Insert Clever Title Here

Based on the title alone, you should have guessed that I decided to give Kristin the night off and write the post myself. For those of you who don't know Kristin and I personally, you might not know how incredibly supportive she has been about the farm since its inception as One Acre Farm, but it goes further back then that.

It is coming up on our 6th wedding anniversary and I thought that this was a perfect time to go to the highest mountain top, or in this case, the oneacrefarmgirl blog, and express my deepest love and appreciation for the truly great farmer of the family. "Farmer" you say? Let me explain: My definition of a farmer is someone who takes care of his/her herd. In her case the herd is her family; in my case it is the crops I sow. Although I am getting better at farming all the time, she seems to just have the je no sais quoi for it. There is no way the farm would exist without her, but that dwarfs the fact that there is no way I would be me without her.

To understand that point, lets go back to the beginning of our relationship, or on second thought, lets skip that and just give you some facts.

-We met as infants at pool parties only to learn years later, and at least months into our dating in high school, that we met as infants at pool parties. (her parents and my parents have mutual friends with, you guessed it, a pool!)

-We went to different colleges and after our four years moved in together in Brooklyn; she for law school, me for film.

-After two years I said, "enough!" and moved from my urban chic Brooklyn apartment to a cinder block migrant work house on a farm way outside Baltimore as the only English-speaking person to work manual farm labor. If anybody wants to option that story for a movie or book, make me an offer!

As a side note, most reasonable women in her shoes probably would have told me to get lost, but she saw the passion in my heart for farming (I had worked on a farm in PA during and after college that I didn't mention earlier in the section but I digress).

-After she moved home to Maryland, we were married...had a beautiful baby...and I still have the farm. (the details are important, but seriously, how much of this do you really want to read?)

Where was I? Basically the point is she has been standing beside me encouraging me the whole time for truly selfless reasons. I am sure she would be happier having me be home on weekends, (I am not sure why, I am not that pleasant of a person to be around) and take a week off in the summer to go to the beach as opposed to the one nighters that I barely allow myself to go on now...("I wonder how the tomatoes are doing?" I ask aloud when we finally start relaxing near the water under a shady umbrella. Like I said, I am kind of a pain in the ass.)

The farm would truly not exist on any level if it wasn't for the incredible devotion she has given me at every step of the way. If I were to have gone it alone, I know I wouldn't have passed step one, much less made the march I have to get where I am today. "Who knew Farmer Mike had to march to get here?" Her selfless encouragement and patience has made One Acre Farm possible, and in turn, hopefully created a few loyal followers who can see the sacrifices she has made to make my dream a reality. To be clear, I am not trying to compare her to Ghandi, I mean she is completely incapable of tightening a lid on any jar, so if you go to shake salad dressing and haven't confirmed for yourself the tightness of the lid, forget about the mess you will have on your hands!

In short, when you see the t-shirt that says, "Have you hugged your farmer today?" Perhaps it should say, "Have you hugged the truly excellent farmer that makes the decent farmer that grows your food today?" But I guess that doesn't have the same ring. And if you needed any more convincing about just how great she is, she will have edited this before I send it to you. Just so you know, that should be the most important point to you dear reader. If you had any idea how much I lack in basic grammar skills, punctuation, spelling, basically anything relating to written communication, you would wonder how the hell I went to an accredited four year institution of higher learning. We only hope that our daughter has her mother's terrific writing skills or god help her.

This weeks share has Potatoes, Beets, Radishes, Turnips, Winter Squash, Greens, Garlic and Broccoli.

Ed. note: I only moderately edited this blog. Any grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors were intentionally left in so that you could hear Michael "speaking." Well, that and I  have a contract to review tonight :)