Economy and Agriculture: The Past

 
It seems like every day I hear yet another story about the recession, the unemployment rate, or the number of jobs created or lost. Understandably, I suppose... given the tenacity of our country's economic lows, and the failure of the "good times" to show so much as the tip of its nose, it is not surprising that the story of America's economy is on the front page more often than not.

Dean (of Dean and Susan Vidal, owners of Brightwood Vineyard and Farm, where I spent much of 2011) was fond of talking about how sustainable agriculture - specifically, small family farms with a local focus - could be instrumental in turning our economy around.

History agrees with him. One theory I've heard (although one I can't cite because I don't remember where I read it... sorry, I know you're probably really upset about that) is that one reason the Great Depression hit so hard was that, up until that point, the majority of American citizens lived on farms. Their needs as consumers were fairly low because they grew and made most of what they needed, so recessions never seemed to have as much of an impact or last for too long.*

Interesting. Let's examine this idea further.

By the 1930s, there had been a significant exodus from the countryside to the cities, thanks to the Industrial Revolution. In 1790, farmers were 90% of the labor force. By 1860, it was 58%; by 1900, 38%; and by 1930, the beginning of the Great Depression, farmers were 21% of the labor force. According to the USDA, the number of people living on farms declined from around 40% in 1900 to around 27% in 1930. While the Great Depression would have been devastating regardless, it's likely that having the lowest percentage of people to date living on farms worsened the situation. (And the Dust Bowl probably didn't help.)

So back to the present.

Today, less than 1% of Americans say they are farmers, and only 2% live on farms. The number of farms has decreased from 6000 in 1900 to around 2000 today, with the average farm nearly doubled in size. But perhaps most telling: the average number of commodities per farm has decreased from more than five in 1900 to less than two. And as Michael Pollan famously investigated in The Omnivore's Dilemma, many of these farms are only surviving thanks to government subsidies for crops of soybeans and corn.

Although most people probably don't think the state of agriculture in our country has much, if anything, to do with the ongoing recession, I think the opposite. If more people grew their own food instead of shelling out their increasingly scarce dollars to purchase it, would this recession have been so bad, or lasted so long? History says no.

Frankly, I think updating our food system to one that focuses on diverse production, a local focus, and an interest in the environmental conservation of their land and soil health can have enormous economic benefits.

And if you come back soon, I'll talk about how that works in Part II.





*Incidentally, who knew there were so many recessions in American history?

Visiting Farms 101

Hello again, dear blog. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind. I spent two weeks in Washington DC, drove up to Boston for an extended weekend, and have been in Perryville, Maryland for the last two days, where I attended the awards ceremony and graduation for NCCC's Class XVII. There were lots of friends to see, unending beers to drink, many miles to drive, countless Fresh Air interviews to keep me company on the road, and far too few hours spent sleeping. It was, in short, amazing.

It hasn't all been partying hard with old friends, though. Last week, I visited three farms in the DC area to interview for apprenticeships next year.

See, here's the thing: I can only work through the end of July, since I should be starting grad school in late August, pending my acceptance. That makes finding a farm job a little awkward, to say the least. No one wants a worker who will leave right when the harvest is ready. So as I started my search, I kept that in mind. In the end, I had interviews with three farms: Clear Spring Creamery in Clear Spring, Maryland; Whitmore Farm in Emmitsburg, Maryland; and Waterpenny Farm in Sperryville, Virginia.

Clear Spring Creamery is a small family operation run by Mark and Clare Siebert. They have about forty milk cows, which are a mixture of Jersey and Holstein. They took me for a tour around the farm, which has been in Mark's family for more than a century. Housing is a camper with a full bed, a bathroom and shower, and a kitchen (although the stove doesn't work). Meals can be on your own or with the family (they have two kids, 10 and 13).

The day is about half farm work and half in the creamery, pasteurizing, bottling, and making cheese and yogurt. I got to try some of their milk, cheese and yogurt, and all of it was quite delicious. Interns get two full days off, usually Sunday and Monday.

The farm itself is quite nice, but the surrounding area doesn't have a whole lot. There is hiking nearby - the Appalachian Trail is about twenty-five miles away, for example. And DC is just a two hour drive.

Overall, I liked Mark and Clare a ton. They were incredibly personable, and answered my rapid-fire questions without batting an eye. They get 100% of their income from the farm, and I think I would get an in-depth look into not only the business of running a small farm, but also the ins and outs of working with government agencies and all the accompanying bureaucratic shenanigans. They also attend three farmers markets, so I would get more experience in that aspect of farm work.

Whitmore Farm focuses on animal husbandry, and has a very diverse operation with chickens (layers and broilers), rabbits, pigs, sheep and goats. Almost all their livestock are heritage breeds, including fainting goats. Sadly, I didn't get to see them. (YouTube them if you haven't already.) One really cool thing about this farm is that they do their own breeding, rather than buying chicks or stockers from an outside source. They also do a little bit of vegetable production.

The housing was a beautiful old home that Will and Ken, the owners, restored a few years ago. Interns get their own rooms and share a bathroom. The area is pretty rural, but being Maryland, you don't have to drive too far to find something.

Ken works full time off-farm, however, which makes me a little leery, since I specifically want to learn more about the business of making a farm profitable. Additionally, Will described their meat products to me as "boutique" and quite high priced. The question of how to price organic products is something I think a lot about, and while I think there is definitely a place for products like this, it's not what I'd like to focus on. I see my farm jobs as much or more about educating myself as being employed, and I believe firmly that organic food can and should be affordable for the majority of people out there.

Additionally, Will told me that they might stop doing their only farmers market and switch to entirely wholesale to high end restaurants next year. While the farm, the housing and the people were all very nice and while Ken and Will are running their farm in a very sound and ecologically friendly way, I don't think this is the farm for me. It's just too different from the food system I want to learn about and work in.

Waterpenny Farm happens to be just half an hour up the road from Brightwood Vineyard and Farm, where I worked this past year, and is run by a couple by the names of Eric and Rachel. They specialize in vegetable production, and get 100% of their income from farmers markets, CSA shares, and on-farm sales. They're also very open about the financial aspect of their farm, and I know I could get an excellent education about the business of running a farm and running it well.

Housing is a house that I would share with the other five interns, complete with kitchen and two bathrooms. I would only get one and a half days off, and they probably wouldn't be back-to-back, which would be problematic for visits to DC. Also, my leaving at the end of July would be more problematic for this farm than the other two, since they're entirely vegetable production and late summer is their busiest time.

Other than the farm itself, which is great, one thing I love about Waterpenny is the surrounding area. Sperryville is a fantastic little artistic community pretty much entirely comprised of local businesses - not a chain in sight. Also, Shenandoah National Park is just a few minutes' drive away. Unfortunately, however, I do not get a lick of phone service there, which - not gonna lie - would be a little difficult for me.




So. What does all this mean? All three farms would be a good experience, and I'm especially drawn to Clear Spring Creamery and Waterpenny Farm. I can expect to hear back from them in January, pretty much across the board. In the meantime, I'll keep my eyes and ears open for other farms where I can apply.

In the meantime, I'll be heading back to Indiana next week for the holidays, applying to grad school, and cooking my little tushie off. Expect lots of pictures of baked goods in the upcoming weeks.

Farming, Community, Life: My take on The Greenhorns

Thursday evening, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the new documentary The Greenhorns, produced by the grassroots nonprofit The Greenhorns, and which I first learned about a few months ago.

Greenhorns is a nonprofit that provides information and resources for new farmers. In the documentary, the Greenhorns founder Sevarine von Tscharner Fleming travels the country, interviewing beginning farmers,* as well as some big names in the field, like Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).

These new farmers, or “Greenhorns,” (see what they did there?) range in age from 18 to their early 60’s, and span the US from coast to coast. They are married and single, with children and without. They grow greens on city rooftops and raise cattle on rural family farms. They rejuvenate empty lots and provide produce for food deserts, balancing the tasks of introducing the joys of local food to consumers of all ages while working to learn the basics of keeping a farm running.

Their stories are all truly inspiring. But I’m not going to write about their stories, because it’s already been done – and very well indeed – by Ms. Tscharner Fleming. 

Instead, I want to talk about a theme that pervaded the Thursday night event: community.

First, let me give a brief summary of how the evening ran. When I arrived, I realized I actually knew a few people – there were several interns who are participating in other Piedmont CRAFT farms, who I met at the Sharondale mushroom farm tour. We spent an hour sitting on the grass outside, enjoying the historic and picturesque Morvin Farm, eating a dinner thoughtfully provided by Whole Foods and comparing our various farm apprenticeship experiences. After the screening, there was a “Young Farmer Panel” featuring five relatively new farmers who live in the Charlottesville area.

Late in the Q&A session, one of the panel members quipped, “I became a farmer because I thought I wouldn’t have to interact with people, but I talk to more people every day now than I’ve ever had to before!” Which got me thinking about the sense of community a small family farm creates in its wake.

Once upon a time, America’s countryside was dotted with small, healthy communities – at least, healthier than today. Folks got their food from local family farms, they bought their goods at locally-owned stores, and they weren’t afraid to lean on their neighbors for help.

Today, most of America suffers from what I like to call Cowboy Syndrome – the thought that every man (or nuclear family unit) is an island, and must be as self-reliant as possible. Which is just plain sad. How many moms feel comfortable asking their neighbors to watch their kids for an afternoon? How many people are okay with going next door to borrow a cup of sugar? Too few, I’m sure.

For a small, local farmer, isolation is completely unattainable. As our intrepid young farmer explained, you are constantly interacting with others. Susan and Dean’s home, for example, is constantly revolving with with WWOOF-ers, part-time workers, cottage guests, neighbors dropping by, travelers hoping to check out the winery, college professors examining how the farm copes with soil erosion, the local vet checking the donkey’s hooves… the list goes on and on. Merely starting a small, locally based farm will draw others to you, like small children to an open cookie jar.

While family farms are like small communities in and of themselves, they also play important roles locally – they purchase what they need from other local businesses, while providing fresh food for local families.**

All this crossed through my mind as I understood that, there in the horse barn where the documentary was screened, we were creating our own community: a community of young people, young farmers, a movement of those of us invested in creating justice, health, and sustainability through good, local food.

And as we ate our vegan pasta salad, comparing heirloom tomato seeds and laughing about nighttime chicken raids, I realized that we are building bridges to one another. We, the next generation of farmers in America, are creating relationships that we will use to strengthen our communities, our farms, and ourselves... even if all we need is to borrow a cup of sugar.

* According to the USDA, we learn, “Beginning Farmer” means anyone who has been farming fewer than 10 years.

** At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Walmart sort of messed this up.

The Magical Mushroom Tour

How many of you have ever thought about where those attractive shiitake mushrooms in the grocery store come from? Yeah... me either. I knew mushrooms grew in forests, of course, and in Indiana there are dozens of little Mushroom Festivals that dot the rural countryside during the appropriate seasons, often in quaint little towns that also house adorable Covered Bridge Festivals and Fourth of July Festivals with people dressed in pioneer clothing and a real blacksmith and a guy dressed as Abe Lincoln.

The term "mushroom farm", however, was alien to me. Yet logically, there has to be a way to farm mushrooms, because there is just no way that mushroom hunters could find enough wild shiitakes to populate every grocery store in the lower forty-eight.

On Tuesday, I visited Sharondale Farm, a mushroom growing operation, in Keswick, VA - about an hour south of Brightwood. It was part of the CRAFT program, or "Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training". Basically, a bunch of farms in the region get all their interns/apprentices together and visit one another in order to better educate said interns. There were maybe 15 of us there to learn about the joys of mushroom farming, including myself, Susan, Caitlin, and Robin.*

When we walked into the "Mushroom Forest," it took me a few minutes to realize I was even looking at the mushroom farm part of the business. The paths were lined with logs that were propped up in an A-frame sort of construction. In some areas, groups of logs were lying on the ground in a row. After wandering around somewhat stupidly for a moment, I took a closer look at some large growths coming out of the logs.

Well, what do you know. Mushrooms.

Mark Jones, the guy who runs Sharondale Farm, gave us a bit of a guided tour and explained the process of cultivating mushrooms. He starts by capturing wild mushroom strains that he finds in forests, and grows them in his house in petri dishes, which he uses to inoculate sawdust with the mushroom spawn. He then takes logs - white oak for shiitake - and drills holes in the wood in a diamond pattern. He packs the holes with the shroomy sawdust, seals it shut, and waits for the log to begin fruiting. (You can see the drill holes in the picture above.)

Mark seems like a pretty cool dude. He has a full beard and wore a ratty LSU sweatshirt, left over from his grad school days, as he showed us around his property. He designed his gardens using permaculture, an approach that tries to mimic natural patterns and relationships, and as with many small farms, nothing goes to waste.

What comes to mind specifically are his mushroom spawn inoculated sawdust blocks. After Mark is done with them, he uses the blocks to line his garden beds. As a result, feral mushrooms spring up from the blocks that weren't quite finished fruiting, giving the entire garden a rather surreal, Alice-In-Wonderland type of feel. When the logs start declining, he pulls them and uses them to line the trails in the so-called "Magical Forest"** beyond his gardens, where feral mushrooms also are known to spring up from logs with a little more oomph left in them.

Interesting sign in the greenhouse

To put a finishing touch on the visit, Mark gave us paper bags and let us pick as many feral mushrooms as we wanted. Susan got quite a harvest for the house, and that very evening I used them to make a lovely Wild Mushroom Soup. Alas - I forgot to take a picture of it. We still have enough for another batch, however, and Susan and Dean have requested another concoction. Hopefully my wits won't leave me next time. In any case, the recipe is below, adapted from the Simply-In-Season cookbook. And while I did not have any psychedelic experiences after eating them, I will end with the caveat to be careful what mushrooms you pick, in case you do.


*Robin is another part-time worker at the farm. She and her fiance are starting their own mushroom farm this year. I had no idea mushroom farming was so popular.
**One area we didn't get to visit was Mark's indoor operation, where he grows the mushroom spawn and inoculates the sawdust. While there might be a legitimate reason for not going in there, like contamination, I lean towards the explanation that he's growing other "special" harvests. The "Magical Forest" might not be the only "magical" thing around Sharondale...


Read on for the Wild Mushroom Soup recipe.

Greenhorns Guerilla Farming - Promoting agriculture to a new generation

Starting next Monday, I will be a farming intern on a highly diversified family farm, learning skills that could eventually make me a professional organic farmer, if I so desired.

Now, I've never wanted to be a farmer. And even though I am interning on a farm, I still don't plan on pursuing farming as a career. That is not to say that I won't use what I learn to grow some of my own food, and to inform my writing and my career path as an advocate for small farmers and organic agriculture.*

That being said, I have stumbled upon an amazingly cool resource for young farmers. It's called The Greenhorns. Their mission is to "recruit, promote and support young farmers in America," and they describe themselves as "a grassroots campaign for agricultural reform." And I have no qualms in wholeheartedly declaring myself their newest - and quite possibly their greenest - recruit.

Let's begin with Greenhorns founder, Severine von Tscharner Fleming, who is spearheading the young farmers movement. (For a great profile on her, check out this Grist article.) She is also the director of a new documentary that explores the lives of young farmers in America, the trailor for which is enticingly displayed front and center on their website. Well, front and slightly to the right. In Fleming's words:

We're making a documentary film about young farmers, their struggle and their valor, the redemptive force that they have for our society, for our culture, for our agriculture, for our countryside, for our nation.

The documentary - entitled The Greenhorns, curiously enough - is still in post-production, but they are currently scheduling screenings for a screen tour this year. This is a film that I am excited to see.

Besides the documentary trailor, the Greenhorns website also has fabulous resources for anyone who has so much as fantasized about the farming lifestyle:

• The Greenhorns' Guide For Beginning Farmers is a 30-page guide absolutely packed with tips on finding apprenticeships, getting land, business planning, marketing, etc. It also lists books and websites where the aspiring farmer can find valuable information on pest management, soil science, animal husbandry, seeds, equipment, and so forth.
• Greenhorns has a Wikispace site as a portal for young farmers to find further resources.
• You can sign up to receive their newsletter which is chock full of goodies and updates.
• They even have a podcast. Be still, my heart.
• And - AND! - they have posters. Really cool ones. I can't wait until I live somewhere longer than a few months that has walls, so I can indulge.




This organization is the coolest of cool. I've already found so many fantastic sources that I didn't know existed. I will certainly be keeping tabs on these people for the forseeable future.

Internship readiness update... only three more days until I leave. And have I started packing? Of course not. Have I finished unpacking from AmeriCorps NCCC, which ended in November? I plead the fifth.



*And who knows, really? I'm far more likely now to become a farmer than I would have been this time last year. Especially if a strapping farm boy gives me a come-hither look. I wouldn't even look back. But seriously... the point is that it's not outside the realm of possibility.

The Butcher, The Baker, The Boeuf Bourguignon Maker

For a while now, I have had a hang-up about boeuf bourguignon. Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon, to be precise. I somehow came to view mastering this recipe as a vital step in the career trajectory of any serious foodie. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but it was probably somewhere between reading Julie and Julia and My Life in France.

I - and many others, I believe - have come to view Mastering the Art of French Cooking as the First Edition Foodie Bible, the embodiment of the original Good Food movement. Maybe MtAoFC was considered an entrance into the world of home cookery for housewives in the 1960's, but like a snowball rolling down a hill, it has gathered force and mass as it raced through the next fifty years. This book has weathered TV shows, newscasts, best-selling memoirs, The Julie-Julia Project, and a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep, for crying out loud. A humble little cookbook it certainly is not... not anymore, anyway.

Bouef bourguignon is well known as traditional French fare, and is now even considered haute cuisine.* As such, it does not come without baggage, historically and culturally speaking. When the manuscript for MtAoFC first came across editor Judith Jones' desk, she settled on boeuf bourguignon as her test recipe. In the introduction to my own 40th anniversary edition of the cookbook, she explained with no small amount of gusto:

I ran home to make the recipe - and my first bite told me that I had finally produced an authentic French boef bourguignon - as good as one I could get in Paris. This, I was convinced, was a revolutionary cookbook...

And this from a lady who had lived in Paris for over three years.

Reading Julia Child's little love note before the recipe didn't really help settle my nerves, either:

As is the case with most famous dishes, there are more ways than one to arrive at a good boef bourguignon. Carefully done, and perfectly flavored, it is certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man...

Perfectly flavored, eh? One of the most delicious concocted by man? No pressure.

I started at the butcher shop. Doesn't that sound quaint? There are a lot of reasons to frequent a butcher, which I won't go into right now, but the primary one is that it gives you the most control over selecting your meat, short of raising and slaughtering the animal yourself. I, of course, have additional ethical concerns, and I chose accordingly.

I decided to go with The Goose, an Indianapolis-based shop that specializes in local, naturally raised meat. They also have a coffee shop and sell delicious sandwiches, as well as artisinal cheeses, fresh seasonal produce, and dairy products from a local creamery. I got six ounces of bacon and three pounds of chuck roast, courtesy of Fischer Farms in Jasper, Indiana. Their cattle is grass-fed with a grain-finish, as the nice man who wrapped up my juicy-looking hunk of meat explained to me.

Back at the ranch - I hauled out the cookbook and re-read the recipe to make sure I had everything. Then I prepared all my ingredients in advance - cut my bacon into lardon and my three pounds of beef into two inch chunks, and sliced up all the vegetables I would be needing.

Of course, I had an audience.

Then it was a matter of blanching the bacon (that sounds like it should be a euphamism for something), browning the beef (ditto), sautéing the veggies, and dumping everything into a pot with a bottle of red wine, some beef stock, garlic, tomato paste, and a bouquet garni, which was provided free of charge by my friendly neighborhood butcher man. Wasn't he something?

Ultimately, I don't know why I was so nervous. It's time intensive, to be sure, but most of the time is spent just letting the whole pot simmer in the oven for a few hours. You can even make boeuf bourguignon in advance... Julia's recipe actually recommends it as a way to let the flavors mingle.

You might even have time to bake a little dessert. Lemon-lavender pound cake, if you're me.

In the end, it turned out perfectly. The sauce was just thick enough. The beef was tender to the point of perfection, falling apart on our forks and melting on our tongues. My parents, my brother, and my friend Abbie (who I invited along) all made many yummy noises. It might have been the wine speaking, but I'll pretend otherwise for now.


*This may or may not be according to Wikipedia.

The Farming Internship, Part One

I started this blog in order to document my WWOOF-ing adventures. I know this. But that does not change the fact that sometimes, circumstances change.

It is my duty to now inform you, dear readers, that you have been misled. This blog will no longer be the blog of a WWOOF-er. I accept full responsibility for the deception, and will attempt to make any repatriations necessary for those who feel hoodwinked. But I must be allowed to state my case - then, and only then, can you take me to task if I have been neglectful of my duties as a blogger for and devotee of the organic and local food movement.

Basically, it comes down to what I feel will serve me best as I attempt to educate myself about small farm operations. I think WWOOF-ing is wonderful, and it's still something I'd like to do in the future - possibly for some months next year as I wait for grad school to start. But in the meantime, I am directing my attentions to the ever-useful Farming Internship.

I started thinking about farming internships as an option after a friend/co-worker directed me to the ATTRA website (also known as the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service... nothing close to "ATTRA," now that I think about it), which has quite a detailed and informative directory for farming internships and apprenticeships in the US and Canada. You can search by state/province, city, farm name, or keyword. After perusing a few descriptions, I started thinking about whether an internship was for me. And...I decided it was.

Two words: "Learning Experience." The whole point of WWOOF-ing (apart from the travel, the adventure, and the free food, of course) is that I want to be learning about organic agriculture - I want to network with farmers who rely on it for their livelihoods, I want to learn about issues in the field*, and I want to pick up lifeskills like plucking chickens, canning tomatoes and making things grow out of a field without managing to kill them in the process.

Yes, WWOOF-ing can and does expose you to these things, but internships are designed to put education first. A lot of the internships I'm looking into have relationships with other farms and organizations that allow interns to visit and learn about other types of organic ventures, attend workshops, take classes, etc. And the whole point is to educate people like me, who have barely a scrap of farming experience.

Also, as a WWOOF-er you might have some say in what you do. It probably depends on the farm and what they need, how many WWOOF-ers they have around, and how much experience you have. But your chances are better with a farmer whose intention is to teach you, rather than just have you do whatever work they need done.

Money and stuff. Not to be too crude about it, but while WWOOF host farms give you room and board in exchange for your work, you're on your own for any other expenses. A lot of internships have stipends - not much, but if it pays for my toothbrush and soap and gas for my car, then it certainly helps. And actually, a lot of the stipends I've seen pay as much (if not more) than my stipend as an AmeriCorps NCCC volunteer. A couple even provide health benefits, although I think that's outside the norm. Who knew?

What about travel and adventure and being a free spirit? So I'll be in one place for six to eight months instead of traveling around that entire time - my experience will be all the richer for it. I'm not saying you can't make good friends in a month or six weeks, but I like the idea of really getting to know the location, the other workers/interns, and the farmers who are teaching me. And it's not like I won't be traveling - as you'll see eventually, I'm applying all over the US... although my home territory, the good ol' Midwest, isn't receiving any love. Not that I don't love Indiana, but I want to travel, and that means going away. Far, far away.

And like I said, I still see myself WWOOF-ing in my "off months". By then, I'll have more experience under my belt, so maybe I won't be stuck picking grape tomatoes for seven hours a day.

And what about trying new things, learning different skills, and not getting stuck with one job? I'm glad you asked. According to my recent bedtime reading partner, a small family farm is a tightly contained, sustainable organism in a way. It doesn't produce a monoculture of just one crop - corns, soybeans, wheat - because not only is that unsustainable and terrible for the health and chemistry of the soil, but no one can survive on just corn or soybeans or wheat. A local, small, family farm has its fingers in a lot of pies - it grows a variety of produce, it puts up jams and jellies and canned goods for winter, and it often has livestock such as poultry, sheep and/or beef running around. The crops are rotated every year, since different crops require different nutrients and the farmer doesn't want to deplete the soil; the poultry eat pests and scratch up the soil, helping to prevent weeds; food waste goes to the pigs, and manure from livestock is in turn used to fertilize the growing produce. Also, if one crop (say, tomatoes) goes kaboom one year, Mr. Farmer isn't royally screwed for not growing anything else.

My whole point here is that working on one farm for an entire growing season doesn't mean I won't get the opportunity to do a variety of jobs. In fact, that's something I've taken into account as I've researched farms. I'm only applying to places that grow produce and keep some variety of livestock, with the hopes that I will get the chance to do a bit of everything.

Join me soon for Part Two, in which I struggle with deciding..... WHERE I SHOULD GO. (dum dum dummmm)



*This pun will never get old for me. And if you don't like puns, don't read this blog. And don't ever meet me.