Interns Preserve Harvest to Mitigate Empty Nest

With the students away on the Food Intensive, four intrepid interns have stayed behind with one thing on our minds: food. Preservation, that is. This week we’ve kept ourselves busy with preserving our bounteous harvest while the students have been away, resulting in cans upon cans of tomatillo salsa, tomato sauce, and blackberry jam.

Our mornings this week have begun with harvesting in the garden, before the heavy heat of midday hits. We then weigh the produce and load up the newly repaired garden cart (thanks Lewis!) and walk barefooted across the grass to the Dining Hall. There the processing and preserving blitzkrieg begins. We bombard the kitchen haphazardly, and yet somehow after a few hours we’re lovingly placing another armful of sealed Mason jars onto the shelves in the pantry. Other adventures this week have included catfish wrangling (Doug and Red have been draining Mel’s Pond), eggplant carving, melon taste-testing, garden class with local six year olds, and several blissful trips to the Yuba River. We’ve experimented with eating produce straight off the plant after being inspired by two-year-old Althea’s no-handed, ruthless cabbage eating in the garden. Verdict: strawberries really are better on the vine. We’ve also at last come to a decision on the name for the newly formed contra band, made of banjo player/cow-op intern Alice, mandolin player/community intern Aaron, guitarist Graeme and bassist Colman, both of whom are current students. The band has been affectionately dubbed “Brosenberg” after the much-discussed founder of Nonviolent Communication.

Between the backpacking trip and the food intensive, it feels like this semester has been more adventure than routine. Regardless, we’ve developed a strong sense of community here on campus, and it feels strange to have the students gone. Yes, we’ll miss the peace and quiet—and immensely available West Side bathrooms—but it’ll be nice to have them back. We’re also excited for classes to resume again: as refreshing as it has been spending long hours in the garden and dreaming of eating salsa in the winter, it’ll be great to continue delving deeper into the larger-world issues of social justice, peace and sustainability.