*cino – Page 2 – vander giessen-reitsma

Doing the work

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | August 31, 2020

Throughout the summer, folks throughout the country and the world have been demonstrating and continuing to work for racial justice, particularly following the murder of George Floyd in May. At the beginning of this month, we came together with a group of neighbors to help repaint a Black Live Matter street mural that had been vandalized. The small rural city where we live has a lot of work to do to be truly equitable for all our neighbors, but we’re grateful for many amazing people in our community who are doing the work and standing together for justice.

August has been another month of transition as we said goodbye to our summer AmeriCorps folks who helped out at the Huss Project. We had an amazing crew this summer, and we’re very sad to be saying goodbye. We all really appreciated one another’s support and silliness through this strange time.

This month has also been bringing on the vegetables in earnest, and ramped up food preservation season. Each year, we work to fill our freezer and our basement shelves with lots of good food from the farm that we can enjoy through the colder months.

Because of the busyness of the farm season and now the pandemic, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to go anywhere this summer, but we did manage a short weekend camping trip to the small farm where our friend Emily (who’s really more like family) has been living and working. It was a true delight to see the place where she’s landed and meet some other folks doing an interesting farming project on a small scale. We’re really looking forward to raising our child close to the land with knowledge of where our food comes from and love for all of the incredible gifts of the wild, wooly natural world.

Spending time outdoors

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | July 31, 2020

As the pandemic continues into the summer, many of our usual patterns have shifted. We’ve had to cancel a lot of events we’d usually help organize, like storytelling nights and a summer festival, but the new farmers market has been thriving as a place for folks to get fresh food and also a little social time.

We were grateful to have a little bit of time visiting outdoors with Kirstin’s family at the lake this month, including an aunt and cousins from Georgia, uncle and sister and nephews and niece from Indiana, and Grandpa Duke. We’ve also had some nice socially-distanced outdoor visits with Rob’s parents. This time has really emphasized the importance of being intentional about connecting with loved ones.

Our community of friends who work and volunteer together at the Huss Project has been enjoying weekly outdoor gatherings, as well as a couple of days of workshops and conversations around our work in the community. As much as things have changed this year, we also feel like the relationship-building and food production we’ve been doing for years has prepared us to support each other and our neighbors in this difficult moment.

We’ve continued to enjoy many walks around our small rural city and the weather has been especially beautiful, with big blue skies reflected on the many waterways nearby. Kirstin probably has several thousand photos on her phone at this point, documenting the changes of seasons and the small moments of beauty. Oh, and we’ve started feeding the birds more regularly in the pandemic, which has been a very welcome addition for our cat!

Saying goodbye to Grandma Beverly

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | June 30, 2020

June was…let’s say a month of contrasts. After a sudden and quick decline, Kirstin’s Grandma Beverly passed away. All through her growing up years, Kirstin never lived more than a half mile from Grandpa Duke and Grandma Beverly and has many happy memories of sleepovers, holidays, and Sunday dinners. Grandma was generous, funny, fiercely independent, and always fashionable. She never let a phone call or visit go by without saying she was praying for you and loved you very much. “You’re precious to us, you know.” As a young teacher, Kirstin’s grandma had Rob’s mom for a student in second grade—how’s that for “going way back”? Since we started dating when we were 15, Grandma Beverly was very special to Rob, too, and we’ll dearly miss her prayers, hugs, visits, treats, and many kindnesses.

Alongside deep grief: new beginnings. Namely a new Saturday farmers market at the Huss Project, designed to bring food from local farms (including our small urban farm) to our neighbors safely during the pandemic. We’re starting small with what’s available early in the season and just a few farms represented, but we’re hoping it will grow throughout the season. We’ve also restarted our beehives and got 27 fuzzy little chicks in the mail, so here’s to honey and eggs before too long.

Though we feel Grandma’s loss every day, we continue to enjoy the beauty of the place we live in because of her adventurous spirit. It was Grandma, after all, who suggested the leisurely drive to Pleasant Lake, where she and Grandpa ended up buying a cottage in 1976. Little did they know that 44 years later, their grandkids would be wading in these rivers and longing to share such joy with their kiddo before too long.

Transitioning to Spring

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | May 31, 2020

May has been a month of transition in a lot of ways. Where we are, this month tips the scales for fresh, local food and a lot of delicious things start coming on—rhubarb, asparagus, and lots of herbs and greens. We had fun at the Huss Project making “hand salads,” or one-bite salads, out of a variety of edible plants, including flowers.

The seedlings that Rob has been tending in our basement for the Huss Project Farm have been going crazy and we finally reached days in the middle of the month that were warm enough to get them in the ground. Thankfully we’ve had lots of help from Dan and Margaret, as well as a new group of folks who moved to Three Rivers through the AmeriCorps VISTA program to work with us for the next year. It’s been an interesting experience getting to know new people through quarantine and social distancing. The sad part has been having to say goodbye to friends who finished up their year-long term of service here and moved on to what’s next. We couldn’t have the goodbye party we would have hoped for, but found other creative ways to send them with encouragement and well-wishes.

Kirstin started going back on site for work some days, with many safety precautions in place. It’s been really good to reconnect with dear co-workers face-to-face, including Puck (the goat) and Minna (the pony). These happy, wily critters have no idea what’s going on in the crazy world around them, and it’s just as well. They bring comfort and joy to many just by being alive and reveling in spring.

Adapting to new normals

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | April 30, 2020

April passed in a strange blur as we and everyone around us struggled to understand the new reality we’re living in under the pandemic. We’re grateful that we’ve been in the position to be able to work mostly from home, but we are hurting for those who are at risk for all kinds of reasons.

Over the course of many, many, many walks this month to get out of the house safely, we’ve been able to enjoy the unfolding of spring with more attention than we might usually. We’ve especially appreciated the Portage River Walk Trail, a relatively new trail through the woods just a short distance from our home. In the absence of many of our usual social activities, we entertained ourselves with forcing forsythia blooms indoors and cheered ourselves, if not our neighbors, with a series of silly superhero bike rides (see above). We’ve been keeping in touch with family and friends by phone and Zoom—thank goodness for technological advancements that make this all possible!

In the midst of everything, Rob’s been coordinating a project to renovate a small house owned by the non-profit we help run here in town. We bought the house in December to house an on-site caretaker who will help with seasonal maintenance at the Huss Project, and hopefully also help out with the Huss farm. We’re very excited that our friends Dan and Margaret have decided to move back to town and take on the first term as caretakers. The house is looking super lovely and cozy as we look forward to welcoming them!

Welcoming a new year

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | January 31, 2020

A new year! After a nice break for the holidays, we kicked things off with our usual Friday night potluck at our *culture is not optional community house. The community house is where our interns, AmeriCorps members, volunteers, and visitors stay, and it’s also a space for building relationships and learning for our organization as a whole. 2019 was a pretty rocky year, with an unexpected move for our community house on top of some other major projects, so it was nice to celebrate with friends in a spirit of greater stability for the year to come. The historic three-story Victorian house we lovingly refer to as “the haunted mansion” has proven a wonderful asset for showing hospitality.

Potluck at the *cino community house — *Potluck at the *culture is not optional community house!*

In mid-January, Rob spent some time in Detroit for the Michigan Farmers Market Manager training, but came back in time to enjoy the opening reception for the annual juried art show at the Carnegie Center for the Arts, just half a block from our house. The Carnegie Center is a beautifully restored historic space—one of the original libraries Andrew Carnegie built around the country. Many of our friends had work in the show, including John, Gail, and Jonathon, who work with Kirstin at GilChrist Retreat Center.

*Carnegie Center juried show in downtown Three Rivers.*

We try to take things a bit more slowly in the winter, but one important annual celebration we participate in is a march, potluck dinner, and service in celebration of the life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though it turned bitterly cold just in time for the march, we had a great turnout. The service featured live music from a number of groups, including the Brandenburg Concert choral group that Kirstin sings in, and some incredible, truth-to-power poetry from local poet friends. We look forward to this service every year as an expression of solidarity and diversity in our community, and Rob has taken on more a role in helping plan and organize along with a number of other community volunteers.

Category: *cino