Because 2 days is never enough.

I went to visit my sister, Kate, at Vassar College last weekend. She and her roommates joined a cooperative run by the Vassar farm and she was eager to show me her weekly harvest. And it was a bounty. There is something so much more satisfying about picking up your CSA veggies on an actual farm, as opposed to a church basement in Harlem, but I digress.
Like good little kibbutzim, Kate and her friends rose early and bright eyed, arriving at the farm at 12:30pm, some faces still dented from their sheets. They then took to their labors, picking green beans with curiosity and chewing them raw, handfuls a time, happily bovine as partially chewed beans hung from their lips.
Here’s Kate with her colorful flowers and leafy greens:

And here is Comrade Blake, a model for the Soviet propaganda poster for the Vassar Cooperative Farm. (He’s a professional: has been in two soundless films!)

It was a pretty farm, tucked right next to my old rugby field against a few acres of undeveloped mid-Hudsdon woods. Kate and her darling friends returned home and planned for a farm co-op potluck, carefully arranged sage leaves into a decorative candle holder, and put out their pretty flowers.
Oh sure they were all hung-over and patching together the spotty bits in their memory of the evening before. And yes, we did eat at the same charming greasy spoon diner where the wall paper alone is probably predates the civil war. But still, I couldn’t help but admire how much more wholesome these kids were, with their kale, fresh air, beets, peppers, lettuce, than we ever were back in the olden days.