I won’t be doing a normal post this week, as I am currently in the midst of a very intense writing retreat at Goddard College. I’ll be back next week with our first forray into a sustainable New Year. However, I’m in the writing mood and want to tell a quick story.

Last night while standing around the camp fire we lit behind one of the common areas, drinking a beer and processing my day, I struck up a conversation with a young lady I had just done a reading with. She read three poems about working on a farm in Michigan and I read one of my essays on farming in Philly. At the fire, I aksed her about her experience and she started to tell me about the farm, and the farmer and everything in between when she stopped and said, “I actually saw a band from Philly in Michigan.”

“Really,” I responded, already knowing where this was going.

“Yes,” she went on. “A girl I worked with used to work at Camp Hill and she knew this great band who was playing at the Arc in Ann Arbor. We decided to go up for the show, but it was a crazy trip. It had finally stopped raining and the cherry and sungold tomatoes were ready to explode off the vine. So we went out picking, trying to get the harvest we missed the few days before. It was almost six and we still weren’t finished, with a two hour drive to the show. But we just kept on working, watching the sun go down, but we made it. Just in time. It was a great show.”

“So, do you remember their name?”

“Um, I can’t think of it. I just remember the singer had a really big beard and red hair.”

So, obviously the next few minutes of our conversation was about Hoots and Hellmouth, and how much she liked the show and the presence they produce. It’s funny, because when I thought about blogging during my residency, I was just going to put a “On Leave” sign on the site and call it a day. But that story was too good to pass up. A good old Hoots and Hellmouth farm story. Looking forward to a few more of them in the New Year.

Until next week, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.