Sam Wickham

October- Land of Goldenrod

Goldenrod has washed over the wild field, painting it 24-karat yellow. The tall stalks flank the cultivated bed space, standing guard over the carrots we harvest, the lettuces, the beets. One fall, years ago, the goldenrod flush was dedicated to our mentor Robin, who loved the display and passed during

And you?

We rolled through the end of summer, carried in the current of harvest under a relentlessly beating sun. Tumbling fast in the momentum of this dry and dusty September, the world outside of the farm blurred. There's good and bad in that. Current events fall out of focus,

Me Too, Tom

The first week baking pumpkin pies for market was the week that finally kicked our butts. Not taking a break last winter did catch up with us after all...just as those farmer mentors of ours forewarned. Or maybe it was taking on building projects during the growing season that

September-Not Yet

I'm not sure it's time for pumpkin pies yet, but the squash in the field ripened early and the seconds sat staring at me from the curing table.The kitchen calendar reminded me that it was still August as I fired up our ovens to roast

Saving More for Ourselves

Anyone reading this is old enough to know that you learn lessons when you're ready to. It's not when someone forewarns you about the pitfalls of life, the ones that they slipped into when they were "your age". The forest for the trees talk

August-Sitzfleisch

A string of visceral memories were drummed up on a sweat-soaked summer evening, three days into a heat advisory, when the chills percolated through me. I was rows-deep in one of the tomato high tunnels, leaning and trellising our 700 tomato plants. While trellising, pruners are at the ready in

All the"Noise, Noise, Noise"

I pulled out my old stovetop tea kettle again...the one retired for the electric whizbang version that Rich brought into the house for delectable pour over coffees once he started roasting beans for us. It's a fixture of a simpler time before I folded and allowed a

The Farm as a Microcosm

Quite frankly, it has been harder to write this summer than last. The reasoning is twofold. Firstly, Rich and I are burning our candle hard and fast at both ends as we are growing into a bigger pair of shoes. And secondly, this time that we are living through is

July: A Place to Be

The night of my mid-June birthday coincided with a big lettuce planting. Every ten or so days we transplant another rotation of our kaleidoscope salad mix. At this stage in the game we plant by hand...Rich dropping the babes while I follow behind to tuck them in. Five grand

June-Ready/Believe It Or Not

The 45 degrees Farenheit registered on our outdoor thermometer is validated by the hens' hesistance to come outside the warmth of their coop this morning. So I had to consult the wall calendar, and yes it is the morning of June first. But the 6 am sunrise could have

A Note on Mother's Day

A day is hardly sufficient to recognize the role of our mothers and those people who take on the parent role. Those people who take little, floundering souls under their wings. Babes who are filled with unfathomable potential and rely on someone to nurture them and provide them the support

Bringing Up Babies

On the way down to market this weekend, an opossum crossed the road, looking extra hefty. I thought she must be with child(ren) and nearly ready to give birth, when eight little sets of eyes turned toward me: the big rumbling, green road monster with a trailer attached to

May-When I Say Jump

Now's the time of the year when Mother Nature says "jump" and we ask "how high?". Our growing hardiness zone has climbed in recent years to where late April presents like Mid-May used to. Though still on the lookout for sneaky late frosts as

An Undefeated Season

A little bit of the athlete mentality still runs my mind. It was developed during my days back on the soccer team, then the volleyball team, and the tennis crew too...Encouraged by Friday nights in the midwest spent rooting on the boys (and one girl in our school'

April-Blank Slate

The colors are beginning to trickle upward into the picture we are painting this spring. Playing the annual agriculture game, we begin with a blank silty-clay-loam canvas every year. With seed beds prepared, rather fluffy ones considering the humus that we've accumulated after seven years of feeding the

A League of Their Own: You

Nothing exists in isolation. All living things are embedded in a sea of other, interrelated things. Ideas are in that dynamic soup, brought to life by a person, two or more. They can be a product of passion, necessity, ambition, even fear. And the animate idea evolves, as if by

A League of Their Own: Local Food Champions

There are so many parts played in a success story. The glorified protagonist shines bright for an idea hatched or a journey taken. So brightly so that the supporting characters' contributions tend to dwell in the shadows. All the while, the leading lady is a product of her relationships

March-There IS Another Way

Rich and I live in a precious bubble which floats just beyond reach of the pricklier realities of life and the darkness of our world. Anytime we drift a little too close to the sharp edges or far enough from the light, we seem to be blown back into the

A League of His Own: Craig

At the point that I switched gears from chefdom to greenhorn, I was feeling rather lonely. I had just called my boss back at Jaleo, the restaurant where I had interned during culinary school, to let him know that I wouldn't be accepting a sous chef position at

A League of His Own: José

Enrolling at the CIA back in 2008 (not that CIA...the Culinary Institute of America), I knew that I would have the chance to apply for an externship at a restaurant anywhere in the world at the start of my second year. Not that just any restaurant would take a

February-Back to the Wild Rumpus

Every so often Rich and I conspire to get away with the kids. Whether it's to catch up on lost time with our New York or Michigan family, or in the rarer case to see someplace new, we endeavor to adventure. But every time, some part of me

A League of Their Own: Lou and Robin

So many of the characters of our story remain on the pages in the chapters they occupied in our lives. Neither Rich nor I is any good at long distance and tend to get swallowed up in the 'here and now' of wherever we are. While complimentary in

All the worlds

In the true millenial way, Rich and I have a history of 'worlds' we've been a part of. To start, we were born into the age of ubiquitous internet, which means that our world was larger than our immediate existence. Beyond our tangible community of classmates,

Inextricable

It's all tangled up. The roads that led us to where we are now, were riddled with clues of what was to come. A book given to me in my teen years,unbeknownst to me at that time, was one of those clues. This New Year's

January-Turn Up the Volume

Looking out over the great unknown of 2025, I can't remember a year during which I have felt more compelled to live loudly. So long as my motivations are born from the deep well of love within, not the dark cavern of fear, it's a year