Thankful for fathers everywhere!

First and foremost I want to say a very Happy Father's Day to my Dad and everyone's dad! I am thankful for my Dad's insight and role in the person I have become today!

This has been an exciting couple of days. Today, Sunday was a relaxing day. I woke leisurely, attended a fantastic service about love, make some phone calls to the people I love (but not everyone I love so don't be offended, my phone died), and cooked for a potluck tonight. Dave and I also acquired a "mother" with which to make kombucha. We had it sitting all week and finally our first batch was ready! Kombucha is a fermented sweet tea drink with effervescent that makes me think it was the first soda. This tasty drink has loads of historical medicinal value.

Saturday we worked. We took a big harvest of early cabbage (because it was bolting/flowering), thyme, beet greens, lettuce, spinach, green onions, and garlic scapes (the scape is the part where the flower would come out, but since we want the garlic to continue focusing on the bulb we cut the flower part off). We also thinned the onions, leeks, and beets (i.e. beet greens with baby beets) that were planted too close together, this thinning makes me feel better than say carrot thinning because you can still use and eat the thinnings as beet greens and green onions (I used the thinnings to make a scallion pancake for the potluck tonight). Saturday night a couple of the interns had a dish shift in the kitchen. It is nice to be able to learn the inner workings of an industrial kitchen.

Friday we had a half day and spend the morning emptying the greenhouse of the leftover seedlings. This was nice for Dave and I because we were able to complete our front yard veggie garden. We applied some of the permaculture design principles we learned and hopefully will have success. In the afternoon all the girl interns went to a rock climbing gym in Fort Collins where one of the inters, Julie, used to work. She seriously enjoys rock climbing and wanted to share her passion with the group. What a workout! We learned about knots and belaying and climbing. After climbing we went to Avana's. It was her birthday not too long ago and we went to her parent's house for homemade pasta dinner! Yum! It was nice to have some girl bonding.

Friday was also the arrival of a city group with about 10 young adults from nearby cities. This is an important part of farming and community outreach because many times, these kids not only have no idea what food looks like when it is growing or where it comes from, but also don't have access to grocery stores; making a whole food diet impossible. Imagine relying of gas station stores for your grocery needs- yikes!

Thursday morning began with a fantastic breakfast (quiche, bread pudding, muffins, smoothies, juice and fresh fruit) made by yours truly and Dave, then transitioned to classroom. Classroom started with farmer's market protocol and basics of selling our beef. Thursday's lecture wasn't really a lecture at all but a group discussion that quickly moved from ethics of eating animals (original topic) to the food system in general, ethics of judging others for person food choices, fat Americans (couldn't even leave it alone on father's day!), regulations placed on food stamps, and of course (as if this could NOT be mentioned) corn subsidies.

Feel free to think amongst yourself, bring up at the dinner table, or comment below on your feelings relating to these topics or any topic (because lets face it, everything comes back to food)!

Love and miss all,
Alisha