This week’s missive comes from Farmer Brandon, another of this year’s amazing interns.

HELLO OXBOW NEWSLETTER RECIPIENTS. My name is Brandon and I am one of the interns this year on the farm. I came here on a weekend in early spring and was instantly taken by the scenery and presence of the land and the way it set the sky. Without knowing what I was getting myself into I signed up for a six or seven month excursion into the lifeblood of what it takes to bring wholesome fresh food from the ground to the people. It just so happens that a lot of those people are the ones reading this. Through all of the preconceptions I had coming onto the farm, the one thing that impressed itself upon me time and again, was that farming at its very core and most essential, is about you. It is a story of people, played out over a whole host of days; from the farmer that takes a moment’s rest to wipe the sweat off their sun-burnt face, to the kid all bouncy while his mother picks out this week’s vegetables, innocent of the remarkable journey that food will have taken throughout its life from being soil and plant to becoming human body.  It tells of a people fostering a plant and giving it to others so they can take up that plant’s good energy and make it their own. It’s really frog-hopping remarkable booty-scooting story.

What I am trying to say is that you are the reason I wanted to try my hand at farming. I am very glad to know that so much good has gone out to so many people. When I the meet everyone at the markets and the CSA members, every day I show up for work and see the other farmers, I see a vitality that is so apparent that soon it will be hard not being immersed in it. As this year draws down the crops I am in awe over how much energy and human activity has surrounded these plants. If they have an aura about them they surely have earned it by providing us with a certain richness of life. I could keep going, but feel I better leave off. I would like to say thank you. Thank you for being a part of an insightful, fulfilling experience for myself as well as many others. I wish you good mind and health. Enjoy the food.

Sincerely,

Farmer Brandon

P.S.- I will not get away without mentioning some vegetables. ‘I could eat squash twice a day, every day.’ —me

P.S.S.- Also, don’t forget Halloween is coming up (I always forget).