Q: What motivates you to farm?
Being a steward to the land and to others in my community. The connection human beings have with soil is implicitly tied to the health of our society and our planet.
Q: How long have you been farming?
I had my first true farming experience 8 years ago when I moved to a tropical flower farm in Hawaii after graduating high school. I’ve been with Indy Urban Acres since 2016.
Q: What lessons can be taken from farming?
I mean, it’s all there. This is mans most basic connection to our earth, it is primordial. Before we farmed we hunted and we gathered, which is still a deep connection to the land. I think the most important lesson we can take from farming in our modern era is this, if we take care of the earth, the earth takes care of us. We are not here to dominate or rule nature, but to realize we are nature and to let nature teach us the ways of balance and harmony so that we may live with our brothers and sisters, fellow humans and the plants and the animals, not just survive but to thrive and live a life of abundance and joy on this great blue ball flying through the cosmos.
Q: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen out at the farm?
The process of growth, the multiplying of particles in a uniform and patternized way which lends itself unto nourishment for both mind and body. To see something so beautiful to the eyes, and so nourishing for the body, and to watch that process start from a tiny seed all the way to the kitchen table, and to see all the tiny pieces that went into that, including the bugs and microbes and fungal networks in the soil and the falling rain and glowing sunshine and the blood and sweat from my own body, how amazing, what a miracle to witness and be apart of!!!
Q: When you’re done farming for the day. What will you be doing?
I’m all over the place! Some weekends it’s the city, biking and going to bars, some weekends it’s the woods, kayaking and hiking and foraging for mushrooms, a lot of nights it is at home with a good book or enjoying my flower garden. A human being is nothing if not adaptable.
Q: What are you most proud of at IUA?
Obviously it’s gotta be the nourishment given away for free. I think that’s such a beautiful concept, food being free. Beyond that, the impact we’ve made over the years on high school kids coming through the TeenWorks program as well as the tight loving bond we share as a farm staff, it’s like family.
Q: You have 3 seconds to choose a karaoke song. What would you sing?
