On Sunday night we all went down to the creek to watch the lunar eclipse. It was the perfect end to all of the farm cleaning that was done that day to prepare for the Hoes Down Harvest Festival this coming Saturday.
I have two weeks left in my internship. I arrived on the farm a year ago Sunday, and was initiated into the Full Belly life through the craziness that is the week before Hoes Down. When I look back on my time here, I am amazed to see what I have learned and accomplished.
I learned how to work in a greenhouse and plant the seeds that became the transplants which grew into all of this summer’s melons and tomatoes. I sat on the sled on the back of a tractor and transplanted acres of asparagus and winter greens. I learned how to harvest and pack watermelon daikon and sun gold cherry tomatoes, among other varieties of produce, for restaurant orders and CSA boxes. I was taught how to pack those orders onto pallets and load them onto delivery trucks, and then I got up at 3:00 AM the next morning to sell those vegetables at the Farmers Market.
I was taught how to raise animals holistically within a vegetable farm. How to build portable sheep fences and move herds across fields. How to feed chickens and collect and wash their eggs. How to milk goats and cows and bottle-feed orphaned livestock. And how to raise little piglets into huge beasts.
Most of all, this experience has shown me how much time and labor goes into everything that we eat and why it is incredibly important to pay for food according to how it was grown or raised. I hope to have my own farm some day soon and my amazing experience as an intern at Full Belly Farm has shown me how to do that the right way.
–Ben Lindheim
The 28th annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival Hay Bale Fort – just waiting to be explored!
