Dear Sara,
I have recently accepted a position as a Sustainable Agriculture/ Horticulture faculty and program coordinator at Triton College in Chicago. It is an amazing opportunity that takes me away from farm and family 4 days per week. Paul (Houston, Scott’s brother-in-law) will be taking over the greenhouse and we will no longer be a commercial vegetable growers.
I feel as though we started this adventure together. Sitting around the table at Schlafly Bottleworks trying to figure out the minutia of details. Random price lists and the unknown of quality. Something magical was happening, though.
Rusty, Paul, Sam, Lee and Ingrid, Ivan, Michelle and Mark Wagstaff, Ron Hale…
In the last decade we have all been through so much. We have lost some of our favorite people and seen how dangerous and beautiful farming can be. Cooperatively, this past decade Fair Shares–family, members, staff and farmers–have helped my family to appreciate the best this world has to offer. My children have been raised as I dreamed, in rural Missouri. They have learned hard work, passion and nature go hand in hand. You all have played a key role allowing us to make agriculture our living. I cannot express the amount of gratitude I feel.
I sincerely hope that our work has somehow contributed to a stronger connection between you all and the food. I don’t know, maybe it has tested a little better. 🙂
Henry is graduating next year. For me that correlates to over 20 years farming. I have no intention of stopping but after two decades of physical labor my body is a little pissed off. So, we move on. Reluctantly, I move on, hoping to make a difference, yet knowing that it can’t be through physical means. Smart as a whip, I am, but the weather and land are what will always nurture me.
Thanks to all the Fair Shares Family; you’re like our own,
— Tricia, Henry, Oliver and Scott