As a part time employee here at Red Dog farm, my experience has been very impressionistic: long mornings in the raspberries, lunch naps under the plum tree, visions of Maggie chasing after Suzy in the tractor; Julia belting Rhianna in the farm truck, racing Lane through the potatoes; Amy chuckling at her own puns and making sure to laugh hard at Naomi’s; afternoon suns filling Chimacum valley like a green bowl; Frisbee in the parking lot; Rachel in the shade reading science fiction. It’s a partial vision, but a lovely one. Even my experience of Karyn, the farm owner, has been sweetly passing; she’s been on maternity leave for the majority of my stint here, so I only catch smiling brief run-ins with her and her chunky little kid.

I only have a partial vision of life at the farm because I’m here mostly to help out with the busy summer harvest. They’re long, sweat filled days, but I look forward to my Mondays and Fridays with this fabulous crew of young farmers. Everybody here is a good worker and an even better friend, and through all the dirt and picked peas they remember how to have fun. One way to have fun during the hours of raspberries and snap peas is a good word game, and though not exactly a word game, a few of my wonderful coworkers have asked that I give them each a word or two that suits them. So this is a small gift to them, a game for myself, and hopefully an honest introduction to you, my dear reader and eater of produce.

Lane ­– sprightly, clever as a coyote
Rachel – earnest, gentle
Britta – prudent, bright
Naomi – spry, keen, alert
Paige – demure, amiable, the most Midwestern of all of us
Julia – mousy, nimble, swift
Amy – keen, canny, steady
Emma – mindful, silver-tongued
Kat – jovial, genuine
Ian – resolute, reliable
Blake – coarse, easygoing
Usnea – ribald, present
Lizz – benevolent, loving, capable

-Reed