Blueberries and Lobster

My friend just bought the farm.

Ok, technically he’s leasing a few acres from a semi-retired couple. But he’s treating the land as if it was his own, measuring plots, drawing up plans for vegetables, chickens, and pigs. He has plans for cover crops, grains, even worms. I went out for a visit on this clear, snow-covered Thursday, and Farmer J. and I tromped around in the snow, guessing at animal tracks and leaving our own.

It’s a beautiful farmhouse, only a few years old, with exposed beams and a glasshouse off of the kitchen. My first instinct: herbs and large viney things in the glasshouse, surrounding the wicker lounge chair. But there’s plenty of land; who needs a glasshouse?

In the back of the farmhouse, an errant patch of snow-covered kale, still good. I came home with a bag. I’m pondering soup of some kind, possibly involving potatoes.

I like kale. I like that it survives snowstorms.

Farmer J. is in the process of building a hoop house, with plans for cucumbers, tomatoes, and other things. I want to walk down the hoop house in the middle of summer. I can see this already, full of tomato plants staked up in slightly unkempt rows, fresh plant smells, smooth tomatoes, bumpy cucumbers. In my head, it’s already June.

And off to the side, an octagonal barn, oddly yurt-like.

I know where my food is coming from when summer hits. I’m making plans for fresh, local food, grown by someone I know and trust. I know where my eggs are coming from, my peppers, cucumbers, spinach, pork. Do you?