For us folks up here in the Pioneer Valley, things have really been picking up. Today some of us headed out to Harvest Moon Farm where We met up with some old and new friends, one of the teams for New England Climate Summer. New England Climate Summer is a summer internship program for young people that travel exclusively by bicycle in small teams across New England, spending about a week in a community before biking on to the next.

The five strong young women,  Marina, Kaia, Lisa, Sara, and April helped us weed our garlic beds and add new mulch. In addition, we harvested our first zucchini and summer squash, with our largest zucchini measuring 1 foot long!

As the end of June begins to wrap up the first 3 weeks of our program, we have had quite the journey through training days, farm working days, meeting each other, growing, exploring, and asking the questions we hope to spend our summers trying to discover answers to.  Although our team works incredibly hard and is dedicated to our work, we know how to have fun as well.  So what have we REALLY been up to recently?

In the time between our long days of trainings and hours in the hot sun weeding garlic, we have found ourselves laughing and joking, and learning each other’s unique charms and quirks. Skateboarding, frisbee, silly games, jam sessions, dinners; our days extend much more beyond the traditional 8 hour work day.

Swinging at Greenfield High School

Learnin’ some new skills