The farm is buzzing once again as we prepare for the school year to restart! The farm team is catching up on summer weeding projects in the field. Tractors are humming as we plant fall broccoli. In the farm office, Jeff types out the final thoughts on his Engineering a Sustainable Future class syllabus. Kids’ laughter echoes across the fields during their last summer visits. We’re kicking off a series of late summer farm dinners, creative classes, and volunteering on the farm.
This busy season has us reflecting on what it means to be consistently reliable. We recently read a quote from Adam Grant that resonated with this season of preparation:
“The foundations of trust are reliability and integrity. What counts isn’t courtesy in the moment – it’s keeping commitments over time. The best way to inspire confidence is to consistently walk our talk.”
At the farm, our commitment isn’t just to classes in August, dinners in September or CSA shareholders throughout the growing season. We want to consistently walk our talk and inspire students to do the same.
We wouldn’t care for soil, a multi-year commitment, if we didn’t think about those that would farm this soil 20 years from now. When we spread compost this fall, we’re thinking about the student who’ll dig their hands into this same soil in 2034.
We wouldn’t plant trees if we didn’t think they’d be important to our community in 50 years. The chestnut saplings we planted in the food forest will provide food for the grandchildren of today’s students.
We wouldn’t facilitate hands-on learning, summer farm camp, and classes if we didn’t believe students are our future ecosystem caretakers and people deserve to feel connected to the land and local food year-round.
This is what walking our talk looks like—caring for soil that will nourish future farmers, planting trees for the next generation, and creating hands-on learning that connects people to the land.
Whether you join us for a class, support us with a donation, commit to a CSA share or simply share our story, you’re investing in the same 20-year vision that guides the care of our soils and the 50-year future we see in our chestnut trees.
Your farmers,
~ Jeff, Jen and the Liberty Prairie farm team