Filley, NE 68357

This is my first post since returning home in May. Home, for the time being, is my parents' sustainable farm in Filley Nebraska, where I am an "intern." It's been a great opportunity to reconnect with some of the most important people in my life. Including the other two interns, my sister Rachel and my college roommate Kimberly. During the day I pull weeds and work on my tan, and plant or harvest vegetables for the CSA boxes or farmers market. I live on the screened in porch with my sister Rachel, and my college roommate Kim Schmidt. I cook with fresh herbs, play with kittens, water blueberry bushes, and generally enjoy a fairly picturesque albeit hardworking existence here.

I do spend a lot of time thinking about things while out in the field (and just as much time staring blankly ahead thinking "I hate peas... I hate peas... I don't ever want to pick another pea in my life...") and I definitely intended to write blog posts while I'm here. The problem so far has been that I write letters and posts and memoirs in my head while I am outside, and by the time I come inside they have vanished, or I've used up all my energy and have no interest in spending what's left of my evening staring at a computer screen transcribing.

Here is my first attempt.

The sky was still black when I woke up to lightning, and I sat straight up, wide awake. I was facing the view out the windows that make up one wall of my summer home. I can see the sky and two windmills, nothing else, but, following that sinister or promising flash of lightning, I didn't need to see anything else. The sky was darker than it should have been at that time of morning--the western windows behind me were turning sunrise pink but the windmills were outlined against dark sky that was a different texture of darkness from usual. I was excited and couldn't get back to sleep. Some days a storm wouldn't be my favorite thing, I tend to love sunshine and blue sky, but all I could think of was the possibility of power and water that this storm might bring.

I wouldn't normally be woken up by a solitary lightning bolt at 5:30am, but it was just the three of us (Rachel, Kim, and myself) running the farm while my parents were on vacation. I was feeling very responsible for the things of the farm, and we had watched the plants dry out over the previous several days--hot, dry days, without any rain. This is not always a big terrible problem, but it was compounded by the fact that there had also been no wind. For water we rely on an old fashioned Dempster classic windmill, so no wind is no water pumped, and we were worried, watching the water level in the storage tank drop as we leaked water slowly and carefully out onto the dry field.

And so my first thought when I sat up in my couch bed that morning was that maybe there would be wind, and that was the thought that kept me awake--watching the windmill sit silently. Then, finally, over a time that could have been five minutes or could have been two hours, I watched it slowly creak and start to turn, nearly imperceptibly at first and then eventually faster, reaching a speed attested to by a comforting creak and click sound each time it turned around. It was only then that I could get back to sleep, knowing that we would wake up on our way to a full tank of water. Even better, the storm brought with it a slow steady rain that would mean we wouldn't need to water the garden for several days, saving us gallons of worry and water.
There are all kinds of things to be worried about with weather changes--everything from the water pump by the pond flooding and being ruined, to strong winds blowing the greenhouse away... So many things that can go wrong, that it is an unbelievable relief when the weather works in your favor.

I like being in such close contact and dependence on the weather, the ground, the sky. I'm painfully aware of the possibility for good and the possibility for bad that each change in weather brings. I'm not sure why this seems like a good thing but it seems healthy, just like putting my hands in a batch of bread dough, cooking food I just picked from the garden, and feeling my body flex and ache with hard work. I can't think of a neat summary or lesson or moral of my post so I think I'll end with a few of my favorite farm pictures so far this summer.


Rita and Kim woman the farmers market booth.




Pest control involves collecting and squishing lots of gross bugs. And yes, having perpetually gross hands.





Ginette, Chad, and Reid pick strawberries during their visit from Vancouver.





Rita and Merlin assemble Tuesday CSA boxes.