Skip to main content

Emily's Story


Northern Harvest: Twenty Michigan Women in Food and Farming

https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest

EMILY UMBARGER   
     
When people say something happened “by accident” I don’t agree. Meeting Emily in 2017 when I stopped to ask questions about that new greenhouse on the Interlochen campus near the IPR station where I had been volunteering, was not an accident. Meeting Emily was a marvel and a joy. I learned about her—how with her grandmother she first learned to forage--and also how the two of them experienced 18th century life, customs, crafts, and costumes, when they volunteered several summers at Fort Michilimackinac on Mackinac Island.


The driving force behind the greening of the Interlochen Arts Academy--for which Interlochen received a National Award in 2019--Emily teaches sustainability to students and to children in the surrounding community. She now holds the title of Sustainability Manager, the first time Interlochen has had such a position. Emily is also an experienced college counselor. 

During this quarantine era she’s been homeschooling her children and caring for the many animals—goats, horses, chickens, ducks, bees and more—at her Hearth and Harvest Homestead.  

To read more of Emily’s story and to learn about 19 other amazing women, Northern Harvest is available now from your favorite bookstore.

Also, to learn more about Interlochen's new green activities and Emily's lead role in developing and promoting them, here is a link to an interview from 2019 when the camp received its Green Ribbon Award.  
https://www.9and10news.com/2019/07/02/interlochen-center-for-the-arts-green-award/



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dos manos in Matamoros

Dos manos      Before the trip to Brownsville, Texas, to help prepare and serve food to asylum seekers held in the tent city across the river in Matamoros, Mexico, Marti told us to bring fanny packs or other bags that would leave our hands free. Whether chopping vegetables or serving from the trays of hot food to the 1,000+ men, women, and children of every age, we would need both our hands , dos manos , at all times. How did we come to be there and why were we doing this? Hunger and homelessness exist inside our nation’s borders, both in cities and rural areas. Tightrope, the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, describes families shattered by what the authors call “death by despair.” Donating to good causes and volunteering at soup kitchens are not uncommon, and churches and other organizations strive to meet the need on a daily basis. Still, the need that drew a dozen women in their 60s, 70s and 80s to this community just across the Texas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sailing and Bailing

  Messing around in boats Seems like this summer that means bailing rather than sailing, three little boats awash with rain water needing emptying over and over, a repetitive domestic chore like folding laundry or emptying the dishwasher.   Decades ago I delegated bailing boats to my three kids; decades later to my two resident grandsons.   Bribes in those days were easy, homemade cookies warm from the oven or maybe a trip to Moomers for the ice cream President Biden enjoyed on his visit last week. I used to dislike bailing.   I also disliked emptying dishwashers.   I was happy to fill the dishwasher as a way of cleaning up the kitchen surfaces, but I always got the children or someone else to do the emptying, just as I got children to bail the boats. Oddly, now, I enjoy sitting in the dinghy or in one or the other of the two sunfish and dipping the bucket over and over into the accumulated rain and emptying it into the lake.   Much of my life in reti...
4 comments
Read more

CHAPTER TWO OF THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE

  THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE: CHAPTER TWO   In this sad and difficult year of deaths and distancing, rescue shelters across the country have emptied and breeders had more demand than they could supply for canine or feline companions to help deal with the unprecedented isolation and losses. Brioche was born in July and yes, I decided last spring to seek out a puppy to accompany me in this year of the quarantine and then, most likely, for the rest of my life. A mere 3 pounds when she joined me in September not quite yet 8 weeks old, Brioche now weighs in at a whopping 8 lbs. and has reached the advanced age of 7 months.  Although I was raised in a family with many dogs and always had a dog (and sometimes a litter of puppies) while I was raising my own children, once my nest was empty and work was fulltime and often required lots of travel, I gave up on living with a dog and for many years starting in the late 80s had cats instead. But now after a hiatus of almost 40 ye...
3 comments
Read more