The grass is frosted white, and crunching under your muck boots, the sun shining orange, causing each blade to shimmer in its light. You make your way to the hay field behind the house to let the chickens out, their brightly colored coop contrasting with the field’s border of vibrantly colored trees and the blue sky streaked with white fluffy clouds.
After letting them out and feeding them, you make your way over to the goats. You see them perk up from their morning snack of tree bark. You can’t help but smile seeing them in the distance with their cute little ears and a white stripe leading you to their noses. You hop over the fence to check their water, one of them sprinting over to say hello.
After checking up and saying good morning to your two favorite goats, Foxy and Snowball, you head over to tend to the meat birds. The curious turkeys sprint over to you, their round and plump bodies causing them to wobble when they run.
You let out the ducks whose feathers shimmer green in the sunlight and give both the birds some grain and fresh water. Suddenly, getting up early to do animal chores didn’t seem so bad.
Before you start thinking about the extra responsibilities that come with living on a farm, there are so many other aspects that contribute to life at the farm that make the few inconveniences so incredibly worth it.
For example, the food is so good. Most of the food you eat on the farm was grown on site which is not only really cool but really yummy. Cooking happens in pairs and with the program this year everyone cooks dinner at least once a week. I had always wanted to learn how to get better at cooking, but never had the motivation to teach myself, therefore being in the Sustainability Program forced me to learn how to cook.
Despite having struggled with enjoying the process of cooking in the past, I have learned to enjoy it during my time in the program and more often than not I now look forward to cooking at the farm. You do have the freedom of cooking whatever you want so if you are cooking and there is something you are in the mood to make or have been craving, you can do it!
The process of harvesting, although somewhat laborious, honestly just gets me more excited to cook. As I was picking apples at Sweet Core Farm, I could already smell the warm cinnamon in the apple crisp we plan to make. As we were picking blueberries, I could already envision the mornings we make blueberry pancakes as a house. As I cut heads of broccoli from their stalk, I could picture the broccoli sautéed as a side for mac and cheese or thrown on top of a baked potato.
When you are harvesting produce, there is a satisfaction and excitement that you don’t get when you are putting them in your cart at the grocery store. Harvesting really just causes me to look forward to the meals in which I will get to prepare and eat the food I spent time harvesting.
Yeah maybe you don’t see us scrambling Sunday night trying to get our house chores done before our community meeting, or the mountainous pile of dishes in the sink we have to do, or the complexity of sharing one van for carpooling back and forth to campus.
But what you also don’t see are the sunrises of orange, purple and pink in the early morning; or the nights we gather around the campfire and play music under a clear night sky where you can see every star; or the hours we spend having foosball tournaments, or the mornings we make chocolate chip pancakes together; or when we watch scary movies with the projector in the classroom; or our ugly yet oddly beautiful gourd named Garth; or the times when you leave for the weekend and come back to the two big sugar maples with their leaves a complete orangey yellow shade contrasting with the white paint of the house behind them; or the times we stay up late playing with the cat Hansel.
These are special moments that are unique to life at the farm, so the next time you see the Sustainability Program is having an info session, or set up with a table in Dana, come talk to us because there is more to the farm than harvesting and planting food.