Wrapping Up by Matt Steiman
We've reached the time in the farming season where our to-do list of field jobs has started getting shorter. With no new plantings scheduled until spring and most of the field crops harvested, we've turned to cleaning up and putting things to bed. Here are just a few examples: Will and the apprentices pulled all of the building materials out of our storage shed near the barn, purged some dead weight and then made a slick new organizational system - it really looks great. Vanessa and friends broke down some bamboo boats from the 2019 Anything Floats race - they were big winners last year but it was finally time to let them go. After countless hours of pruning and lopping away at weedy brush, the apprentice and student crew recovered our cattle fence from the encroaching forest vegetation. Paige and Maddie have split truckloads of firewood for yurts, pizzas and future charcoal manufacture. The whole veg. crew dug deep into the cold soil to bring in our final truckloads of storage carrots. Danielle has just about wrapped up her last lap of grazing the cows and sheep around the farm. Today the ewes will return home from a month of grass mowing duty at the campus solar field, and the cows are getting accustomed to eating more hay now that the fresh grass is about done.
It's bittersweet to see the 2020 farm apprentice and student worker season coming to a close. We had a nice farewell dinner - outside and socially distanced - for the departing apprentices, and by the time you read this they will be all but gone on to their next adventures. One of the most satisfying parts of our job as managers is to observe and be part of the progress of these young farmers from spring to fall - to see them master skills and build confidence in their abilities to work hard in the labor of love that is commercial food production. We thank them all for their dedication to the job and wish them well in their future food system endeavors!
Thanks for reading - stay safe and have a happy Thanksgiving
Cheers
MS
