Jeanne Blasberg

Look for me in overalls

Jeanne Blasberg

Look for me in Overalls

T

he irony is that a year ago, I hadn’t set foot in the state of Wisconsin. So why, you might ask, am I sporting Carharts on a 420-acre farm outside Madison? The answer has something to do with that angsty, helpless feeling most of us experienced during COVID. I watched the “Kiss the Ground” documentary with my family one night, sparking a lengthy discussion about how to spend the rest of our lives. My husband and I have never been ones to envision solutions to the world’s problems through a high-tech lens, so there was something appealing about addressing “the root of the problem” or more specifically where the roots live, in the topsoil.

There is an urgency around addressing food health and equity as well as climate change, for sure, but in all honesty, there’s a deep seeded attraction this city girl has always felt toward understanding her food source. I was the young woman who distrusted the grocery store’s offerings as much as she distrusted the patriarchy. It was a feeling that would contribute to an overall anxiety around eating. As an adult, I’ve experimented with various healthy diets as well as cultivated an abundant vegetable garden for my family and friends. I share the bounty out of love, while also loving the sense of control it provides. 

My husband leads the sustainability practice at a large consulting firm, but after watching that documentary, I challenged him to join me in getting our hands dirty. We sold our townhome in Boston and embarked on several cross-country drives, envisioning how we might go about this. Validation came in the form of like-minded people showing up on our path. We reconnected with a family friend who wanted to transition from chef to farmer and had some leads in Madison. Pretty soon, we were on a flight to Wisconsin to meet the founder of Forage Kitchens, a small but growing fast-casual concept that was interested in sourcing produce from a proprietary farm. Wow, a farmer and a customer, two pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.

Touring the driftless region October 2021 was magical. As I write this, it’s the same crisp time of year, and it’s a little surreal to be the CEO of Flynn Creek Farm. We’ve built a team busy master-planning our produce operation and regeneratively thinking about all the land, while also trying to introduce ourselves to the community. From hiring core team members, to meeting like-minded conservationists and foodies, to creating a bond with our permaculture farmer-realtor, who helped us find the perfect property, my intuition kept saying, “this is right” every step of the way. I am sure we’ll make plenty of mistakes, but the immediacy of the climate crisis and a diseased population make action so important. Can Flynn Creek Farm be a model for the future? Putting soil health first, giving farm managers a well-paid and balanced life, while growing affordable, delicious, nutrient dense food. 

That’s the dream. 

Stay tuned.

Jeanne Blasberg
Writer/farmer

Jeanne Blasberg is an author, essayist, and budding farmer. Her most recent book, The Nine (She Writes Press 2019) was honored with the 2019 the Gold Medal and Juror’s Choice in the 2019 National Indie Excellence Awards. Her debut novel, Eden (SWP 2017), won the Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Historical Fiction. Blasberg founded the Westerly Writer’s Workshop and sits on the boards of the Boston Book Festival and GrubStreet. She also reviews contemporary fiction for the New York Journal of Books and is a 2021-2022 Southampton Arts Bookends Fellow. Blasberg and her husband have three grown children and split time between New England and the American West. Her novels, Eden and The Nine, explore the complex relationships between mothers and their children and the drama that arises when societal pressure conflicts with maternal instinct.

Look for me in overalls

Jeanne Blasberg

I Voted
Laura Parker Roerden
Selected Poems
Zoe Korte
Absolutely Fucked & Selected Works
Yasmeen Mir
Why Nursing?
Sara Luster
My Pandemic Reality
Reyna Amaya
Barren or Fruitless
Zoë Barnstone-Clark
This is What Democracy Looks Like:
Sacred, Hard Won, and Fragile

Contributing Artists
American Omens
Lynn Mitchell
R.B. Kitaj
Alan Loehle
Education in the Age of COVID
Bonnie Culver
Theater of Cruelty
Cody Marsh
Selected Talisman Poems
Aliki Barnstone & Corina Dross
Selected Poems
Jacob Griffin Hall
Lacuna
Julia Fleming-Dresser
ObScott
Adam Sobsey
Anthropocine Series
Alan Loehle
Ernest Burden
Trans World Airlines
Human Decency: A Priority
Michael Matos
Phoenician Morphosis & Selected Works
Ma’Moon
Knocking for the Future
Pauline Allen
Meet Them Where They Live (Part 1)
Paxton Farrar
Outspired
Deb Luster
Consider This
Akiya Henry
Selected Works
Ewurakua Dawson-Amoah
A View of Black Lives Matter
Contributing Artists
True Form Films
Yeniffer Behrens-Mendoza & Mauricio Mendoza
PFAs Contamination
Tonya Chandler
The Dirt on Clean Wine
Tom Mills & Adrienne Voboril
Reinvent & Reconsider
Holly Arbuckle
One Health by Design
Jessi Flynn
Kweza Craft Brewery
Jessi Flynn
A New Resistance
Ed Brown
Beyond Rorschach
John Fleming
Journey to Her Roots
Kat Donnelly
Drink Different
Jason Dibble
The Frontier in my Fridge
Chien-Kang Chen
Coniunctio
Kyung Me
When BeDeviled
Sara Jolena Wolcott
10 Years in the U.S.
Yee Eun Nam
Diatribe Diaries
D.S. Legters
The Bucky Ball
Contributing Writers & Artists
DRAGĂ, SUNT AICI CU TINE
Isabel Mareş
Infinity + 1
David Zung
The Jingle Dress Project
Eugene Tapahe
Flowers Everywhere
Deependra Bajracharya
Desire Lines
Gui Marcondes
Planetary Health and the Great Transition
Marie Studer

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