Greetings from the Howdy Farm, everyone. This week was my first week back on the farm since December, and it was long awaited. This week also officially started my internship on the farm. This semester there are several projects I'll be working on, but there is one in particular that I will be blogging about in greatest detail as the semester goes on. 
     This project will be the total renovation of one of our raised beds. Essentially what we'll be doing is taking a space that has long set unused, and installing a new irrigation system, creating a walkway through it in order to access it more easily, and finally, prepping the soil and planting some new crops in it. This will be pretty close to a semester long project that will be primarily under the supervision of another intern. Below I've included some photos of what the bed looks like for the time being before we start work on it. 
     Aside from the major projects, yesterday was a fantastic day out at the farm. We not only had a fair sized harvest after the last few weeks of deep freezes, but we're making major headway into prepping old beds for Spring planting. I look forward to keeping everyone up to date with the weekly goings-on at the farm for the rest of the semester. Until next week!

A Short Introduction

Howdy, everyone. I hope everyone has had a happy new year thus far. In this first blog I'd really just like to set up what this blog is about, why I'm doing it, and who I even am.

First things first, my name is Andrew Todd. I'm a Senior Political Science and History Major here at Texas A&M University in College Station. I'm originally from outside of a small town called Palestine, Texas in East Texas. Before I came to A&M I attended Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont for two years. Next, the whole subject matter and reason for this blog in the first place is about farming and food. For the last several months I've been volunteering at the Texas A&M University Howdy Farm (hereon referred to as the Howdy Farm) which is an organic farm that is run by the Sustainable Agriculture Students Association on the Texas A&M campus.

I grew up on what some farther up North might call a farm, but by Texas standards was really just a small piece of land with some vegetables, chickens, and maybe a cow or horse occasionally. I don't have any formal educational background in farming or horticulture aside from three classes on Agricultural Economics. I don't volunteer with the Howdy Farm because I anticipate it will help me in some type of horticultural career, I do it because I believe in what they do and I appreciate the lessons that working the land can teach and I'm a firm believer in reaping what you sow (in the case of farming I mean this literally.)

I've never really been the city type, and the Bryan-College Station area is by far the largest city I've ever lived in. Working at the Howdy Farm allows me a chance to get back to what makes me comfortable, (hence the name of the blog) working with the land to grow or raise food.

If the subject matter of this blog piques your interest, you are welcome to continue checking here for updates as they will be regular. I look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you for the next several months.