Once you stop it’s difficult to start up again. So here we are trying to get back on track.

It hasn’t been for lack of thinking about what to write, it’s been an interesting summer. It is more the lack of time, energy & all those little fires that need to be put out....now. If you grow or raise anything on a larger scale with only two people you will know exactly what I mean. However, the lack of blogging leaves a large gap of history & memories about the adventure of starting this enterprise; the heat, the weeds, hosting a very special guest from Japan, the rain, and oh yes, did I mention the heat & the weeds? 

Heat, rain & weeds aside, we were very fortunate to host a sister city delegate from Higashiomi Japan for ten days. Lucky for us he had previously spent time in New Zealand and had very good command of the English language. Meeting other host families/delegates and being a part of the larger picture of International Friendship was a very enlightening & enriching experience for us. Our delegate grows strawberries in high tunnels in Japan, so Dan made sure he had a great agricultural experience traveling to many farms in the area and taking advantage of the Marquette Food Co-op’s Farm Tour. The Marquette Sister City Delegation also sponsered a Farm Day and took all the delegates from Japan on a series of farm tours in the area. It was with much surprise and humility that when the delegates were getting ready to leave, the Delegation Leader in his goodbye speech emphasized that they were most impressed by the farms in the area. He said “ A community is sustainable only if the community's farms are sustainable”.  Enough said :-).