Only 4 weeks left?!?

Okay, so I've come to more than a few conclusions:

-I love local farms and their produce and animals.
-Rural Massachusetts is just as pretty as rural Tennessee.
-This farm is not truly sustainable, but it's getting there.
-Garlic scapes are delicious.
-Chickens are smarter than turkeys, but just barely.
-I think I want to go to law school (to save the world).

I wish that could sum up everything that's been swimming through my mind over the past few days, but of course, that only touches the surface. Quite a lot has happened on the farm.

This past weekend was the International Fair, where about 1,800 people showed up on the farm to walk around, pet the animals, see demonstrations, and make Chelsea's World Famous Butter Churning Exhibition. But seriously, I really liked the fair. Although it was busy as hell (not that running a simultaneous garden, farm, and educational center isn't on a daily basis), let's add a few hundred people, make sure the cows escape at least once, and have the most torrential downpour I've ever seen (or swam in). It was an incredible weekend! I think the farm did really well, and I liked showing people how to make butter ("Can I have the recipe? This is really good!" Me: "Sure, all you do is agitate heavy cream until it separates." Them: "Seriously though, it must be a really hard process, what do you do?" Me: "Add heavy cream to a mason jar and give it to your kid to shake around. Rinse and refrigerate." Them: "AMAZING!"). What's really amazing is how commercial food production has completely removed this practice from daily lives. Insert here my schpiel on big agribusiness and marketing scams and how they've degraded the state of the American and World's diets in the past 80 years. Blah, local farming is the way to go.

Lately, there's been a lot of talk amongst the residential vols at how much the farm talks like we're sustainable and using rotational grazing, etc. Well, here's my thought on it all. I know that we're not totally sustainable. Anyone who would take a close look at the farm would see that, too. However, this place is the closest to sustainable that I've ever lived in. On the whole, I'd say folks here are incredibly conscious of their carbon footprints, and that reaching sustainability is a long-term goal at the end of a slow process. That is not all to say that it's unattainable or idealistic, rather, that small committments together add up to making an enormous difference, and I think that our patrons and farm visitors notice that. I try to be optimistic when this topic comes up in fireside conversations, because it's easy to get down on this place when it's all that you see and do. Overall, I'm proud to call myself an employee and resident of the farm. Of course it's not perfect, but neither is the world, and that's why Heifer does what it does.

Here is why chickens > turkeys. Our gardeners are struggling with an invasive bug called the Colorado Potato Beetle. They spent the better part of the morning pulling them and their larvae off our crop. At lunch time, we sought to host a Colorado Potato Beetle feast. Who better to invite than our poultry friends? So, we ventured over to their coop and ceremoniously laid the protein-laden beetles in full view of the turkey chicks. Nothing. Not even a few pecks. Here are crawling hundreds of tasty, nutritious snacks that any impoverished Peruvian turkey chick would LOVE to eat, but our stuff American heritage breed turkeys will have none of it. Scene Two: Insert our chicken chicks and the beetles we scooped up from the turkey tractor (we don't waste anything, not even our invasive species!). Count 10 seconds. Bugs are gone. Victory! That is why chickens are marginally smarter than turkeys.

Finally, I think that I want to go to law school. It is all very theoretical at this point, but I am tossing around the idea of doing my Peace Corps tour after graduating from Maryville, then coming back with the Fellows/USA program and getting reduced tuition at a law school. I think I want to look into advocacy or human rights. I feel so behind! I am in the process of ordering some LSAT books now. I hope I can get some good studying in before school kicks back up. Which reminds me. Today is July. In less than 5 weeks I will be back in Maryville for Residence Life training. I can't believe it. I really can't. I still have so much more to learn, so much family to visit up here, so much World left to save, so much to see and experience and make and do! Time's a wasting!

Happy Summering!
Chelsea

Chelsea Barker
c/o Overlook Farm
216 Wachusett St.
Rutland, MA 01543

(You should test out that address to make sure it works by sending me a letter or package or something.... hint. hint.. :) )