Organic farm Detroit

If you told us in the beginning of our trip that we would stay almost the longest period in Detroit, we would have laughed and said of course not. But when we booked one week at this Urban farm it was hard to say no to the second week.
The farm was located not really in downtown Detroit but not far from there in a township named Redford. Before we left Canada to go to Detroit we heard a lot of bad stories about it. 'Cars were stopped by the police because they were waiting for red light and it was saver to drive further and stuff. We heard them all, all the scary and bad stories. So we were kind of curious where we would end up. When we drove in to Redford it looked really nice and it was really nice. And the farm was more than nice. The farm is an 100 year old farm house with 2 acre of land behind it. Back in the days it used to be more of course but it is really big for now.
Jennifer runs the farm and i need to say, the work is hard and she is rocking it. She is really an inspiration for us and we do have a lot of respect for her. Together with her 3 amazing boys she lives in the old farmhouse.
There are always a lot of people in the house and everybody is welcome. After 1 day we felt like home and that was really nice. Jennifer has one roommate, Trish. Trish is awesome!! She took us our second night out to downtown Detroit and gave us an awesome tour there. She showed us how nice Detroit is and that it is really busy.
Detroit is a weird city, it had his ups and downs but now it is climbing again and you can tell. Downtown is really busy and all the richer people are living there. Because of the grow (we were told) the poor people will go to the outside of the city... But i need to say we have seen Detroit in different ways. We did a bike tour with Jen and the family and biked through a bad neighborhood where a lot of houses where burned down. in some of the blocks there was just one or two houses... it was weird to see. But we didnt felt unsafe. Of course we are not going to walk there with the two of us or being there at night. But with the family it was fine to bike through it. I need to say after we had been there, we heard more stories about the neighborhood and about the fact that there are really shooting out of cars to each other and stuff. Really the things that happen in movies. But still didnt felt unsafe when biking there...
when Detroit had an 'down time', a lot of rich people moved out of the city. Thats why Detroit had a hard time to get out there. But now it is going well and with all the urban, organic farms over there, there is a community starting and growing. Still a lot of people over there are living on foodstamps and grew up in it. So they are not used to work hard, but there will be a change and Jennifer is part of the first generation big change again.

We helped out on the farm and learned a lot. We did the whole process of planting, pulling it out of the ground, weeding, processing and selling. It was really cool to see how that goes and we talked a lot with Jennifer about how to improve and make it more sustainable. there are many options and now it is time to choose. What i really like about the farm and Jennifer that she just started it without any knowledge and she worked it all out. She learned by doing it and now you see the farm is going to grow. I think we all should do that in life, learn by doing and than become big (slowly).
The reason why Jennifer started the farm was because she always had problems with her body. Big headaches and stuff. At one point she figured out she was allergic to something but she didnt know what. So she went on a strict diet. She figured out that everything that wasnt organic made her body felt awful. So she started an organic farm, without using anything poisoning. and i need to say.... i do taste the different and it is delicious. The tastes were amazing. We could pick out of the garden whatever we wanted for dinner. So you went out, got some zucchini, tomatoes and some basil...mmmmh! normally i use a lot of spices in my food but we didnt needed it anymore!

Jennifer also had bee's, what is really awesome. She showed us how she checked the beehives and we could do it too. The bees are very friendly and they take over the emotions of the queen. One of the beehives has this angry queen so the whole hive is angry. We didnt helped her with that because they will sting you for sure.

It was really nice to live on the farm and being part of the family. There was also a French girl, Claire, working on the farm with us. I think we all felt part of the family. in the weekends there were a lot of volunteers stopping by to help. There was one volunteer who made a big impression on me. She was really high educated and started a conversation with us about the fact that there is a lot of problems in Germany with refugees. She said that she heard on the news that little boys in pools got raped everywhere in Germany. Both of us were shocked. We told her we didnt heard anything about that and as a neighbor-country, you normally hear stuff like that. Than she started about politics and about the fact that she was voting for Trump because he says what he thinks and he will save America. It was interesting how she was thinking. So we asked her first of all where she heard the facts about the raping accident in Germany, she said the news of course and we asked if she though the news was right and of course it is.... than we asked her what she though of Hillary. In her eyes Hillary is not fair and will destroy the states. she wants to start a war and makes everything worse... This was really next level for us. Its weird how people think here sometimes. The election are just a show and the news is playing with it.
After more discussions we realized we were in Trump land... People really hated Hillary and see her as the new dictator who will destroy America...

It still blows our minds, but it is kind of interesting to see and being part of it. And i need to say, after all those people telling me that Hillary sucks and is not responsible enough. I dont know it anymore. How is it possible in a country like this, the biggest in the world, that two of those people are going for being president? And almost all the people of society dont know who they trust or can trust... thats a weird and crazy story and it will be history for sure. What makes it even more weird.

Back to the farm.... Jen also had some Airbnb guest sometimes. One of the guest was Dakota, really cool guy. We had a lot of conversations with him and he was interested in the farm. And at one point he was telling us that he was interested in eating insects, like grasshoppers and stuff. Only in Europe and the States it is weird to eat insects. But the rest of the world does it and it is really healthy. So of course he brought some.
the first night he showed them, Tim was eating them like candy. He really liked it... I didnt try it. They were looking at me and i didnt fell for it. But together with Claire we made a deal. We would try it and he could film it to show everybody how it is for the first time. So i did try it and if you want to know what i though of it you can check the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA-kRG_cK8&feature=youtu.be&platform=hootsuite
And who knows your next!!

The farm was a crazy, nice and inspirited experience and we are so thankful to Jen for taking us in and taking really good care of us. We will definitely be back and check out the farm in a few years!!

After the farm we went to Chicago and now we are in Milwaukee, but that is a different story for next tiime :)