Amy Doeun

This last weekend we had a great opportunity to attend the 1st annual Mother Earth Fest on the West Side of St. Paul. As Proeun said, "they really know how to throw a party, that was the best party I have ever been to." We had a booth for our farm. The plan was that we would all stay together in the morning and Proeun and I would take turns walking around with the children, but they loved it so much they didn't want to leave. So we reworked our schedule, saved errands and chores for another day and had a great day hanging out with the children, sharing our farm story and celebrating diverse communities coming together to say they care about what happens in our neighborhoods and to earth our home.

I love it when I get the Land Stewardship Projects newsletter in the mail. It encourages me to slow down, relax and remind myself why I am farming. This issue had a very interesting article about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Few people are alive who remember living through it, most were children at the time and hopefully shielded by the adults in their life of the worst horrors. Dana Jackson said in the article that the Dust Bowl which resulted from extensive tilling of native shortgrass prairie and natural drought caused the worst, "man made environmental disaster in history."Just to give you a hint of how bad it was here are some pictures courtesy of a PBS documentary and Farm Service Agency workers.

As you probably remember most of my goals this year revolve around better health. While most people think about eating right and exercising as keys to good health (and they are definitely a priority for me) I am realizing what I put on my body by way of personal care products have a huge effect on health. There are some great companies out there run out of homes and producing excellent products for health, Blue Vervain is one of my favorites, but I am a Do It Yourself (DIY) kind of gal.

It was one of those amazing weekends with great weather, lovely comfort food and lots of time spent with those we love. As the semi-warm weather continues we are limiting time off the farm to a minimum and spending as much time as possible outdoors to finish up projects for the winter.