The change of seasons really is a great thing. As soon as you can't take one more sticky, humid summer day, fall comes around with its cool, its colors and its food. Fall didn't bring all that much cool though, and it was a whole different ball game when the air started to have that crispness to it that nips at your nose and your fingertips and even your eyelashes, and makes warmth your Holy Grail. It is finally winter.
Because I lived my life almost entirely outside in the summer, the change of seasons practically means a change in lifestyle. I now take the subway to school instead of biking five miles across the river, farm work has slowed down immensely, and I don't spend hours in the evening sitting on the porch, pondering, watching, chatting and listening. I have been driven inside, to the library, coffee shops, my room--where I finally conceded to getting curtains, heavy curtains that keep out the cold. And with the winter for some reasons comes that nearly annual desire for companionship; if for nothing else, I want someone to warm up my bed. I digress...the winter has simply been change of pace, certainly lazier in some ways but busier in others. A few great tidbits that show the change of seasons...
Bryant messing with the chicken at Ursinus College...
Ibrahim, Me, Keith and Mumin hot and tired after a long day of work in the summer
Halloween harvest party, the whole family in costume: Donyia, Melissa, Tuwanna
Me and Mumin, one of the coolest kids I know
I didn't say they were small potatoes
Things at the farm are looking to be so much bigger and better next year, it's incredible. We will ostensibly serving 50 families with CSA shares (weekly eight-pound bags of vegetables) and have a weekly farmstand. We are planning it so intensely, and although things never go exactly according to plan, I can assure the ratio of potatoes to hot peppers will be much more appropriate this year. We will also be trying a lot of new things, like growing potatoes in cages, building a variety of trellises, and interplanting different crops like crazy. It's unbelievable how much autonomy I and two other young people have over the project, and how successful it has been. Landing right in the middle of this has been one of the greatest blessings in my life, and I can't wait to see where it takes us in the next year. It's a good place I'm in right now, and I am very much looking forward to the next change of seasons. And when spring comes, my windows will squeak open, my bike will get back on the road, the plants will go in the ground and my kids will run outside to help, yelling "Miss Annie! Where are the other garden people? What are you doing? Can I help? I missed you guys in the winter!" and in their own way they recognize the seasons changing.
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