Spring is in full swing on the Farm! The dandelions are popping, the tulips are blooming, and the sun is out. On Friday, students, clad in extra sunscreen on an abnormally warm afternoon, spent the workday weeding the asparagus and sage beds, turning over our cover crops with shovels, scuffle hoeing beds to prep for the planting of sweet potatoes, and tending to the chickens, (who are laying beautiful blue eggs, by the way!). The groundwork is being laid—literally—for a productive summer.
After a great effort on the Old Acre, students headed over to the Lazarus Pavilion for some pizzas, topped with delicious produce like fresh mushrooms, potatoes, and squash puree. Students gathered to hear Sasha Carney ’23 present their knead 2 know about maple syrup and Canadian Identity. Carney was a 2022 Yale Farm Summer Intern and this research was part of their independent summer research project, which involved writing a short fiction story that wove in themes of maple of Canadian identity. Read Sasha’s post about their project here.
Carney talked about the role of the maple tree in the Canadian imagination and national education system—maple sugar shack visitation is a mandatory part of the curriculum for all Canadian students. Carney discussed the prevalence of maple in Canadian literature, and how Canadian national pride relates to its natural resources. They discussed how identities in Canada had botanical affiliations—i.e., the English were coined the “roses,” the Irish the “thistles,” etc.—and how the maple tree came to symbolize a kind of colonialist unity. Maple sugaring, a practice long embodied by Indigenous communities in Canada, was taken and presented as French Canadian culture. Carney also presented the work of a collaborative called Oh-oh Canada, which makes the nation’s popular maple sugar candies in shapes that symbolize painful and under-recognized aspects of Canada’s history and erasure of Indigenous peoples. It was a fascinating talk, and timely, given that it sugaring season lasts through April.
There are only two more Friday workdays and knead 2 knows left this semester, and we’d love to have you join us. We’ll see you back on the Farm this Friday; there will be another workday at 2:00 PM and a knead 2 know at 4:15 PM by Kiera Quigley MEM ’23 and Destiny Treloar MESc ’23. Photos from the workday by Reese Neal '25 are available here.