Homecoming

Stinkers!
Sometimes when I return from a trip I come home to sweet cuddly kitties who I can tell really missed me. And sometimes I  get this: stony-eyed looks from across the room, and a husband whose been nursing a bad tooth until it became an emergency, and all the work that's been piling up since I left, and a hilly farm that's a treacherous sheet of ice day after day after day...

They say the best part of going away is the coming home and normally I am 100% in agreement. I got away for a couple of days to attend the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, the largest gathering of organic farmers in the nation, for my very first time. Although it is difficult to get away from the farm I had two really great reasons to go this year.

First of all, two of my friends and I have been working on a SARE grant this year to determine the need for additional meat processing and an MSU (Mobile Slaughter Unit) in our area of Southern Wisconsin. April Prusia of Dorothy's Range spearheads our venture and Bethany Emond Storm of @thelittleredhome.stead (on Instagram) and I pitched in to help with surveying the folks in our farmhood and the many other administrative tasks and research necessary to determine that yes, we are indeed in need in this area. We were all able to attend MOSES this year to present our findings and talk about next steps with other like minded "Women in Meat" from around the country hosted by Lisa Kivirist of Inn Serendipity wearing her In Her Boots hat. Pretty heady stuff for a beginning farmer such as myself! To enter into the conversation you can go to our Facebook Page or  if you raise meat and want your voice to really count take the online survey and express your needs. Use your outside voice!

My second reason for wanting to attend MOSES was to find out about finally jumping in and going for organic certification on our farm.  Although we have been learning about and using organic practices since we began our farming journey in 2012 it hadn't seemed worth the effort, until now.
Until growing hemp was legalized nationwide by the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. Until my friends FL Morris of Grassroots Farm and Steve Acheson did the amazing and crazy hard work of forming The South Central Wisconsin Hemp Cooperative so that many of us small farmers can cooperatively produce Organic Hemp. WOW!!! I am so very proud of them and the rest of their team.
For some excellent words on why Steve is so passionate about this, click here  Visit their websites, enter into the conversation and by all means join the Coop, it's not just for producers!

So, moving on to coming home...  Can we just be done with this winter? I gotta say it's really starting to get to me. Usually coming home after being away is just amazing, the icing on the cake. It makes me sing with gratitude and reminds me why I go away to do the work, to do the learning, to practice advocacy. It grounds me, helps me to release the breath I didn't even know I was holding... I am an introvert you see, somewhat of an empath, going away takes major effort and sacrifice for me. It's worth it though, time is short you see, and there are still so many things to be done.  This girl though really is in need of some serious R&R, not gonna lie.   Maybe next month!