Frida, being Frida. 

While my first day working on Prairie Heritage Farm wasn't anything like Frida's, it was everything I had hoped for. As expected, the Cowgill family is a lovely family and wonderful to work with. They are a power couple, running their 30-acre farm and family, with joy, heart, and lots of hard work. Our communication via email, and once over the phone during my interview, gave me the impression that they were kind, knowledgeable, and collaborative people to work with. I was right!

Today, we toured the farm, learned about some of the various vegetable crops, toured the greenhouse, "butcher shop," fields, and high-tunnel. We began with work on the irrigation pipes. Water is such a precious and imperative resource. Who knew the challenges behind getting water where you want. At least I didn't, until today. I really enjoy the critical thinking and problem solving opportunities that arise with cultivating land. The elbow pipe burst with water, so after a few adjustments, which took longer to adjust than it took to type that, we got it! And, more importantly, we can now water the fields. 

After irrigation work, it was time for lunch. Courtney cooked a delicious venison (deer, for my non-northern friends) pasta casserole, salad (lettuce, carrots, red peppers), and homemade bread. It is such a lovely and peaceful home. We sat outside on the porch beneath a big sky and above green grass. 

With bellies full, it was back to work we went. We finished off the afternoon transferring baby heirloom tomatoes (Black Cherry, Black Prince, Soldaki, and Sun Gold) into bigger pots and back into the greenhouse. We did 16 trays of these tomatoes (4 trays of each variety), each tray had 18 pots, which means we handled about 288 tomatoes! I can taste the salsa already...

Wheeling heirloom tomatoes to greenhouse.

*Photos by Tiffanie Ma and Raul Orrostieta.