The essay “The Harvest” originally appeared on Jeannie’s Substack. Subscribe here for monthly updates!

Despite the delays and the drought and the infrastructure challenges, the veggies were planted in the field. The beds were weeded, watered, and well-tended. For the past month beautiful produce has been harvested for Forage Kitchens, a local fast-casual chain of healthy restaurants. Romaine, kale, basil, Thai basil, cilantro, parsley, peppers, salad mixes, green onions, fennel, and so many beautiful cucumbers! This all represents a proud moment on our farm, happily coinciding with nature’s o

verall abundance in August.  For me, there is something about the bird’s eye view of our maturing beds now brimming with foliage of different heights and colors, set against the neighboring hills of corn and hay that represents to me, a most beautiful work of art, a tableau of wholesome goodness.

It is harvest time for our commercial veggie crops by the farm crew, but we are also experiencing the overall abundance of late summer. It is August and the blueberries and blackberries are perfect for picking, black cherries are falling to the ground, mushrooms are begging to be foraged and there are edible greens everywhere. The other night we dined at a neighboring farm where the meal included wild spinach, dandelion greens, wild cherry tomatoes and foraged mushrooms. As city folk, John and I are overcome with the opportunity to reclaim our nutritional birthright. It is powerful and feeds our mission to produce nutritionally dense food for others, helping to make it the norm rather than the exception in our nation’s food system.

This summer I read ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE by Barbara Kingsolver (long overdue for me and highly, highly recommended reading!!) which documents her family’s move from Arizona to a farm in Virginia and their commitment to eating locally for one year.  I love the term locavore as it connotes a diet based on what is regionally available and in season (unless of course, one has stores in the root cellar freezer.) It enhanced my excitement to eat off our land, on food from our neighbors or a nearby farm’s csa.  I have been waking up surrounded by the abundance of the harvest, feeling so much opportunity and optimism that our partnership with the land is working.

It may sound corny, but writing is similar to harvesting because in order to write regular blog posts like these, one must look back at a bevy of experiences and emotions, cultivating ideas and observing themes.  More than a journal of what is happenings on the farm, my aim is for these essays to make meaning – Why am I drawn to this place as if it is a magnet, and in my late fifties, to this lifestyle? People constantly ask do you have family in Wisconsin. And the answer is no, exactly why we are here is hard to explain, I see the confusion on their faces, would you understand that it had a lot to do with intuition? Maybe I’m drawn to the badassery of a self-reliant way of living where growing, sharing, and trading make trips to the grocery store less and less frequent. Maybe it is the constant learning, identifying plants and fruit trees as well as the varieties of weeds that love our fields, just experiencing the month to month changes, or maybe it is the array of daily challenges and the requisite problem solving. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a scientist or an “inventor,” and it seems like this is my life’s interpretation of that dream.