Farewell to Rowan!

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Jul 8

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This week we are sad but also proud to announce that Rowan Sprague, one of the garden’s founding members, is moving on to bigger and better things! For the rest of the summer she will be working at UVa’s Mountain Lake Biological Station before heading off to New Zealand this winter on a Fulbright Scholarship to continue her beekeeping research. Rowan has played a major role in the garden since day one. During her time here she started the CSA program, brought honey bee hives into the garden, served as the garden’s manger this past spring, and much, much more! She will be remembered for her love of a freshly plucked carrot, her enthusiasm for getting her hands dirty and the tireless energy she put towards “making it happen” in the garden. This was Rowan’s favorite thing to say at the end of a productive workday, and I think it really encompasses what the garden is all about: being inspired by this experimental space to dream up new projects, techniques, and possibilities, and then making these dreams a reality, one day at a time.In order to keep up moral in Rowan’s absence, we are planning a garden field trip! We will be receiving a tour of the Innisfree Village by gardening expert Annie Hasz and then going for a swim at Sugar Hollow!So what is the Innisfree Village??"The Innisfree Village is a residential, lifesharing community with adults who have an intellectual disability. Residents and their volunteer caregivers live together in family-style homes on a 550-acre farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia. The rhythm of weekdays revolves around cooperative, therapeutic workstations that include a bakery, community kitchen, farm, free school, herb garden, vegetable garden, weavery, and woodshop. Coworkers and their caregivers work side-by-side in workstations, producing many creative, useful items." To learn more about Innisfree, visit http://www.innisfreevillage.org/The focus of our trip will be Innisfree's 2-acre organic vegetable garden that in part feeds the Innisfree residents and also sustains a 50 person CSA program for 20 weeks a year. Pretty amazing! Innisfree also has a small herd of grass-fed cattle and 300 free range chickens.Annie is available to take us for a tour and swim either on Tuesday July 23rd OR Friday July 26^th. If you are interested in coming along, please email me at ifg2ac@virginia.edu with your preferred date.Here are some recent pictures in the garden (taken by Rowan herself!)