Dear John,

As partners in life and business, Shae Pesek and Anna Hankins run Over the Moon Farm & Flowers in rural Iowa. The farm is beloved by its community and has been recognized state-wide. In just their third year, Shae and Anna are on track to have 100 CSA members! Recently, the farm won second place in the Iowa Farm Bureau’s contest to recognize new farmers and their ingenuity. Read on to learn about how these two got into farming and their hopes for the years ahead.

We've stood with family farmers for the past 35+ years when they've needed us most. With your support, we’ll continue to provide long-term strategies to strengthen family farm agriculture and advocate for fair farm policies that promote resiliency, sustainability, equity, access and diversity across our food system. But we can’t do this work alone. We rely on the generosity of donors like you to sustain our work.

Watching: "Gather," by filmmaker Sanjay Rawal, documents the intentional destruction of Native foodways in North America. The film also spotlights the rise of the Indigenous food movement by sharing inspiring stories of Indigenous people working to make radical changes in their communities. This gorgeous film demonstrates loud and clear that Indigenous farmers and food systems are thriving and strong!

Reading: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures is a dense but very readable new book by Merlin Sheldrake. Every few pages something new is revealed about the way fungi are intertwined with hidden processes happening below our feet and above our heads.

Listening: Farm Aid artist Valerie June has a new album out called The Moon & Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. We've always enjoyed Valerie's genre-bending music, her sultry twang and engaging lyrics – this album does not disappoint on those fronts.

Thinking about: We're still thinking about last week's conversation between Farm Aid founder and President Willie Nelson, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and farmer and Pennsylvania Farmers Union vice president Michael Kovach. This extremely interesting conversation covered the Administration’s plans to strengthen family farmers and invest in rural communities – an A+ in our book!