This spring has been a whirlwind, in the best possible way. Everything is waking up on the farm.
One of the first and most adorable signs of spring was the second lambing season for Project Mow. Babies! 14 of them. They are a complete delight to all who encounter them. It again provided an opportunity for some of our membership to engage with and learn from that process- at one point I took a small lamb home to nurse back to health since our shepherd, Yuko, was out of town on work.
It was a wonderful experience for me and my kids, but it also provided Yuko the ability to leave the flock and rest easy knowing her farm community had her back. It was very gratifying on all sides. The little lamb was named “Sunny Alex” by my kids, and he is the sweetest and most sociable lamb out at the farm. He’s chunky and happy and we even know him by his distinct voice. The only slightly inconvenient side effect of this community lambing fiasco is that it gave me a distinct baby farm animal itch… trouble!
Gardens are going in fast and the landscape of our project is continuing to mature. One very exciting thing is that our membership has nearly doubled this year- from 9 members to 16. This tells us that the need for this organization exists and that our mission resonates! Our work will only improve with more engaged membership, and we are already seeing things come to life this year in a way we had only imagined before.
We are brainstorming ways to connect to the wider community- to invite everyone to really see what it is we are doing and why it matters. One way we hope to do that is by introducing our members here on the blog. Every member of the Cooperative has a story, and they all fill such a distinct niche here at the Farm.
We will also be increasing our signage around the property, the hope being that people could take themselves for a walking unguided tour around the farm. We always want to encourage folks to ask questions, come for a tour, and give us feedback about how we can do even better work. However, up until this year, we’ve been largely preoccupied with the foundational work, which hasn’t left much time or mental bandwidth for the outreach we wanted to do. The hope is that many hands make light work, and we will find ourselves with more and more practical support, which will yield each member more and more freedom to fill those diverse roles (like sharing here!).
Look for more posts from us here soon!