周五下午，按照计划，Claudia开车带我来到了我将要生活近半年的农场。从明尼阿波利斯到农场需要三个半小时的时间，一路上，我猜想着，期待着，但有有些担心。

很快，我们看到了一个像太阳一样的标志，它告诉我们已经抵达目的地了。

Earthrise Farm是由两个修女姐妹Annette and Kay建立的，她们的父母在1944年买了这个农场，这个农场原来是240英亩，后来两姐妹继承了这个农场的一部分大概16英亩，并在1996年给这个农场起名为Earthrise Farm。这个名字的由来是从人类第一次登陆月球，其中一个宇航员说，“我们看到了地球从月球的地平线升起的壮观景象！”她们认为这个农场将做为一种新的范例，让人们了解到我们不能脱离这个地球而存在。

这个农场所有的耕作方式都是有机的，而且他们还作为一个CSA农场，可能很多人都对这个概念很陌生。CSA是Community Support Agriculture的缩写，这个概念于17世纪缘起于瑞士和日本，19世纪传到美国。正如人们所知，因为因为在农产品流通的环节中，很多利润被中间商获取了，而辛勤耕作一年的农民在这个过程中只能获取利润的10% 甚至更少，社区支持农业就是将消费者和农民更直接的连接了起来。社区支持农业有两种方式，一种是在种植季节之初，农民去联系当地的消费者，在蔬菜和水果收获时，农民将消费者预订的份额运送到一定的地点；一种是消费者组成一个集体，去联系相应的农场。在美国，第一种方式的CSA更加常见。很多人可能联想到了订单农业，其实是完全不同的。CSA更强调一种理念，不仅仅是为了让农民获得更多的利润，在这个过程中，消费者也能够更多的了解到他们的食物是从何而来，他们更多的支持了本地的食品，能够确保这些食品是安全的。以后我会更多的介绍CSA的相关概念。

下面是很多农场的图片，安静而祥和。很快，当大地复苏，这里的一切都将变绿。很多动物快乐的生活在这里。

从这一天起，我将生活、工作在这里半年时间。我的洋插队生活将正式开始。我将抛弃过去有些矫情甚至小资的生活方式，让自己的双手沾满泥土。

正像斯嘉莉在《飘》中所说，Tomorrow is another day!

Arriving at Earthrise Farm

On Friday afternoon, according to plan, Claudia drove me to the farm where I’ll be living for the next half a year.  It took three and half hours to get there from Minneapolis, and the entire way I was guessing, anticipating, but still a bit worried.

Very quickly, we saw a sign that looked like the sun, telling us that we’d already reached our destination.

Earthrise Farm was established by two nun sisters, Annette and Kay; their parents bought the farm in 1944.  It was originally 240 acres, but later the sisters inherited an approximately 16-acre portion of the farm, and in 1996 they named it Earthrise Farm.  This name comes from the first time people landed on the moon, and one astronaut said, “We can see the spectacular sight of the earth rising above the moon’s horizon!”  The sisters thought that this farm could be a new model, to make people understand that we can’t survive beyond the earth.

All of the farming techniques used here are organic, and it’s also a CSA farm - maybe a lot of people are unfamiliar with this concept.  CSA is an abbreviation of Community Supported Agriculture.  This concept first started in Switzerland and Japan in the 1960s, and it came to the US in the 1980s.  As everyone knows, because of the way in which agricultural products are distributed, a lot of profits are co-opted by middlemen, and in the process, the farmer who works hard all year earns only 10% or even less of the profits.  Community Supported Agriculture connects farmers and consumers more directly.

There are two kinds of Community Supported Agriculture.  The first is where the farmers get in touch with local consumers at the beginning of the growing season, and when the time comes to harvest the fruits and vegetables, the farmers take the portion ordered by each customer to a given location.  The other kind is where the customers organize into a group, and then they get in touch with a corresponding farm.  In the US, the first kind of CSA is more common.  This probably makes a lot of you think of order-based agriculture [a system in which farmers decide what to grow based on customer orders]; actually, they’re completely different.  CSA emphasizes a particular principle - it’s not merely to get farmers to earn more profits; in the process, consumers are able to better understand where their food comes from, feel more supportive of local agriculture, and ensure that their food is safe.  I’ll introduce more CSA-related concepts later.

Below are a lot of photos of the farm, quiet and serene.  Very soon, when the earth renews itself, everything here will turn green.  A lot of animals live here happily.

From today on, I will live and work here for the next half a year.  My “foreign sent-to-the-countryside life” has officially started.  I’ll discard my past pride and my petty-bourgeois lifestyle, and prepare to get my hands dirty.

It’s just like Scarlett says in Gone with the Wind: tomorrow is another day!