monday)!

I don't know what life holds after I finish the program--if I'll keep farming, move back to DC, both, or neither--but for now, I'm happy and in love.

PS: We had a rainy day last Tuesday, so spent part of the day watching the documentary film A Place at the Table. It addresses issues of hunger, access, and food justice in the US, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning more about problems in the food system in this country.

Beautiful brassicas: kale, cabbage, and broccoli