Changes come…

Changes come…

The spring of 2010, like the past five springs, has been full of the activity of a farm waking up from winter.  Many of you have read on our “Farmer’s Blog” and in our early newsletters about the seeding, tilling, planting, weeding, and first harvest of young plants, and the growth of a new batch of chicks.  Beneath this season’s busy-ness, however, several new endeavors have been brewing, and we want to share them with you.

First and most exciting, we learned in March that we are expecting our first child at the end of this season, in mid-November!  The first trimester, with its extra hunger, sleepiness, and a little extra worry, ended with hearing our little one’s heart beating strong and steady.  What a gift to have an extra-special new life to tend to this season, learning and doing what we can to help it thrive, waiting with wonder to enjoy the fruit of this growing process. 

Around the time that this blessed event got underway, I learned that Henry County High School would be hiring a new Spanish teacher for the 2010 school year.  Emotionally, I was drawn to the idea of teaching, in the community where I live, a language and culture that has been very significant to my young adult life.  On the other hand, I rather enjoy daily life on the farm, working with and for some of the most excellent of people, producing healthy and healing food.  I have grown a great deal personally from the challenges of this work, and have savored the vision of raising a family here with Carden, alongside the plants and animals. 

While the CSA income, with pretty careful budgeting comes close to providing for the needs of farm and farmers each year, we have relied on the generous and constant support of family, friends, and CSA members to keep this venture afloat these past five years.  We have not wanted for much, but it is hard to deny the appeal of adding another income and affordable health insurance to this situation. 

After a month of mulling over the benefits and challenges of one of us working off the farm, we decided that it was worth applying for the teaching job.  Of course, I have to be certified, so I also applied for programs at University of Louisville and Northern Kentucky University.  A little over a week ago, Henry County’s principal called to offer me the job, which suddenly shifted into reality all of the circumstances that have rumbled about in possibility for the past several months.  With a busy November in the plans, we’ve decided that the best option for teaching certification is the summer program offered at NKU…all day, all week, for seven weeks through June and July…followed by school starting in August…  These last few weeks have been busy and bittersweet, as we try to do as much as we can before our team loses a member for the summer, and as we contemplate a new era in A Place on Earth CSA Farm life. 

But a new era it is, not an end, for the CSA show goes on.  We have been working hard this month to get plants into the ground for the coming months, and the dry weather of the past week has allowed us to catch up with some of the weeding that had eluded us in the mud.  Working share members will continue to lend indispensable hands in the harvest, and family and neighbors will provide harvest meals and company in my absence.  And I will be home on weekends, eager to get into the dirt and to be reunited with my partner and my community. 

We hope you’ll join us on June 19 for our Summer Solstice potluck picnic, beginning at 3 pm.