The Land and the Homeschool Vision

5 Brouwer children holding the first strawberries of 2012 

My oldest son is in the process of applying to a 2 week USDA internship program at Iowa State.  I'm hoping he gets it, but I'm also hoping the strawberry season is early, so that he is still around during the season.  We depend on him! Here's part of his application essay, which is just a wonderful glimpse into why we homeschool, and why running a strawberry farm is part of our homeschool vision, and our vision for the land upon which we are raising our children:

"My family owns and operates a pick-your-own strawberry farm.  I’ve been a part of every aspect of the business from the time I was five years old.  Just this year we expanded from 1.5 acres to just about 5 acres.  Our single irrigation pond would not provide enough water for all our plants so we switched from overhead irrigation to drip tape. Drip tape runs underground through the roots of the plants so it helps conserve our water.  Our farm contributes to the biodiversity of our landscape.  We are located right in the middle the corn belt, so a lot of corn, soybeans, and sugar beets are grown around us which limits the amount of wildlife that can successfully live in our area.  However with our strawberry farm active the past years we have seen an increase in new insects that originally could not survive in our area such as fireflies.  With just our five acre farm we have the largest grouping of fireflies in the summer than any other area near us.  On a warm summer night, our lawn and small slough light up with millions of fireflies rising from the ground."

Wow.  I love reading that kind of thing from my son.  He gets it!   I hope the people at the USDA get what a great kid he is, and how he'd be a perfect fit for their program:)