Summer, Gone.

Summer has moved away to warm other parts of our world, taking the busiest season on the farm with it. During its stay, everything grows, requiring hands to harvest, weed, amend, and give love.

Our main youth employment program, Summer Crew, runs Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. It brings youth to the farm — many of them out of school and looking for work — arriving on foot, by bike, or by scooter.

Others arrive in a government van, are dropped off by family members, or drive themselves.

However they get here, they all have one thing in common: time spent working with animals, with plants, and each other.

Together, we’ve grown 14,566 pounds of food so far this year, much of it passing through the hands of Summer Crew.

We work, we learn and we explore. Some of the emerging staples of the season have been our ergonomics and soil biology workshops, along with field trips to Centro Mercado — the food pantry where much of our produce ends up — and Campo, a sister farm north of Hillsboro. Like the seasons, our offerings change each summer, but these four have become part of the rhythm.

Everyone gathers at the farm during summer: new hires, youth returning from spring’s Saturday Crew, apprentices, elders, pigs, chickens, and all the critters that make this place feel so alive.

See snippets from this past summer in this minute-long short clip. Let the colors and light take you back.