Down on The Farm (Sort of)

Summer is right around the corner here in Wisconsin and we're enjoying it. The kids both love to be outside where there's plenty to see, and usually Mommy is glad to indulge them. We've been trying to do our local errands (groceries, library, bank, etc.) as walking trips recently too. This is one of the things I love about living in the heart of a small town. Roads aren't too busy for walking nearby and places aren't too far away to prohibit the effort.

We're trying to do a lot more local eating this summer and we've become members of a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm where our once-a-week delivieries start in June. (Yum, Yum!) We're also still regularly frequenting the farmer's market that assembles twice weekly on the Capitol square in downtown Madison. Completing the trifecta of local eating efforts is our personal vegetable garden.

Epic (James' employer) has a really neat project that they've run the past couple of years. The land the current campus is built on is former Wisconsin farm land, so they chose to keep several of the barns and outbuilding as the "Epic Farm." It's complete with a pasture for several horses and cows and they've provided pre-tilled garden plots to employees willing to take charge of them for the summer. We decided to make the effort this year and were fortunate enough to get one of the available spaces. We're growing the usual garden vegetables as well as a few celery plants (a tribute to James' family's roots as professional celery growers) with the basic goal of building awareness in our kids of where food really comes from and the effort involved in growing it. (Added bonus: nothing tastes so good as a fresh-picked, home-grown vegetable!)


Joshua also loves to watch the horses and cows and it's the most up-close and personal he's ever been with an animal that large! Lydia's not quite sure what to think, but she's certainly alert these days and trying to discover as much as she can about the world around her. (The downside to this is that naps are a big inconvenience to her goal of world exploration--hopefully we can get all that ironed out soon.)


So, that's what we've been up to these past few weeks, hopefully Joshua doesn't run out of patience for the project weeks ahead of when any real produce starts to appear. We'll hope the animals can get him through the watering and waiting phase.

Memorial Day weekend brings both Bratfest and James' family to town, so we're looking forward to it, as well as an extra day off!