Morning meeting on the farm is a time for the Red Dog crew to gather and share announcements, discuss logistics for the day, and also provide comradery and encouragement. Once in a while, farm owner Karyn or another member of the management team will give a farmer talk and teach the crew about things like Jefferson Land Trust, tractor cultivation, organic certification, and more. This keeps us learning and helps build our understanding of farming in its entirety, rather than only knowing our immediate reality of harvesting produce from the field. We also keep a box in the breakroom where we write “snaps,” little shout-outs to various crew members, thanking them for their excellence, and we read them aloud on Fridays to boost morale.

Last week our resident queen of the farm, Karyn, gave us an inspirational talk. August is the hardest month on the farm. It’s peak season, hot and busy, and also coincides with that mid-season slump when crew members sometimes begin to feel burnt out. She started by saying all this out loud, recognizing that this is hard and it’s okay to say that it’s hard. She then told us that if we look out in the fields, the plants are moving quickly through their life cycles, many nearing the end, and their energy is being focused toward a single mission: spreading their seed. She said that if, like the plants, we can find one thing we are looking forward to or one thing in our lives that makes all the work worth it, that can help us get through this part of the season. I found this to be a beautiful reminder that our lives mimic the plant cycle, and that the highs and lows are just a part of life. Snaps to Karyn for sharing her wisdom!

-Hailey