Dub Dub's Ziploc Omlette Awesomeness

So this post is actually a long time coming. I haven't had the necessary hardware to post the pictures that accompany it so it's been a little bit of a wait. But here it is in all it's glory.

So if you're like me, you love omlettes. If you're also like me, you are continually foiled by the process of making said omlette. (If you're even more like me, you're starting to think this intro sounds like a bad infomercial). Most of mine turn into goopy pseudo scrambled eggs. It's not a pretty sight. Anyway, a while back Wild Woman told me a recipe for what she called the ziploc omlette. She claimed it made the perfectly shaped omlette. Naturally, given my previous omlette making fiascos, I was intrigued. So I decided to make one for myself and document it for all of you out there.

Step 1: Component Assembly and Bagging

Basically all you need are 2 eggs (3 eggs are also perfectly fine) and whatever ingredients you want. I enjoy cheese, bacon, tomato, more cheese, onion, even more cheese, and bell pepper in my omlette. All you do is scramble the eggs and pour them into a ziploc baggie, along with any components you want. I've found that the quart size freezer bags make the perfect size. Make sure your take the air out of the bag so you end up with the image above. HINT: While you're assembling your omlette's ingredients, bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil. This will be crucial in...

Step 2: Boiling Your Bag

This is actually as simple as it sounds. Once you have your bag assembled, stick it in the pot of boiling water. Just let it sit in the boiling water for about 13 minutes. You can turn the bag over a few times if you'd like. But really that's it. After it's been cooked, you just open the bag and slide it right out onto a plate. Boosh.

Step 3: Enjoy Your Freaking Omlette

I have to admit I was a little skeptical of the whole thing but as you can see, it really does turn out the perfectly shaped omlette with a lot less mess. And once I bit into it I immediately said, "This is delicious!". You can dress it however you'd like (that's salsa on top of mine there).

Now, if you paid attention, you probably noticed it took 13 minutes to cook and you rightly asked why anyone would want to wait that long for their omlette. Fair point. Don't use it if you're in a rush. However, because of the ziploc bag, you can just make your bag the night before and stick it in the fridge. Then you can just put the bag in the water while you take a shower and you'll have a beautifully prepared omlette upon your drying off. In conclusion, Ziploc + Omlette = CRAZY DELICIOUS.

Bishop Hendricken: Garrrr!

From November 14-20 we had a group of all guys from Bishop Hendriken High School in Warwick, Rhode Island. We had heard from a former Farm Manager that this group was pretty wacky but since different groups from the same school can be different we were interested to see how it went. Turns out our information was reliable and these kids were decidedly wacky. It was a super fun week that had a bunch of laughs.

The week started off with a night hike up to Armstrong cemetery to do some stargazing. It was a great night site because it was so close that it afforded us a lot of flexibility. Thinking back on it, it epitomized what the Farm is about. It's not often that we take the time to just sit back and look at stars. First off, most of us live in areas where the lights from the city make it almost impossible to see the stars. Second, we lead such busy lives that they rarely afford us the opportunity to sit back and actually look at the stars. So this simple activity was a great way to introduce the kids to the simplicity of the Farm. The kids showed their goofiness right away by spending much of the time figuring out a way to make a Hannah Montana constellation.

Something that really struck me about this group was the sincerity they brought to service. It's one thing to say you're going to serve, it's another to really go out of your way to make that effort to really serve everyone you can. These guys did that surprisingly well. They were always looking for jobs to do and were never satisfied when they finished whatever task they were initially given. This was evident right on the first work day. I was with two groups that day in Tollesboro at both the food and clothing pantry. The clothing group spent the day sorting clothes, as usual, while the food side put out much of the food for box making and also made some of the Thanksgiving boxes. Toward the end of the day, I ran over to the clothing side to tell them to start tidying up after which I raced back to the food side. I was shocked when shortly after I left them, the boys showed up on the food side, looking to help in any way they could. They could have just finished their job at the clothing pantry and could have easily (and justifiably) rested up until the others were finished. But they weren't satisfied just finishing their own job. They wanted to serve in any way they could and went the extra mile.

This week was also a week for finishing tasks. On that first day, the actually kids finished sorting the entire back pile of bags. It was really a culmination of a lot of hard work from previous groups. It felt really great to see that completed because it was a pet project of the Farm Managers. We never thought we would see the day when that huge pile was ever fully sorted. In addition, I got to work on the last day at the Thomas Colvin construction site at Fuller Branch. It was interesting to work on the last day at a site. It's not often that we get to see the tail end of a job. It was nice knowing that the very next day a family was going to move into the home we were working on.

There was a feeling of familiarity running through the week. For Jamie and Colleen, hearing the New England accents and slang was like having a little bit of home brought to them. It was similar to when the Notre Dame kids came in a few weeks ago and I felt so good hearing and talking about familiar sights. The two of them were so enthused by hanging out with people that knew the same places they did and I can see why. For me, the familiarity was rooted in a reason other than geography. Bishop Hendriken is an all boys school. While I never attended an all boys school, I did live in an all boys dorm for the last 4 years. Watching and listening to all the ridiculousness of the week really reminded me of living in Alumni Hall. There was such a sense of community and fun that permeated the week that reminded me of the camaraderie of living with

all guys. There's a sense of goofiness and energy when you get a bunch of guys together in one place. These guys definitely showed that very well. There were plenty of games of knockout and frisbee. We played G-H-O-S-T on almost all car rides and it was rare that anyone ever escape getting crap for something they did. Nicknames abounded and the sayings of the day were always interesting. It was also the first time I've ever seen pirate duels on the Farm. I came out of the staffhouse one day to find that the boys had grabbed any and all available sticks and had staged a pirate duel on the picnic tables. This was of course on Steve the Pirate Tuesday (There was a guy named Steve in the group). It was really nice being able to experience that sort of community again.

The group also brought a really cool element to reflection. The group always did their own reflection after we ended each night. On the last night, the chaperones included the Farm Managers in their reflection. They used a prayer structure known as an Emmaus Walk. It's based around the disciples meeting and, at first, not recognizing Jesus on the road to Emmaus. It was a really great way to look back on the progression of the week for the kids. They were able to see how they were changed by the week in a way that focused on their personal discovery of Jesus. It was a surprisingly in depth reflection for a group of high schoolers but they were more than up to the task. Their answers showed that they had really put a concerted effort into thinking about how Jesus had been present that week. It was an excellent end to a great week.

St. Martha's: Wait... Are You Calling Me Fat?

So this past weekend we welcomed a group from St. Matha's youth group in Cuyahoga Falls, OH to the Farm. It was unorthodox in terms of scheduling because it was only for the weekend but it didn't mean it was any less busy. I knew it was going to be a fun weekend when I noticed one of the kids wearing a pair of Hoban shorts. When I asked him if he went to the same Archbishop Hoban we were familiar with, it turned out there were a handful of them on the trip. It was good to see Hoban kids back on the Farm. It was also great to welcome some new places to the Farm as well.




Planning for the group was actually a pain. Since they were here only for the weekend, we couldn't bring them to any of our old standby sites like construction or Comprehend. So we were scrambling a bit to try and find things for the group to do. This was coumpounded by the fact that Jamie joined her family this weekend in Maine for the second largest Lobstering tournament on the East Coast. So while she was captaining her trawler (as I'm told Lobster boats are properly called), Colleen and I were left with the group. It was also frustrating because we wanted the kids to get a well rounded expereience at the Farm, which was difficult to do since they only had one day. The Farm has some wonderful qualities about it but it often takes a little time for them to really sink in. Like anything new, the first day is more about the kids adjusting to the simplicity, God's Time, not having cell phones etc. Once they get past that, they can appreciate what the charisms of this place do for them. Colleen put it best when she said that it really had to be a conscious effort on our part to drive home these points instread of letting the Farm work its magic.




Despite all these obstacles set in our way, the kids really had a fantastic weekend of sevice. I spent Saturday at the Clothing Pantry. It was a mess after the pantry handout week so we had a lot of work cut out for us. But the kids were really willing to do the work and did it with great enthusiasm. I think the entire time we were there was spent singing. It started with Party in the USA (let's be honest, there isn't a better place to start), moved from there to Disney songs and then gradually gave way to a Grease medley. The kids kept making comments indicating they thought I would get annoyed with all their goofyness. But it was such a great reminder of what I and my fellow Farm Managers are trying to do here.



Every community of Farm managers runs things differently. It depends on philosophies and personalities of the Farm Managers. There's really no right or wrong way to do things here. For Colleen, Jamie, and I there's a definite philosophy of service with a smile. We joke that we make a scene everywhere we go here in Lewis County. Everyone seems to be secretly laughing at us as we bumble around. We regularly crack up at somewhat inappropriate times (say during Fr. Larry's sermons) and generally have a great time. We just want to show the kids that service doesn't have to be chorelike and can be done while having fun. Service and fun are certainly not mutually exclusive when it comes to us. It's why we're always joking around, it's why the background to the computer here is usually something ridiculous like Werewolf Bar Mitzvah or lolcats, and it's why we have a quote wall. We embrace the fact that we're young and inexperienced but I think we have our hearts in the right place, which makes all the difference. Seeing Maggie, Taylor and Kiki sing the entire time at the pantry really reminded me of what I'm doing here in Lewis County.



As chance would have it, George came over to the clothing pantry and mentioned that he needed some help in the food pantry. So off we went to the food side. We stacked boxes in anticipation for the next time we would pack them and then had a blast making ziploc bags of sausage patties. I was really gald we got to do that because it showed the kids the food pantry when they would not have gone there otherwise.



That night, seeing as it was Halloween (alas, not Fortiesween) Colleen and I decided to take the kids to a local haunted hotel right in downtown Vanceburg. We had seen the signs for it and Colleen saw the jail guys setting it up earlier in the week but we didn't know anything else. I was hoping it wouldn't be hokey and cheesy. I know that it must have been difficult to give up their Halloween to do service, so I wanted the kids to have a good time. Luckily the hotel proved to be a big hit. It was a really elaborate operation with multiple rooms and a lot of different things. They had a kitchen of horrors, a meeting with the Devil and the obligatory chainsaw man that jumped out at you at the end. And it was legitimately scary. I was laughing the whole time at the kids who were screaming their heads off. We went in two groups, with me in the front and Colleen in the second. When Colleen came out with the second group she ran over to me and showed me her hands, which were covered in nervous sweat. So score one for Vanceburg.



So it was a good weekend overall with a lot of hilarity. Now we have an off week so I'm going to try and rest up and store some energy for the groups to come...

I Survived Slate Hollow and All You Get Is This Crappy Blogpost

So it was an eventful off week at the Farm. I will eventually get to my recap of what was a wonderful weekend at ND for the BC game in a bit but for the sake of being timely, I'll let you know the adventures of us Farm Managers during this off week.

It started when Jamie and I went to go get First Aid Trained in Lexington. After learning how to shout "ARE YOU OK?" to various prone victims and devouring some delcious Waffle House we headed back to the Farm. Now, we had driven for 4 hours that day without incident so of course when we get to Lower Kinney Road we immediately get into an accident. Actually accident is a pretty strong word. Really all that happened was that we hit sideview mirrors with an oncoming truck. It was no big deal and no one was hurt but it was certainly a nuisance. Now Bert (Big Red Truck) is ghettofied with an elastic band holding the mirror in place.

Our week of adventures was far from over, though. We went to deliver some food to a local woman in town on Wednesday. The trip there was uneventful but the trip back was less boring. I was at the wheel of the Snitch on Lower Kinney and spotted a dead racoon with a vulture perched on top in the middle of the road. I drifted to the right to avoid the vulture who insisted on standing his ground on his roadkill. My manuever brought the right set of wheels briefly off the road, which was alright since it was level. I brought us back on the road and had enough time to get out an apology for the brief rough patch. But as the words "I'm sorry guys" were escaping me I could feel the van begin to fishtail. With it loaded with kids, I'm sure the van is a lot more stable but since it was just the 3 of us Farm Managers, there was nothing to oppose the back sliding out. The fact that it had rained recently certainly didn't help. We whipped around pretty quickly and it was a miracle that we didn't roll or anything. We ended up with our front wheels on the pavement and the back end in the grass. Everyone was fine and we anticlimactically pushed the Snitch out. However, when we looked at the marks, we realized that six inches to a foot earlier than where we skidded off the road was a short drop down to the Kinneconick creek... yikes.

The good news is, that was the last of our car accident related adventures... bad news is it wasn't the last of our adventures. At the Wednesday night service at Mosby, Rick mentioned that a local woman's husband in jail mentioned she needed some firewood. We told him we would be happy to deliver some to her. We called him the next day to get the address and he told us that she lived in a trailer at the top of a hill in Slate Hollow. Slate Hollow is one of the worst sections of Vanceburg, which didn't phase us much. We took Bert with some wood thrown in the back of the truck. Now, Rick never told us an exact address, only the whole trailer at the top of the hill part and the possibility of another house being nearby. We turned onto Slate Hollow and then made a right onto Slate Church Road... and proceeded to make our way up a freaking mountainside. We came to a split in the road that had one path going up and to the right while the other was more level and went left. Both looked rutted out so we decided to turn around. Only problem was, turning around wasn't really an option with Bert and these small mountain roads. Jamie managed to make a nicely excecuted 45632482 point turn without sending us tumbling over the side of the mountain and we made our way part of the way back down.

On the way we stopped to ask where this woman lived from a local (in retrospect probably something we should have done in the first place). She was very nice and informed us that Diane lived back up where we were before. So we drove all the way back down and came right back up and took the fork to the left. As we were driving we came across a few tresspassing signs, the most disturbing of which read "Tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be prosecuted". Now, seeing this sign in the middle of suburbia in front of a white pickett fence in the daytime is one thing. Coming across this sign while driving up the rutted out mountain road at dusk in Slate Hollow is completely different. And more than slightly off putting. The woman we had asked directions from had assured us that it was fine to proceed so we did... cautiously. We came to a place where the path began to steepen (if that was possible) and seeing as how we could view the trailer we were looking for, we decided it would be smart not to push our luck with Bert and we stopped. We each grabbed a handful of firewood and descended the grass hill to this woman's trailer with more than a little trepidation. If this woman was going for a yard that deterred tresspassers, she was more than successful. It seemed like the place was crawling with dogs, all barking and most with heavy metal chains. It didn't help that by this time it was fairly dark. We caught sight of a man coming out of the house toward us in the dimming light. He was wearing all camoflage gear with something in his hand.

We were unaware Jason Vorhees lived in Slate Hollow

At this point we were downright frightened and we hailed him with as many "farwood"s and "y'all"s as we could spit out, praying we didn't get shot. Somehow I got out "Rick Buckner sent us to get some firewood for Diane". "Who's Rick?" the man said. If before, we were scared, now we were pissing our pants. I thought poor Colleen was going to legitimately cry. Here we were, at the top of Slate Hollow at dark, apparently at the wrong place facing a man dressed head to toe in camo who didn't know the person we had been sent by. There was a legitimate feeling that we weren't coming back down from the mountain. When we explained that Rick was a pastor at a local church the man seemed to soften a bit. He led us down into the yard and we followed tentatively, not knowing if we could be relieved yet. The irony of all ironies was that when we went down into the yard we saw that the woman had a sizable pile of wood next to her house.

Where the hell were you on that one, Alanis?

The man interrupted our zombie-like wood stacking by asking if we wanted to come meet Diane. Honestly, going inside that house was the last thing I wanted to do. All I wanted was to throw the rest of the wood into the pile and get the Hell outta Dodge before anything worse happened. Of course I didn't say this but accepted the invitation. Naturally there was a giant Huskie chained to the porch when we went inside. Oddly enough, when we stepped inside, the tension seemed to melt. The woman couldn't have been nicer (she was skeptical at first but seemed glad when we told her there was no charge for the service) and we were introduced to her two friends (one of whom was camo man). They were her neighbors who came to check on her because they knew she was alone. One of them was truly fascinated by us and the Farm. He kept repeating "That is really cool of y'all" and seemed genuinely astounded that a place like the Farm existed and would do something like this. We then grabbed the rest of the wood from the back of the truck and put it in the pile in silence, all of us still kind of shocked by what had just transpired. As we walked back up the hill toward the truck, I broke the silence by saying "Well... that turned from terrifying to heart warming in about 2 seconds". Jamie and Colleen numbly agreed with me. Of course, as luck would have it, another truck tried to make its way up the mountain as we were going to leave. We had to execute another 45657389 point turn, this time with the other driver waiting to slide past. Colleen claims that the driver was the infamous Goat Man of Slate Hollow (Scroll to Vanceburg) which I think is ridiculous seeing as how that story is clearly a hoax. But who knows? After that experience I wouldn't be surprised.

The experience was certainly a bonding one and was yet another reminder of how you should never judge things by appearances. And although I wanted to seriously injure Rick for sending us on this crazy adventure for apparently no reason, I'm glad it happened. If nothing else it showed this woman, who has a husband and son in jail and who cannot leave her house, that there were people out there who know and care about her. Even if we didn't serve her through the physical means of the firewood delivery, we certainly performed ministry of presence that day.

Notre Dame: Party in the U.S.A.

I said in the previous post that we had two groups back to back. The second of the two groups was my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame. They were on Fall Break from beautiful South Bend from October 18-23. There were 17 of them but what I noticed from the beginning was how young they seemed. The majority of them were sophomores, something I guess I didn’t notice when I came down in the spring.

Having a group from ND was both exciting and a little nerve wracking. I was very excited to talk to Domers about everything from football to the dining halls. At the same time there was a little nervousness on my part with them coming here. As a Farm Manager I always feel a little anxious having groups come here because I have this hope that they will love this place as I do. There was a heightened sense of this feeling because the group was from Notre Dame. Notre Dame is a place that became a home for me for 4 years but it was much more than the fact that I went to college there. There is a Spirit at Notre Dame that you buy into as a student and alum. The University stands for something larger in the world; it’s a force for change and for good. It prides itself on having students who truly care for humanity and fight for causes they find worthy. There is a faith and inherent trust we have in the University to continue to select and nurture students in this way. It’s why we proudly wear ND gear to the point that people ask us if we have anything else in our wardrobe. It’s why we approach total strangers because they have a Notre Dame class ring. And it’s why we continually make the trek back to beautiful South Bend, IN to cheer on our beloved football team.

My Home for 4 Years: Love Thee, Notre Dame

While all this is true I still had apprehenions going into this week. Would this group get the Farm? Would they truly want to do service or was this just a resume builder? If not, what would that say about the University? Where does that leave me. Seems like I got caught forgetting the concept of God’s Time and looking ahead huh? I shouldn’t have worried and really just trusted the fact that these were Notre Dame students and they would be here for the right reasons. They absolutely 100% understood what the Farm was about. I was really impressed with their reflections on the first night. Because of the tight Notre Dame community, there is often a tendency to get trapped in the Notre Dame bubble. And being from Notre Dame, students are used to tackling problems in an academic setting so there’s a tendency to approach service projects like this as abstract problems to be solved. But the very first night, Ethan mentioned how on the drive down he began to realize this was an area very much like his own home and likely filled with people not significantly different from himself in many aspects. It’s a conclusion I came to, but only after about a week here. To hear that kind of insight come from them immediately assured me that Notre Dame continues to produce special individuals.

Another thing that impressed me how well they all connected with the people here. Most groups do well connecting with the people at ministry of presence sites like the Nursing Home and Comprehend. But it’s often harder to make that sort of connection at some of the direct service sites. It’s sort of like a left brain/ right brain thing. It’s hard to engage direct service and ministry of presence both at the same time. Oftentimes at construction sites this is due to the fact that we’re often given jobs that get us out of the way of the guys while they do their own thing. But when I was with the group on Tuesday, a lot of them spent most of the day up on the roof with Rog, John Lewis and Bo. It seemed like the kids really took it upon themselves to try and form a connection with the workers. When they were presented with the opportunity to do so, they actually took full advantage of it. At lunch the workers were joking around with the students and the students were joking right back. Rog kept telling Allsion (a psych major) that she should schedule an appointment when she gets out of school to see Case and Perry. He then added that she could probably make a living just seeing those two since she’d never figure out exactly what was wrong with them. Indicative of the fact that the kids really connected with the workers was that fact that this was the most I had ever seen/ heard Case talk with a group there.

At a second site, the kids interacted with Mr. Ivey, the future occupant. He lives in a house that is still on the property and does not have running water. When he heard the group was from Notre Dame he said he had something for them. He went into his house and came out with a Notre Dame windbreaker. He said his niece gave it to him but that he figured they would like it more than he would. It was another example of the astounding generosity of the people of Appalachia. He didn’t have running water in his house yet he was so willing to just give away a perfectly good jacket just because he thought they would appreciate it. And it was made possible because of the efforts the kids made to connect with the people they served.

The group accomplished a lot during the week. They roofed that entire house and also spent time putting up the roof at another site. They were excellent at the Nursing Home and Comprehend and danced up a storm at the Thurman’s. We happened to catch Bivens during a revival week so the churchgoers were extra fired up for service on Wednesday. During reflection that night Matt said something that was profound. He said he was struggling during the service during prayer because the sound of everyone saying their prayers out loud made it difficult to get any sort of coherent thought formed. He was getting so frustrated until the only prayer he could muster was something along the lines of “Lord, I don’t know what these people are saying but I do know that they clearly Love you and understand you. Please bless them and answer their prayers”. It was an extremely understanding and Farm-like sentiment that I was impressed at hearing from a person who had been here for 3 days.

The kids also packed all the food boxes for the next pantry day. It was a bit of a hard day for me because as we were packing the boxes I noticed that we were really running low on food. There were more than a few instances of scrambling to find alternatives to items that George had asked to be put into the boxes because we completely ran out. The pantry relies both on government commodities and corporate donations. The third Friday of the month is reserved for commodities while the first is supported by corporate donations. Because the commodities have to be inventoried, they cannot be used during the first Friday. The number of families that the pantry serves has jumped from about 180 in June to about 240. Unfortunately, as this is happening, the economic slowdown has hit the pantry and corporate donations are drying up. George often buys some food in bulk but since monetary donations are also hard to come by, it’s now getting difficult to buy enough to supply everyone. It’s come to then point where George has become really nervous about the upcoming holiday season. That’s when I knew it was really bad because George, along with his big heart, has seemingly limitless optimism. But as dire as the situation seems, as is often the case, it has brought out some excellent examples of Christian Love. We told the Notre Dame students about our concerns on Thursday at dinner. As typical Notre Dame students, they immediately began to brainstorm ideas to try and help George out. They talked about having second collections at mass and making a presentation during their Appalachia seminar. Their generous spirit and sincerity in their attempts to help was so impressive and really made me proud to be an alum. They weren’t the only ones to step up for the Pantry. I emailed Micah from Hoban and got an almost instantaneous response indicating they would divert a portion of their canned food drive to us as well as donate the proceeds from a dress down day to the Pantry. It’s so great to see how the volunteers who come here are affected by this place enough to want to give back.

Mt. St. Mary's: Awwww Naaahhhh

So it's been a while since I've written a post. To be fair, I haven't had much time since we had two groups in a row after which I attended the ND- BC game but more on all that later. For now I'll recap the Mt. St. Mary's week.

The Mount kids were here from October 11-October 16. I wrote in my last entry that the three of us were a little worried about how much authority we could project with a group of people that were essentially our own age. It wasn't even an issue because the Mount kids were so receptive to the Farm's message and so determined to perform sevice that they bought into the idea of putting yourself second and had no problems taking orders from us wacky Farm Managers.

With their sense of determination, the Mount kids really accomplished a lot. The first day at Construction we spent the whole day hauling cinderblocks around through what I assume was once dirt but was now decidedly mud. What struck me was that the individual task itself was pretty menial, to the point that John Lewis greeted us that morning by asking us if we had brought strong backs and weak minds, but by the end of the day we had completed the entire foundation to a house. Unreal. It was cool to see that stage of construction, since we're often working on a house once the walls have gone up. In a sequence of events very appropriate for the Farm, the group the next day was at the same worksite and literally built on our foundation. The group also made some real progress at the clothing pantry. While the overflowing donations are certainly a good thing, the mountain of bags in the back corner is a tad frustrating and makes it a logistical nightmare on handout day. So the fact that this group was able to give us a breather and organize the boxes behind the benches was a HUGE help.

Speaking of handout day, I was able to attend my first one on the Friday of that week. I was fortunate enough to have some time before the madness started to talk with the people there. Once again, I was struck by their sincerity and concern. There was a cold front that came in that week (it frosted that morning) but I was dumb and forgot my sweatshirt. I couldn't tell you the number of times people asked me if I was cold. These were people who would soon get tickets to go to the clothing pantry so they could try and get clothes. Some of them didn't have heat in their houses yet here they were, worrying about whether I was cold. It was a perfect example of Christian Love and community to me. I think it's an offshoot of two aspects of the region that become really apparent when you're here: Religion and Family. Church is such a large part of life here. They truly coming together and worshipping on Wednesdays and Sundays. They are true scholars of the Bible and take its message seriously. While this promotes some views that I don't exactly agree with, they also take to heart the call to love their neighbors. This makes for an incredibly tight knit community, one that sincerely cares for all its members. The people also highly value Family. Several generations of the same families often live in the same hollow, oftentimes on the same road. I was talking to Wayne Thurman, the patriarch of the Thurman family the other night. He told me how someone had offered his son, Brian, something like $100,000 for a strip of his land. 100k is not a sum to sneeze at especially in this area and Brian had enough land that he could stand to lose some of it but he merely said (and I'm paraphrasing a little here) "I'm sorry, the land isn't mine to sell, it's for my son."

From a Farm Manager perspective, this week was challenging. It seemed like every day something else was going wrong. We blew a fuse trying to make pancakes and ran ridiculously behind schedule on a day our boss came to the Farm (Though this did lead to my favorite quote for the day: "Yo Pancakes... Imma let you finish... but Bagels are the best Breakfast of ALL TIME! OF ALL TIME!!!"), the weather kept changing our schedule, we got lost on the way to construction, and one of the vans (Affectionately called Bougey due to its plush interior and mood lighting) got a flat tire on the way back from church on Wednesday night. But Jamie, Colleen and I kept rolling with the punches. Our mantra was dualy "Welcome to the Farm" and "We'll get it done somehow". And you know what? We got through it. It was a reminder that God never gives you more than you can handle. Flat Tire? Turns out one of the kids in the car knew how to change a tire like a champ. Blown fuse and running late? Turns out our Boss can't be on the Farm anyway. We must have done something right because at the end of the week Jimmy and Allison, the two student leaders both asked for applications to be Farm Managers! I think they wold both be really excellent Managers and hope they consider it.

Farm Analogy Time: Swift= Pancakes, Beyonce = Bagels and Kanye = Fuse?

I also saw a lot of growth from the Mount kids during the week. Maybe it was because they were more adept at expressing their sentiments during their reflections, but I got a sense that at the beginning of the week they came in with little bit of a savior complex. This certainly isn't a bad thing and actually pretty understandable when you think about the context of a service project like theirs. It's hard to really understand the area unless you've been here and easy to reduce it to an abstract concept when approaching it from the realm of academia. Doing so makes one view the region through a problem/ solution lens on a large scale rather than realizing the individual stories present here. But the sentiment also comes from a sincere desire to do good in the communituy and I think as long as that remains intact, you can't help but become affected by the people. I know it happened to me when I came here in March. But like me, they saw by the end of the week that the people here are far from helpless and in reality give as much to us as we do to them. Once they realized that the service here is a two way street the Mount kids were able to channel that spirit of fighting for social justice and really accomplish a lot as well as get a lot out of the experience.

Beat SC Week

Speaking of energy and enthusiasm, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this week is Beat SC week with the Southern Cal Game coming up on October 17. To Start off the week, given ND's recent spat of close games, I thought I would post a reminder of the storied history of ND Football as well as my two favorite close games from my time there:









Go Irish, Beat SC