Rachel from Virginia
What do we have here? A new contributor to the agroecology blog (!) as Merry Lea’s first WWOOF (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) volunteer has been invited to give her perspective of Merry Lea Sustainable Farm in October. And what an October it has been! Farm event-filled weekends, harvesting produce for special dinners, and making sorghum molasses created an almost too exciting time. I’m still on an adrenaline high!
With October came dark mornings, making it harder to roll out of bed, but a lot more fun to wake up the laying hens in their eggmobile. The month was full of harvesting, pulling out old plants, and cover cropping garden beds (we are pro-soil health at Merry Lea). Early in the month, an event for young, aspiring, agriculturally-minded people was put together to show the various career options in farming. We visited the Goshen farmer’s market and several small-scale diversified farms. I enjoyed introducing them to WWOOFusa and the opportunities open to them as WWOOFers.
October also brought a Farm-to-Table dinner to Merry Lea where our farm’s produce was featured. Our team hustled to harvest the produce the gifted chef had requested. We gathered sweet potatoes, ground cherries, salad mix, eggs, and our delectable shiitake mushrooms (yum!). All this work more than paid off, for a meal fit for a king was served. I can still taste the shiitakes and sweet potato puree!!
The climax of the month was the making of sorghum molasses. We were fortunate to have another WWOOFer on hand, Daniel from Chicago, to help with the work. We began by stripping the leaves from the sorghum stalks, which Jon jokes is part of his new proposed Merry Lea CropFit regimen. On Tuesday, the harvesting of the stalks occurred, where we discovered that Dale was in fact an agile ninja when he had a machete in his hand. Sorghum Pressing Wednesday came about with the assistance of a wonderful local farmer named Larry Palmer and his tractor. Our small group created a powerhouse of an assembly line to press the stiff stalks into a glowing green liquid. Finally, the big day came to boil down the sorghum juice into the gooey, amber elixir we know as sorghum molasses. The photo shows Daniel and Jon demonstrating their approval by cleaning out the pan with their fingers.
On Halloween afternoon farm staff went to campus to sell their diverse produce. On this day Dale and Jon were replaced at the sales table by a radical raccoon and a friendly fox. We are wondering, will they make another appearance next year?
What a wonderful month it has been at Merry Lea, full of warm days, good food, and caring people. Unfortunately, the month came to a terrible end with the passing of one of our prized laying hens. Rest in peace little lady.
– Rachel Drescher, WWOOF volunteer