My daughter London wants to be a farmer when she grows up. When people ask her what she wants to be and she tells them, "a farmer," without fail, they laugh at her. I get it. It's sort of hilarious and adorable that a kid who has only ever lived in the Rochester 'burbs would ever consider farming for her professional aspirations. Still, "farmer" has been her deadpan answer to that question since she was a toddler. When people laugh at her answer, I secretly cringe on the inside. I want to say "No! Please don't laugh! She actually reeeally wants to be a farmer and she is starting to think that being a farmer is a silly thing to do. Tell her farming isn't silly. Tell her that it's noble and it's hard and it is necessary for our people to survive. Tell her that prostitution isn't the oldest profession in the world, but farming is!"
Okay, maybe don't tell her that bit about prostitution. But DO remind her that God gave Adam and Eve one job - TO MAN THE GARDENS! Well, that ... and to not get the whole of mankind damned for all eternity. (Thanks guys for that, btw.) Point being: while - technically - the first command that God gave to man was to be fruitful and multiply, he first made plants and animals and then he made people to rule over it all. Prostitution came later thanks to that whole "fall of man" thing that happened because Eve couldn't just mind her own crops!
Alright, now that we are all on the same page with:
A) not laughing at children for their life ambitions and
B) valuing all things farm and farmer
we can now move on to Day 24. Today I accompanied my youngest son, Jay, on his first field trip to the pumpkin farm. Since there is a morning class and afternoon preschool class, Jay's teacher was going to be spending her whole day out at a muddy farm with dozens of 4 year olds. We decided to bring Miss RolyAnn some coffee mid-way through her day. (Her name is actually Miss LoriAnn, but Jay has a bit of hearing loss and an adorable tendency to incorrectly pronounce things.)
He was very excited to give Miss RolyAnn her coffee and so celebrated the hand off by smiling as awkwardly as humanly possible. It started okay, but went downhill fast.
In addition to our little #AdamsAct at the farm, we also wanted to show some support to a local farm that could use our help. The Lexington Avenue Urban Farm here in Rochester, NY was vandalized (again) a week and a half ago. Sadly, many fruit trees were damaged and were likely going to start producing in the next year or so. Vandals apparently broke in and damaged the 1.3-acre garden that provides food for many refugee families in the neighborhood, as well as some of Foodlink’s programs. Sections of the fence were damaged, sheds were broken into and some gardening equipment was stolen, including a weed wacker. The exterior walls of the hoop house were slashed, and several fruit trees were damaged. Foodlink has estimated the cost of the damage at $1,000, however it’s too early to tell just how many of the trees won’t survive to produce.
I am including the link to the their donation page for those of you who would also like to show some support for a profession that is even older than our sin problem. To donate go to: THIS LINK, where you can select Lexington Ave Urban Farm in the drop-down menu to designate your gift directly to support their efforts to replace and restore what was lost, stolen or damaged.
And remember... the only acceptable form of vandalism is:
