Venturing into illinois

Chicago welcomed us with chilly rain, a strong headwind, and rush-hour traffic, but the beautiful city-scape was worth it. We were excited to spend a few days off the bikes, catch up on some computer work, and see some of our Chicago friends and family!

Chicago patchwork farms: Chicago, IL

Katie and Molly run Chicago Patchwork Farms, an urban farm that grows veggies and raises chickens to feed CSA members and market-goers. I met Katie in 2012 while working on a small farm in Texas that we'd both found through WWOOF. Katie is a spunky, fun- and food-loving farmer, and I'm glad she agreed to host a farm party so Paul could share his music in such a unique setting!

The branches give the chickens a place to hide when predators from the sky swoop down for a meal... The chickens lay eggs in the hand-built chicken coops.

The farm has two locations; we visited the 1/2 acre Chicago Ave site. Katie said she and Molly learned quickly that dense plantings (upper left) are necessary in order to grow enough food to economically sustain the farm. 

This year, they had ~40 vegetable CSA shares (along with quite a few egg shares) and sold produce at a few local markets. Katie said they'll likely go back to having ~70 veggie shares next year and back off a touch on market sales. She also said that their CSA waiting list has hundreds of people on it and she encourages people to start more urban farms in Chicago- there's a huge demand!

Katie and Molly are committed to sustainable practices and accessible food. They have a living clover mulch between rows (bottom left). Interestingly, they didn't seed it, but selectively weeded for it over many years. Free seeds! They offer CSA shares on a sliding scale, to ensure that anyone can have access to their fresh, nutritious food.

Thank you to all who came out to the show, and to the other groups who shared their music! Delicious food, great music, and awesome people. We hope it becomes an annual event!

Thanks for having us, Chicago!

We're grateful for all of our friends and family who made our stay in Chicago wonderful. Katie and her housemates hosted us a couple nights. We also stayed with Trish, my crew coach at Lafayette College, and Amanda. I even got to ride in a launch with Trish to watch a crew practice- that brought back lots of great memories! We visited with my cousin Gary and his family, as well as our friend Shane, who we met a couple months ago in Wisconsin when he and a couple of his friends were biking across the country. Hope to see you all again soon!

-Jen